Watergate figure, ministry founder Charles Colson dies

Watergate figure, ministry founder Charles Colson dies
More agents likely to go over Secret Service scandal: U.S. lawmaker
New curbs on voter registration could hurt Obama
Search resumes in high-profile New York missing child case
Army dumps Nugent from concert after Obama remarks
Man linked to U.S. Fort Bragg missing soldier held on unrelated charge
Wisconsin's Planned Parenthood suspends non-surgical abortions
Prostitute scandal challenges U.S. Secret Service's proud culture
Conservative activist Breitbart died of heart failure: coroner
Six-term Utah senator faces Republican primary challenge
Campaign to bring Uganda's Kony to justice heats up
Two women say were raped, punished at U.S. military academies
Three arrested after fatal shooting at Texas cockfighting ring
Last of four men who escaped Kansas jail caught
University of Colorado clamps down on "pot fest" but many light up
Watergate figure, ministry founder Charles Colson dies
More agents likely to go over Secret Service scandal: U.S. lawmaker
Six-term Utah senator faces Republican primary challenge
Army dumps Nugent from concert after Obama remarks
Wisconsin's Planned Parenthood suspends non-surgical abortions
Man linked to U.S. Fort Bragg missing soldier held on unrelated charge
Search resumes in high-profile New York missing child case
New curbs on voter registration could hurt Obama

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Charles Colson, a Richard Nixon White House operative during the Watergate scandal who had a reputation for ruthlessness before going to jail and starting a prison ministry, died on Saturday at age 80, the ministry said. Colson, who compiled Nixon's infamous "enemies list" before Watergate brought down the president in 1974, died of complications from a brain hemorrhage after being admitted to a hospital in Fairfax, Virginia, on March 31, Prison Fellowship Ministries said in a statement on its website. ...

More agents likely to go over Secret Service scandal: U.S. lawmaker

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Most of the Secret Service agents accused of misconduct with prostitutes ahead of President Barack Obama's recent visit to Colombia are likely to leave the agency, a top Republican lawmaker said on Saturday. Six of 11 employees linked to a night of partying in the coastal city of Cartagena on April 11-12 have left the agency over the scandal, which embarrassed the United States and overshadowed Obama's participation in the Summit of Americas meeting. ...

New curbs on voter registration could hurt Obama

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New state laws designed to fight voter fraud could reduce the number of Americans signing up to vote in this year's presidential election by hundreds of thousands, a potential problem for President Barack Obama's re-election bid. Voting laws passed by Republican-led legislatures in a dozen states during the past year have sharply restricted voter-registration drives that typically target young, low-income, African-American and Hispanic voters - groups that have backed the Democratic president by wide margins. ...

Search resumes in high-profile New York missing child case

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Investigators in New York resumed the search for clues on Saturday into the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz, digging into a Manhattan basement for a third day in hopes of solving a case that has confounded police for three decades. The boy was formally declared dead in 2001. But his fate has remained a mystery and the case, which helped spark a national movement on the issue of missing children, has continued to resonate with New Yorkers. Police declined to say if there were new suspects in the case. ...

Army dumps Nugent from concert after Obama remarks

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(Reuters) - The U.S. Army cut rock musician and gun-rights advocate Ted Nugent from a summer concert program at Fort Knox, Kentucky, on the same day he met with two U.S. Secret Service agents over recent comments he made about President Barack Obama. Nugent was scheduled to perform on June 23, but officials at Fort Knox said on Thursday the singer and guitarist would not be in the lineup with co-headliners REO Speedwagon and Styx. ...

Man linked to U.S. Fort Bragg missing soldier held on unrelated charge

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(Reuters) - A registered sex offender thought to be the last person to have seen missing Fort Bragg soldier Kelli Marie Bordeaux has been arrested for failing to register his new residence near the North Carolina base, a charge unrelated to Bordeaux's disappearance. Nicholas Holbert turned himself in to the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office in North Carolina on Friday and is charged with failing to report a change of address as required for a registered sex offender, authorities said. Bordeaux, 23, has been missing since leaving the Froggy Bottoms bar in Fayetteville on April 14. ...

Wisconsin's Planned Parenthood suspends non-surgical abortions

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MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has suspended non-surgical abortions in response to a new state law that makes it harder for women to have the procedure, a move that followed anti-abortion measures in several Republican-controlled states. The law, which took effect on Friday, requires women visit a doctor at least three times before having a drug-induced abortion, forces physicians to determine whether women are being coerced into having an abortion and prohibits women and doctors from using web cams during the procedure. ...

Prostitute scandal challenges U.S. Secret Service's proud culture

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - They are screened so carefully that their families are interviewed before they are hired. They hold top-secret security clearances, are trained to use lethal force and stand inches from the leader of the world's most powerful nation. U.S. Secret Service agents are also drilled almost from Day One on the need for probity, discretion and solid morals. "You will be exposed to so many new experiences, challenges and, yes, temptations - a Secret Service agent can sometimes be perceived as celebrity. We are not," a top official warned a 2002 graduating class of agents. ...

Conservative activist Breitbart died of heart failure: coroner

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Conservative activist Andrew Breitbart died of heart failure with no prescription or illegal drugs in his system, the Los Angeles County Coroner's officials said on Friday. There was no significant trauma to the body of Breitbart, who died in March at the age of 43, and foul play was not suspected, a coroner's spokesman said in a written statement. The manner of death was classified as "natural." A final autopsy report was expected to be released in about two weeks, the spokesman said. ...

Six-term Utah senator faces Republican primary challenge

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SANDY, Utah (Reuters) - Veteran U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah will face a Republican primary fight after delegates to a party convention on Saturday denied him the nomination, forcing him into an election with a Tea Party-backed challenger who finished second. Hatch, 78, won the day over nine challengers, but narrowly fell short of reaching the 60 percent of the vote needed in a pairing against his number two challenger to win the nomination outright and avoid the primary. Heavily Republican Utah last elected a Democrat to the U.S. ...

Campaign to bring Uganda's Kony to justice heats up

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Starting with grassroots service projects to create buzz and public support, activists out to stop notorious Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony spread out in U.S. cities on Friday in a campaign aimed at justice half way around the world. In Los Angeles, three dozen high school girls removed weeds, trash and graffiti from their campus. The girls were among small groups of activists who, inspired by the viral "Kony 2012" video, worked to attract media before a bid to paper cities from New York to San Diego overnight with anti-Kony art and posters. ...

Two women say were raped, punished at U.S. military academies

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two women who said they were raped while attending U.S. military academies sued military officials on Friday, accusing them of failing to address widespread problems of sexual assault at the elite schools. In the lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, the two women said the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland and the Army's United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, tolerate sexual assault and discourage victims of attacks from reporting them. ...

Three arrested after fatal shooting at Texas cockfighting ring

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EDINBURG, Texas (Reuters) - Three people in Texas were arrested and charged with operating a cockfighting ring, a local sheriff said on Friday, a day after masked gunmen shot three people during a match. Investigators have not identified the gunmen who shot the spectators Thursday morning in a remote area about 20 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino said. Police arrested a man and woman who owned the land where an elaborate cockfighting ring operated for years, and the proprietor who rented the location, Trevino said. ...

Last of four men who escaped Kansas jail caught

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KANSAS CITY, Kansas (Reuters) - The last of four men who escaped a central Kansas county jail on Wednesday has been captured, officials said. Eric James, 22, was apprehended in Omaha, Nebraska, on Friday, Kansas Department of Corrections spokesman Jeremy Barclay said in a statement. James, convicted of multiple charges that including kidnapping during a crime, escaped from the Ottawa County jail Wednesday morning with three other inmates after two guards were overpowered, officials said. ...

University of Colorado clamps down on "pot fest" but many light up

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BOULDER, Colo. (Reuters) - The University of Colorado sought on Friday to clamp down on a huge annual marijuana fest, but after initially restricting access to the school, police later stood back and watched hundreds of people light up in a campus field. Three protesters who crossed police lines at the Boulder campus were arrested for trespassing and about 11 others cited, but a confrontation thought possible between protesters and police never materialized. ...