Fugitive murder suspect Aaron Bassler:

Fugitive murder suspect Aaron Bassler;

Mendocino County sheriff's deputy Joey DeMarco stands watch with his patrol dog Barry alongside railroad tracks as the search for murder suspect Aaron Bassler continues in Northspur, Calif., Friday, Sept. 30, 2011. Authorities say they are closing in on the murder suspect who has been the subject of the largest local manhunt in decades, as they reported he shot at a group of sheriff's deputies Thursday. Bassler, 35, is suspected of killing a city... more

Prep cheerleader collapses during game, dies at hospital:

According to the Associated Press, KABC-TV Los Angeles and CBS Los Angeles, among other sources, 16-year-old Angela Gettis was pronounced dead some three hours after she was transported to a local hospital from the annual football matchup between Los Angeles (Calif.) Washington Prep High and Los Angeles (Calif.) Fremont High, which was played at Fremont.

The football game itself was halted as coaches and trainers ran in to assist the collapsed cheerleader and perform CPR until emergency paramedics could arrive. According to Los Angeles Unified School District spokesman Tom Waldman, Gettis was briefly revived after she collapsed, but never fully recovered from an incident which the AP reported seemed to be a case of sudden cardiac arrest.

"Washington High School, like every other high school, has its share of unfortunate incidents regarding youth," Washington Prep Principal Todd Ullah told the press in a statement delivered on Saturday. "We prepare for that, but you can never really prepare for that. It's devastating. It's tragic."

KABC reported that crisis counselors will be available at Washington Prep throughout Monday as students and staff report back for the first time following the tragic incident, with many of those already leaving their thoughts and memories on a Facebook page dedicated to the fallen cheerleader.


Still, that will hardly ease the heartbreak over the loss of a talented teen cheerleader who was taken so suddenly, as witness Cameron Bonner made clear to CBS Los Angeles.

"They had just tied the game up, and the cheerleaders were pumped up," Bonner said. Angela appeared "to just pass out," he said.
"All of her friends were in a circle crying," Bonner said. "It was so confusing, they were all so concerned about this little angel."

White House press secretary Jay Carney refuses to answer questions about al-Awlaki killing:

White House press secretary Jay Carney refuses to answer questions about al-Awlaki killing;

Unlike the press briefings that followed the killing of Osama bin Laden, White House press secretary Jay Carney largely refused to answer questions about the U.S.-led drone attack that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born radical Islamic preacher turned propaganda chief for al-Qaida, in Yemen on Friday.

"This is a significant fact, that al-Awlaki is dead," Carney told reporters. "Questions about the circumstances about his death . . . I'm not going to get into."

Samir Khan, the Saudi-born American publisher of an al-Qaida propaganda magazine called Inspire, was also killed in the operation.

Carney declined to engage reporters who wanted the White House to offer evidence of al-Awlaki's role in global terrorism, or why al-Awlaki--an American citizen--wasn't given due process.

"What do you think constitutional law professor Barack Obama would make of all this?" one reporter asked.

"I think he spoke about it today," a smirking Carney replied.

Perhaps the White House learned its lesson after the killing of bin Laden, whom officials first said was armed and had used his wife as a human shield. Two days later, Carney was forced revise the initial account in a press briefing with reporters.

"In the room with bin Laden, a woman--bin Laden's--a woman, rather, bin Laden's wife, rushed the U.S. assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed," Carney said. "Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was not armed."

Man accused of 1957 murder also charged with a teen's rape:

Man accused of 1957 murder also charged with a teen's rape

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A Seattle man accused of killing a young Chicago-area girl in 1957 now has been charged as well with sexually assaulting a teenage girl, Illinois authorities said.

The suspect, Jack McCullough, was charged in July with the kidnapping and murder of 7-year-old Maria Ridulph in Sycamore, Illinois. He is being held at the Dekalb County, Illinois jail in one of the nation's oldest cold cases of murder.

McCullough, who was 71 at the time of his arrest, has been indicted on one count of child sexual assault and four counts of indecent liberties with a child, the Illinois State Police and the Dekalb County State's Attorney's Office said in a statement on Friday.

The victim told investigators that McCullough raped her when she was 14 in Sycamore, the statement said.

"Sadly, we have another victim, and for the families of all victims, the pain never goes away," said Illinois State Police Director Hiram Grau.

The statement did not give details of the alleged assault by McCullough, a former police officer in Washington state.

However, a probable cause statement filed by Seattle police in conjunction with McCullough's arrest in June said that a runaway teenage girl who met McCullough in the early 1980s accused him of sexually assaulting her.

He was convicted of unlawful communication over his interaction with the girl and fired from his job with the police in Milton, Washington, the Seattle statement said.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson, editing by Ellen Wulfhorst)