Ohio

Shooting at van is 21st linked to sniper case

A bullet that pierced a van’s windshield earlier this week was linked Friday to a series of highway sniper attacks, bringing the total number of shootings to 21.

The shooting Tuesday expands the sniper’s target area: It happened about 15 miles south of where most of the other attacks occurred, authorities said.

Cars, school buses and homes have been shot since May on or near a stretch of Interstate 270 south of Columbus. A car passenger was killed in November.

Ballistics tests on the latest bullet determined that it is one of at least eight to come from the same gun used in the deadly attack, authorities said.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Ricin probe expands to Tenn., trucker radio

The ricin investigation has expanded to Tennessee and trucker radio shows, but investigators still had no clues about the origin of the poison found in a Senate office, officials said Friday.

Searches of Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s six offices in his home state, plus those in the Capitol complex, were completed Thursday.

A federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a letter containing a small vial of ricin and addressed to the White House, which was intercepted Nov. 6 by the Secret Service, bore a postmark from Chattanooga, Tenn.

That letter was nearly identical to one found at a mail-sorting facility in Greenville, S.C., on Oct. 15. The letters, signed “Fallen Angel,” complain about new rules requiring more rest for truckers and threaten use of more ricin if they are not repealed.

Tom O’Neill, spokesman for the FBI field office in Columbia, S.C., said Friday that federal agents had persuaded two popular trucker radio programs — “Truckin’ Bozo” and “Satellite Cowboy” — to publicize the case and the $100,000 reward.

ATLANTA

Home Depot seeks workers over age 50

Home Depot and the AARP are forming a national partnership to recruit people older than 50 to fill jobs at the world’s largest home improvement retailer.

The partnership, announced Friday, also will provide training and offer an easier application process.

“We have a need for qualified employees. We’re looking for people who have the experience, the skills, the knowledge and the passion,” said Dennis Donovan, Home Depot’s executive vice president for human resources.

Under the agreement, the AARP will find and train the workers and will help them apply for the jobs, said the AARP’s Jim Seith. Home Depot will try to accommodate part-time schedules and varying skill levels.

Delaware

Avian flu discovered; birds to be destroyed

Delaware officials ordered the destruction of some 12,000 farm chickens on Friday after confirming that the flock was infected by avian influenza.

State agriculture secretary Michael Scuse said that the flu strain was different from the one that has spread to the human population in Asia, and that there was no threat to human health.

Scuse would not disclose the location of the infected chicken houses or the grower, saying only that it was an independent operation in Kent County.

North Carolina

DNA frees inmate who served 18 years

Darryl Hunt left court a free man Friday, cleared by DNA tests of a murder that sent him to prison for 18 years.

Hunt was convicted twice and imprisoned for the 1984 murder of Deborah Sykes, a copy editor at the now-defunct Winston-Salem Sentinel.

Hunt, 38, had been serving a life sentence but was released on bond Dec. 24, two days after DNA implicated another man in the crime.

“This is hard for me because … for 20 years, I’ve tried to prove my innocence,” he said after Superior Court Judge Anderson Cromer cleared him of all charges.