Atlanta

Runaway bride enters treatment program

Runaway bride Jennifer Wilbanks has checked herself into an inpatient medical treatment program to deal with “physical and mental issues” that drove her to skip town just days before her wedding, a spokesman for her family’s church said Tuesday.

The news about the treatment came as more details about Wilbanks’ previous brushes with the law emerged. She was charged with shoplifting on three occasions in the 1990s, including one case in which she allegedly swiped $1,740 in merchandise from a mall, according to court records.

Wilbanks also served two weekends in jail after pleading guilty to shoplifting $98 in merchandise from a store in 1998, according to court records. And in 1996, she was charged with misdemeanor shoplifting for allegedly taking $37 in merchandise from a Wal-Mart in Gainesville, Ga.

California

Judge seeks oversight of prison health system

A federal judge on Tuesday moved to place the state prison system’s troubled health care operations into receivership, complicating a massive prison-overhaul bill signed into law hours earlier by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, ruling in a class-action lawsuit brought against the California Department of Corrections, said the state’s 162,000 prisoners “are being subjected to an unconstitutional system fraught with medical neglect and malfeasance.”

Poor care has been blamed for the deaths of more than two dozen inmates.

Prison officials “have conceded that a significant number of prisoners have died as a direct result of this lack of care, and it is clear to the court that more are sure to suffer and die if the system is not immediately overhauled,” the judge said.

Henderson’s ruling in San Francisco came after Schwarzenegger appeared at Folsom State Prison to sign into law the most sweeping overhaul in three decades of the nation’s largest prison system.

The law restructures the bureaucracy of the 32-prison system and concentrates power with his hand-picked corrections czar, Youth and Adult Corrections Secretary Roderick Hickman.

New Mexico

Car found in case of missing toddler

Police in Mexico on Tuesday found a Ford Mustang belonging to a man suspected of strangling his wife and fleeing with her 16-month-old boy.

Ivan Villa, 22, was believed to have been driving the car found in the border town of Ciudad Juarez, about 130 miles south of the couple’s Ruidoso home.

“We’re still investigating to determine whether he is inside or outside the country,” New Mexico state police Lt. Jimmy Glascock said.

Authorities said they were investigating a tip Tuesday afternoon that a man carrying a baby was seen walking across one of the international bridges from Ciudad Juarez to the United States. They also were looking for a white Cadillac Escalade with Texas plates that was spotted trying to tow away the Mustang.

Police on Sunday had issued an Amber Alert for the toddler, Justin Black, resulting in a nationwide search.

Justin disappeared sometime after police responded to a domestic dispute between his mother, Kristi Black, 19, and Villa, her husband, Sunday afternoon.

Several hours later, a friend went to the couple’s apartment and found Kristi Black’s body. Authorities determined she had been strangled.

New Jersey

Report: Crimes against Muslims increasing

The number of reported bias crimes and civil rights violations committed against Muslims in the United States soared to its highest level last year since the period immediately after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, a new report finds.

The report by the Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations blames lingering animosity toward Muslims and a growing use of anti-Muslim rhetoric by some political, religious and media figures for the increase.

The study, involving cases that were reported to the council by individuals and organizations, will be released today at a news conference in Washington, D.C. An advance copy was obtained by The Associated Press.

Boston

Company reports success with West Nile vaccine

Early tests of a vaccine for West Nile virus are promising, a Cambridge biotech company said today.

Dr. Thomas Monath, chief scientist at vaccine developer Acambis, said the new vaccine produced enough antibodies to fight off the sometimes deadly disease in all but one of the 60 people who were vaccinated.

It’s far too early to know if the vaccine will ultimately work, but a federal health official said these first results were a good sign.

The mosquito-borne West Nile virus has infected more than 16,000 people and killed 684 since its arrival in the United States in 1999. Most West Nile infections are mild and don’t cause any symptoms, but the most severe cases can involve paralysis or swelling of the brain and death.

Prevention efforts have focused largely on insecticide spraying, and health officials have been hopeful a vaccine could be developed.

The Acambis test sample was small and was only the first phase, designed to determine the vaccine’s safety. A vaccine won’t be ready for market for at least three years, but the early results are encouraging, Monath said in an interview Tuesday.