Utah

Remains buried after discovery in landfill

Family and friends buried the remains of Lori Hacking on Saturday, eight days after her body was recovered from a landfill in Salt Lake County.

Police officers who assisted in the search were also invited to the private ceremony at Orem City Cemetery.

Hacking’s mother, Thelma Soares, above, placed a red rose on the casket and hugged Sgt. J.R. Nelson, the Salt Lake City police officer who found the remains Oct. 1 while sifting through garbage.

“To have someone come up to me and thank me like that, it was very gratifying to know that I helped her out so much,” Nelson said.

Hacking’s husband, Mark, is accused of shooting her as she slept and dumping her body in the trash in late July. He is jailed on a murder charge and is scheduled for arraignment Oct. 29.

Mark Hacking’s parents and brother attended the funeral Saturday.

Arizona

Chinese twins end up in separate U.S. homes

Two families who adopted Chinese children and brought them to separate homes in Arizona and Alabama have discovered the toddlers are siblings and probably twins.

Three-year-olds XiMei and TaoTao were reunited when TaoTao and his adoptive mother arrived Sept. 30 at Tucson International Airport to spend the weekend. XiMei was adopted by a Tucson couple, and an Alabama family adopted TaoTao.

The two families found each other when Rose Veneklasen and Jutta Walters linked up on a Web site offering support for families who adopted children from China.

As they talked, they realized their children were estimated to be about the same age, were found abandoned the same day, and both had cleft palates. They were both taken to the same orphanage and both were afraid of the dark, according to their adoption profiles.

The women exchanged pictures. Then in July, they ordered DNA tests that confirmed with 98 percent accuracy that the toddlers share at least one parent.

Missouri

11-year-old takes family car on long excursion

An 11-year-old boy who told authorities he was upset about being bullied at school took off in the family car on an odyssey that ended more than 200 miles away on the other side of the state.

The boy left his suburban Kansas City home early Tuesday, making his way onto Interstate 35 and driving 92 miles to Bethany.

He stopped there at a convenience store for a snack, then drove off aimlessly, following several other highways before ending up 135 miles away in Callao in northeast Missouri’s Macon County.

Sgt. Michael Johnston of the Macon County Sheriff’s Department said he got a call about 10:30 a.m. from the Callao postmaster, who reported that a boy was locked out of his car and wanted to talk.

The boy reported some problems during the trip, saying the 1995 Chevrolet ran out of gasoline, but that he continued on his way after some construction workers helped him.

The boy said his only driving experience was operating a tractor a few times and backing the car out of the driveway.

Tokyo

Spaniard captures World Monopoly Championship

A Spanish lab technician needed only two hours to amass a small real estate fortune and drive a Norwegian mutual fund manager’s railroad empire into bankruptcy to capture the World Monopoly Championship on Saturday.

Antonio Zafra Fernandez, 36, of Madrid, pumped his fist in the air after he bested Norwegian Bjorn Andenaes, of Oslo, in the beloved board game to take home the $15,140 prize — equal to the amount of play money in a Monopoly set.

“I’m extremely happy and so proud,” Fernandez said after hoisting a giant winner’s check in the air. He said he and his wife would spend the prize money on a new car, but added: “It’s not about the money. I’m going home as a champion, which doesn’t happen often in a person’s life.”

The companies that sell Monopoly around the world flew players from 38 nations to the Japanese capital for the two-day event, first held in 1973 in Washington.

The game was invented in 1934 in Germantown, Pa.

West Virginia

Stewart ‘in good spirits,’ prison staffer says

Martha Stewart explored the grounds of her new home Saturday — a federal prison camp in Alderson.

Stewart, 63, arrived at the camp in Alderson early Thursday morning to begin serving a five-month sentence for lying to federal investigators about a stock sale.

Her first hours were filled with humbling orientation chores: getting fingerprinted, searched and getting a cell.

“When she came in, she was in good spirits,” a prison staffer told the New York Daily News.

“She was received professionally. She was treated just like anybody else.”

When inmates aren’t working and sleeping, they’re allowed to wander the grounds of the minimum-security facility, which is devoid of razor-wire fences.

Anna Madonna, who was visiting her niece at Alderson, said the young woman met Stewart on her first night.

“She said she was very friendly and very cordial,” Madonna said.

Prison officials insist Stewart will be treated like any other convict: She’ll work seven hours a day, eat bland meals and observe a curfew.

Philadelphia

Police say six killed in rowhouse arson

A fast-moving arson fire killed six people in a rowhouse before dawn Saturday, four of them children, police said.

Authorities concluded that the fire was set deliberately after police dogs smelled an accelerant, and have ruled the deaths homicides.

The house in the North Philadelphia neighborhood was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived. Five of the victims died at the scene. The sixth, a 2-year-old boy, died after being taken to the hospital, officials said.

“The heat was very intense, even for the firefighters trying to make their attempts at rescues,” police Capt. Richard Ross said. “Obviously these people didn’t stand a chance.”

The fire also spread to adjacent homes, but no other injuries were reported.