WASHINGTON

Pentagon plans changes to curb military sexual assaults

The Pentagon is preparing a series of new initiatives to try to curb sexual assaults in the military, the defense chief said Wednesday, calling the problem a stain on the honor of the armed forces.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said there were 3,191 sexual assaults reported in the military last year, which would be a slight increase from the 3,158 reported in 2010. But he said that because so few victims report the crime, the real number is closer to 19,000 assaults.

“Our men and women in uniform put their lives on the line every day to try to keep America safe,” Panetta said. “We have a moral duty to keep them safe from those who would attack their dignity and their honor.”

He announced several changes that he said would be the first in a broad package of proposals put forward in the coming months.

NEW YORK

Man who killed four sentenced to 200 years

A 24-year-old man who admitted killing four people and wounding four others in a stabbing rampage in New York City last winter was sentenced to 200 years in prison Wednesday as he cackled and insulted his victims and the judge and insisted he wasn’t the bad guy.

Maksim Gelman, born in Ukraine, pleaded guilty in November in Brooklyn to murder and other charges in a two-day spree that included stabbing his stepfather and two others to death, fatally running down a pedestrian, stealing a car and attacking a subway passenger.

On Wednesday, he got the maximum sentence for each of 13 counts. Some of the sentences will run consecutively, resulting in the 200-year term. “You are a violent predator and sociopath,” Judge Vincent Del Giudice said.

Gelman was unruly in court, fidgeting, laughing, yelling at the judge and the family and friends of some of his victims and had to be removed from the courtroom once.

LOS ANGELES

Police search for body parts after hands, feet, head found

Police looked for more human body parts Wednesday after searchers discovered two hands and two feet in the same area of a park where dog walkers found a severed human head inside a plastic bag.

The first hand was found as dozens of officers and homicide investigators combed the brush along a winding trail in the Hollywood Hills.

A coroner’s cadaver dog came upon it about 50 yards from where the head was discovered on Tuesday afternoon, the Los Angeles Times reported.

The second hand and both feet were found nearby later Wednesday afternoon. No details were immediately available on the condition of the body parts.

The remains were believed to belong to the same man, but police were working to confirm that through testing.

FARMINGTON, N.M.

Witnesses confront, hog-tie suspected drunken driver

A New Mexico man hog-tied a suspected drunken driver accused of barely avoiding several head-on collisions on a stretch of highway that has recently become known for rampant drunken driving and traffic fatalities, authorities said.

Justin Canuto was seen driving southbound in the northbound lanes of U.S. 550 on Sunday night, the Farmington Daily Times reported. The 22-year-old pulled over next to a convenience store, where he was confronted by several witnesses who had followed him into the store’s parking lot.

Canuto became belligerent and tried to run away, prompting another man to tackle and hog-tie him before sheriff’s deputies arrived, San Juan County Sheriff’s Sgt. Al Jamison said. Canuto was later charged with drunken driving.

No charges were filed against the man who tied Canuto.

— From news service reports

 

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