Hostages

A mercurial killer with a child's name was fatally shot Tuesday night by tactical officers after two hostages slipped out from the row house where he had fallen asleep in the evening hours of a wearying five-day siege. Joseph "Joby" Palczynski, 31, was pronounced dead at the scene after he was shot by Baltimore County Police sharpshooters who burst into the barricaded apartment through a downstairs window.

Students traditionally have a soft spot for their alma maters. But as growing numbers of students run up debt in the high five and even six figures to pay for college, that may change. Especially when they discover their old school is actively blocking them from getting a job or going on to a higher degree. That's what increasing numbers of students are finding when they try to obtain an official transcript to send to potential employers or graduate admissions offices. It turns out many colleges and universities refuse to issue these critical documents if students are in default on student loans, or in many cases, even if they just fall one or two months behind.

A deputy sheriff accused of storming into the bank where his estranged wife works and fatally shooting a teller surrendered Friday, freeing his wife and another hostage more than 24 hours after the standoff began. Chad Louviere, 24, was still wearing his uniform when officers set off a concussion grenade to distract him and tackled him as he escorted the two hostages out the back door. He did not struggle.

IDLIB, Syria - In a rickety office building once used by agricultural engineers in the village of Hazano, rebels with the Missiles of Justice militia waited to hear word of negotiations about a hostage swap that night. Sitting at an old metal desk, a Sunni Muslim rebel named Mustafa manned a phone, waiting for new reports of kidnappings. He had started a list of missing Sunnis in a notebook, including a young man in a white Mazda and a pharmacist. The list didn't include the names of the Shiite Muslim hostages the rebels were holding in a building somewhere in the village.

Reporting from Seoul and Zamboanga City, Philippines -- In a desperate act to regain his job, a disgruntled ex-police officer Monday hijacked a busload of Hong Kong tourists in Manila, prompting a 12-hour drama that ended with eight captives and the suspect being killed, authorities said. Much of the episode played out in pouring rain as authorities surrounded the bus, a maneuver that snarled traffic. In the end, the suspect, former police Capt. Rolando Mendoza, 55, was killed by a sniper shot near the front door of the bus, where he staked out a last-stand battle with 30 police commandos, who moved in with tear gas and flash bombs.

A British hostage held for 2 1/2 years by a militant Iraqi Shiite Muslim group was freed Wednesday in a move his family hailed as "the best Christmas present ever." Computer consultant Peter Moore was freed as the United States handed over to Iraqi authorities Qais Khazali, the leader of the group suspected of kidnapping him and four British security guards, and an undetermined number of Khazali's followers. The U.S. had blamed the group Asaib al Haq, or League of the Righteous, for the killings of five American soldiers.

BOGOTA, Colombia — Ending a long-running and inhuman nightmare for the victims and their families, Colombia's largest rebel group on Monday released its final 10 military hostages, some of whom had been in captivity in makeshift jungle prisons for more than 14 years. A military helicopter on loan from the Brazilian government and staffed with international Red Cross mediators to complete a prearranged release plucked the four soldiers and six police hostages from the hands of rebels at an unspecified location on the border of Meta and Guaviare provinces in eastern Colombia.

Colombian rebels released four hostages to the international Red Cross on Sunday and have promised to hand over two more kidnapping victims this week. The release of three policemen and one soldier -- who had each been held at least 20 months -- in southeastern Caqueta state was almost scuttled by Colombian military flights nearby, according to a journalist who was present.

A former prison guard accused of fatally shooting a 60-year-old man while holding him and his family hostage was charged Monday with murder, attempted murder and aggravated assault, prosecutors said. According to authorities, Alwyn Gibson II, 24, of Fairfield, Texas, was upset over a failed romantic relationship when he stormed the Irvine home of his ex-girlfriend's family.

Reporting from Seoul and Zamboanga City, Philippines -- Gunmen raided a remote Philippine village before dawn Thursday and abducted at least 75 people in a restive southern province, an army spokesman said. Within hours the assailants had freed 18 captives, 17 of them children, amid negotiations with government officials, authorities said. They freed nine others today and are demanding that murder charges be dropped The incident was the second recent mass abduction in the Philippines.

BOGOTA, Colombia — Ending a long-running and inhuman nightmare for the victims and their families, Colombia's largest rebel group on Monday released its final 10 military hostages, some of whom had been in captivity in makeshift jungle prisons for more than 14 years. A military helicopter on loan from the Brazilian government and staffed with international Red Cross mediators to complete a prearranged release plucked the four soldiers and six police hostages from the hands of rebels at an unspecified location on the border of Meta and Guaviare provinces in eastern Colombia.

A gunman opened fire near the Jefferson County Courthouse in Beaumont, Texas, on Wednesday, killing at least one person and wounding three before he himself was wounded in a shootout with authorities and eventually captured, police said. The gunman, who was not identified, was in a hospital in stable condition, Beaumont police Officer Doug Kibodeaux said in a telephone interview. The shooter surrendered to city police and sheriff's SWAT teams after briefly holding at least four people hostage in a building at a nearby construction site, Kibodeaux said.

Newt Gingrich waited until the day before Colorado's Republican presidential contest to start campaigning here, and -- as if to make up for lost time -- took the guns-blazing approach upon arrival. The former House speaker opened a rally here in this Denver suburb on Monday with an assault on Mitt Romney, closed it with a racially tinged attack on President Obama's economic policies and, in between, went after the "elite media" for good measure. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney "basically accommodated liberal Democrats" with judicial appointments and his healthcare overhaul, Gingrich told a couple of hundred supporters at a hotel.

U.S. officials on Wednesday were providing some new details on the dramatic helicopter rescue of an American aid worker and her Danish colleague in Somalia. The Pentagon released a statement Wednesday morning on the U.S. military's rescue, saying that Jessica Buchanan, 32, and Poul Hagen Thisted, 60, were not hurt in the operation. The Pentagon also said there were no injuries to any of the U.S. troops involved. It also noted that the FBI was involved in the rescue. Video: US military frees hostages in Somalia The commandos that carried out the operation were drawn from the same Navy SEAL team involved in the mission that killed Osama bin Laden, according to the Associated Press.

The Navy SEALs parachuted into the darkness, landing more than a mile from their objective: a small bush camp in north-central Somalia where an American aid worker and a Danish colleague were being held captive. The commandos, several dozen in all, shed their chutes and moved quietly through the brush. The compound had been under secret U.S. surveillance for weeks after an intelligence tip had signaled the whereabouts of the hostages, 32-year-old Ohio native Jessica Buchanan and 60-year-old Poul Thisted.

"I have here in my hand a list of ... names. " When Sen. Joseph McCarthy told the Ohio County Women's Republican Club of Wheeling, W.Va., on Feb. 9, 1950, that he held a list of 205 communists employed by the State Department, he ignited a firestorm and launched a career. We now know there was no list. Even then, it was obvious McCarthy was not particularly punctilious about the numbers. In Wheeling it was 205; in Salt Lake City it was 57; on the Senate floor it was 81. Nor was he especially careful about the allegation.

Los Angeles police on Monday rescued a hostage who had been shot in the stomach and held in a Riverside County home in a suspected kidnapping-for-ransom, authorities said. The hostage was "taken by force" from his home in Van Nuys on Wednesday and taken to a two-story residence in an area of Riverside County near Corona, said Lt. Anne Clark of the Los Angeles Police Department's Robbery-Homicide Division.

I'm sorry for the hostages, too, but dammit when you go to work in that part of the world, it goes with the territory. They were all told repeatedly how dangerous it was and insisted on being there. So an entire nation is jeopardized because a handful of stubborn men insist for their own reasons upon being places where they are in harm's way. I certainly do not mean the poor Marines who had no choice when they were stationed in Beirut or government employees or members of the press.

Four military hostages who had been held for as long as 14 years were executed by Colombian rebels during a rescue attempt by the army in a southern jungle, Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon said Saturday. He said three of the hostages were shot in the head and the other was shot in the back by fighters with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish initials, FARC. One of the dead was a soldier; the other three were members of the national police. "We regret profoundly that these victims were killed in cold blood, in a state of absolute defenselessness," Pinzon said at a hastily called news conference in Bogota, the Colombian capital.

Marisela Quintero read the headline. She winced, as if she'd been punched. Emma had been killed. Emma was 17. She had recently been arrested on prostitution-related charges in a Motel 6 parking lot, wearing a skin-hugging tank top, high heels and booty shorts. She'd flashed a fake driver's license and, in her purse, carried eight latex condoms and a bottle of vodka. Photos: Teen prostitution in Las Vegas Quintero, the county's only social worker assigned primarily to child prostitutes, couldn't get her to admit her real name at first.