Los Angeles: Defendant takes stand in dog-mauling case

A woman whose two big dogs mauled a neighbor to death in the hallway of their San Francisco apartment building burst into wrenching sobs on the stand Monday as she recalled the grisly attack.

Marjorie Knoller’s lawyer, Nedra Ruiz, elicited the response seconds after Knoller sat down by asking: “Ms. Knoller, how are you today?”

“I’m feeling awful,” Knoller said. “Just thinking about the horrible way that Ms. Whipple died in that hallway causes me great sorrow, and I’m in pain for everybody that knew her and spent time with her.”

She sobbed loudly but quickly regained her composure.

Knoller, who was present when the dogs attacked 33-year-old lacrosse coach Diane Whipple in January 2001, is charged with second-degree murder. Knoller, 46, and husband Robert Noel, 60, are also charged with involuntary manslaughter.

Noel’s lawyer rested his case without putting Noel on the stand. Both defendants are lawyers.

Atlanta: Jury deciding penalty for former black radical

A prosecutor on Monday urged jurors to ignore defense pleas for mercy and choose a death sentence for the former black power radical once known as H. Rap Brown, who was convicted of killing a sheriff’s deputy.

Assistant Dist. Atty. Ron Dixon told the jury that evidence it has already heard in his three-week trial justifies a recommendation of a death sentence.

The man who has since changed his name to Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin was convicted Saturday of killing Fulton County Sheriff’s Deputy Ricky Kinchen and wounding Deputy Aldranon English in a shootout in March 2000.

The jury has three options for Al-Amin: death, life in prison without parole or life with the possibility of parole. For a death sentence in Georgia, the jury must be unanimous, and the judge may not overrule its decision.

Chicago: Cyanide found stored in subway system

A man was charged Monday with storing deadly powdered cyanide in an underground passage that is part of the city’s mass transit system.

Joseph Konopka allegedly took over a Chicago Transit Authority storage room under the downtown district and stored sodium cyanide and potassium cyanide there.

University of Illinois-Chicago police arrested Konopka and a juvenile Saturday night for allegedly trespassing, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court. They were found in a steam tunnel under the university’s education building, according to the FBI.

When he was arrested, Konopka was carrying a vial containing a powder that was determined to be sodium cyanide-sodium carbonate, the FBI said.

The juvenile told FBI agents that Konopka had taken over an area within a CTA underground passageway to store chemicals, the FBI said.

Colorado: ‘Fighting Whities’ mock Indian mascot

Unable to persuade a local school to change a mascot name that offends them, a group of American Indian students at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley named their intramural basketball team “The Fighting Whities.”

The team chose a white man as its mascot to raise awareness of stereotypes that some cultures endure.

“The message is, let’s do something that will let people see the other side of what it’s like to be a mascot,” said Solomon Little Owl, a member of the team and director of Native American Student Services at the university.

The students are upset with Eaton High School for using an American Indian caricature on the team logo. The team is called the Reds.