Rare diamond could net $15M at auction
NEW YORK (AP) — A two-stone ring with a rare triangular blue diamond the size of a quarter on a gold band with baguette-cut diamonds could bring at least $15 million when it is offered at auction in New York next month.
At 10.95 carats, the stone is the largest triangular-shaped fancy vivid blue diamond ever to come to auction, Christie's told The Associated Press in advance of the Oct. 20 sale. It is paired with a 9.87-carat white diamond cut in the same shape.
"Vivid blue is the strongest and purest saturation in any colored diamond," said Rahul Kadakia, Christie's jewelry expert. "As a vivid, this is as good as it gets."
It is being sold by an anonymous European businessman.
Obama admits to Guantanamo gaffe
MIAMI (MCT) — President Barack Obama on Friday admitted he fell short on his vow to empty the prison camps at Guantanamo, calling it a rare unfulfilled campaign promise, then stumped for closure by calling the Pentagon outpost too expensive.
"The costs of holding folks in Guantanamo is massively higher than it is in holding them in a supermax, maximum-security prison here in the United States," Obama said at a White House news conference a day before the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The Pentagon reports the annual cost of running the prison camps, staffed by a variety of U.S. military troops, at $116 million. With a current population of 176 war-on-terror detainees, that's more than $650,000 each.
By contrast, it costs nearly $5,575 a year to keep a prisoner in federal detention, Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci Billingsley said Friday.
Chief accepts blame for overlooked body
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — A Northern California police chief accepted blame Friday for the failure of his officers to quickly find a second dead body hidden in a home where a 73-year-man was discovered fatally beaten two weeks ago.
Hercules police Chief Fred Deltorchio said he was disappointed that it took until Thursday to discover the unidentified male body wrapped in plastic and a carpet behind a fake closet wall.
The body was sealed so tightly that no smells could escape, he said.
"To search a house and not find a body is disappointing. And unacceptable," Deltorchio said. "The bottom line is it is my responsibility more than anybody else because I'm overseeing their actions."
An autopsy was under way to determine if the body was that of Frederick Sales, 35, who has been missing since his father, Ricardo Sales, was found bludgeoned to death in his bed in the home on Aug. 27.
2nd congressman gives scholarships
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Georgia congressman awarded his stepdaughter, a niece and an aide's future wife college scholarships through the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, making him the second House Democrat known to use the group to steer money to relatives and associates.
The nonprofit foundation's records show Rep. Sanford Bishop picked his stepdaughter Aayesha Owens Reese to receive the money in 2003.
Records also show Bishop awarded foundation scholarships in 2003 and 2005 to his niece, Emmaundia J. Whitaker. Another of his 2003 recipients, Sherletha A. Thomas, is now the wife of Bishop's longtime district staff director, Kenneth Cutts.
The foundation prohibits scholarships from going to lawmakers' relatives, but Bishop says those rules weren't enacted until after his family members got their money.
Another member of the Congressional Black Caucus, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson of Texas, said last week she would repay some $31,000 in aid money after the Dallas Morning News reported she had steered scholarships to her relatives and the children of a top aide.
Arizona impeding students' rights?
PHOENIX (AP) — Two federal investigations have found that Arizona is violating the civil rights of students who are not native English speakers.
In one case, the U.S. Education and Justice departments concluded that Arizona is inappropriately classifying students as fluent in English when tests show they are not.
In the other case, investigators found that the state is not identifying thousands of students who might struggle with English because it stopped asking parents two key questions — the student's first acquired language and the language spoken at home. Now it asks only the primary language of the student.
Arizona could lose millions in federal funds if officials don't fix the system to address civil rights concerns.
Unheeded calls in boating accident
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — An idled tour boat and other vessels made repeated, unanswered calls to the tugboat guiding the massive barge that struck the smaller craft in the Delaware River, killing two Hungarian students, according to a federal report released Friday.
The amphibious tour boat's radio calls to the approaching tug went unheeded in the moments before the July 7 collision near Penn's Landing on the Philadelphia waterfront, the National Transportation Safety Board found in its preliminary report, according to marine radio traffic recordings.
Drug and alcohol tests on the crews of both vessels were negative, the report said. The mate piloting the tugboat declined to answer investigators' questions, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
All 35 passengers and two crew members aboard the boat operated by Ride the Ducks tours were tossed into the water when the 250-foot barge plowed over the 33-foot duck boat, sinking it. Most were rescued by firefighters, a passing ferry boat and passers-by on shore. The two Hungarians drowned.