INDIANAPOLIS

Governor remembered at memorial service

In a memorial service Friday on the steps of the statehouse where he was first inaugurated seven years ago, Gov. Frank O’Bannon was honored with Irish tunes and military salutes and remembered as a man who was “proof that nice guys do finish first.”

Thousands gathered to bid a final farewell to O’Bannon, who died after suffering a stroke earlier this month. He was 73.

The memorial service included a 19-round artillery salute and a barbershop quartet singing “Danny Boy.”

“This spirit of being connected to something larger than ourselves was a hallmark of the way Frank O’Bannon approached life, and his death makes us feel the rightness of it ever more strongly,” Chief Justice Randall Shepard said.

Massachusetts

Inmate pleads not guilty to priest prison killing

An inmate accused of slaying former priest John J. Geoghan in prison pleaded not guilty to murder Friday, then exited his arraignment screaming “Let’s keep the kids safe!” and “Hold pedophiles accountable for their actions!”

Joseph L. Druce allegedly beat and strangled Geoghan in the defrocked priest’s cell at Souza-Baronowski Correctional Institute in Shirley on Aug. 23.

In Worcester Superior Court on Friday, Druce nodded his head as the clerk read the charge that he “did beat and murder” Geoghan. When asked for his plea, Druce shrugged and said, “Not guilty.”

Druce’s attorney John LaChance has said he planned to seek an insanity defense.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Congressman’s son running for dad’s seat

Mr. Smith went to Washington. Now his son wants to go there, too.

The son of Rep. Nick Smith, R-Mich., said Friday he was running for his father’s House seat in the 2004 election. Nick Smith is stepping down because he promised he wouldn’t serve more than six two-year terms.

Brad Smith, a patent attorney with Dykema Gossett in Ann Arbor, Mich., has never held an elected office but says he’s always wanted to be a politician. He has worked on his father’s campaigns since the 1970s.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Carter says he sees some of himself in Dean

Jimmy Carter says he sees a little of himself in insurgent Democratic White House candidate Howard Dean.

In an appearance aired Friday night on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” Carter said former Vermont Gov. Dean visited his home in Georgia last year to ask the former president about his campaign 28 years ago.

Like Dean, Carter entered the presidential race as an ex-governor considered a long shot for the nomination. Carter said Dean asked him and his wife what they did to get a victory in New Hampshire, among other things.

“He claims, at least to me, to have had in part of his campaign technique about what worked for me in those ancient days in 1976,” Carter said. “The only difference is that I didn’t have any money and he’s today used the Internet in a wonderful fashion.”

California

Hospital evacuated as police seek gunman

A gunman wounded a doctor at a Los Angeles-area hospital Friday, triggering an evacuation of patients and medical staff as authorities searched for the shooter.

Authorities looked for a man in his 70s who was seen on a surveillance camera pushing a walker or wheelchair in a hospital hallway when the shooting occurred at Kaiser Permanente Baldwin Park Medical Center, officials said.

The shooting apparently took place in the urology department, said hospital spokeswoman Socorro Serrano.

Law enforcement officers were still searching the sprawling complex for the gunman more than four hours later.

SAN DIEGO

Four construction fires blamed on arson

Fires that destroyed four homes under construction and damaged two others Friday in an upscale section of the city were set in a coordinated arson attack, authorities said.

One of several banners found at the sites in north San Diego read: “Development destruction. Stop raping nature. The ELFs are angry.”

ELF stands for the Earth Liberation Front, a radical environmentalist group that has claimed responsibility for dozens of acts of arson and vandalism, including a $50 million fire that destroyed a residential development in San Diego last month.

Fire Capt. Jeffrey Carle cautioned that the banner doesn’t mean the group was involved. He declined to say how the four fires were set but said the method was the same.

ST. LOUIS

Cookie dough recalled

A Missouri company is voluntarily recalling its refrigerated cookie dough because it contains milk, which is not listed as an ingredient on the packaging.

Earthgrains Refrigerated Dough Products, based in St. Louis, announced the recall Friday of 18-ounce packages of refrigerated Great Value Chocolate Chip Cookies Spoonable Cookie Dough sold at Wal-Mart Supercenters and Neighborhood Markets nationwide.

Packages marked for expiration through Jan. 4, 2004 are being recalled. Consumers may return the cookie dough packages to the stores where they were purchased for a refund.

Georgia

Defendant injures four in courthouse attack

A man awaiting trial in the beating of a police officer burst into a courthouse with a bat and knife and injured four people before a county investigator shot him in the stomach.

Police said Donald Benjamin, 24, walked into the Peach County Courthouse in Fort Valley Thursday and started beating people inside, leaving one with a serious head wound.

An armed investigator for the district attorney, James W. Jones, apparently ordered Benjamin to drop his weapons. When Benjamin refused, Jones fired once, hitting Benjamin in the stomach.

Benjamin was hospitalized for his wound, which wasn’t considered life-threatening.