Prisoners

On a day of high emotion for both sides in the Middle East conflict, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza joyously welcomed home 19 female prisoners, exchanged with Israel for a video proving that an Israeli soldier captured three years ago and held in a clandestine jail is alive and well. The video of Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit was televised by Israeli channels hours after officials judged it to be authentic, riveting an Israeli public that has followed the 23-year-old soldier's ordeal with deep anxiety.

For the second time in as many years, a state parole board voted unanimously Wednesday to deny one of Charles Manson's fiercest followers her request for a "compassionate release" so that she can die at home. Convicted murderer Susan Atkins, 61, is terminally ill with cancer and has only months to live, doctors say. The issue of mercy has long haunted Atkins. Nearly 40 years ago, actress Sharon Tate begged the knife-wielding Atkins to spare her life and that of her unborn child.

CIA Director Leon E. Panetta on Friday fired back at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, saying agency records showed officials had briefed her truthfully about its interrogation program. He also urged the CIA workforce to ignore the political rancor consuming Capitol Hill. Panetta's assertions came one day after Pelosi accused the agency of misleading Congress by failing to inform her during a fall 2002 briefing that the CIA had used waterboarding and other severe methods on an Al Qaeda suspect.

State prison officials have confiscated 4,130 contraband cellphones this year, more than all those seized in the previous three years combined, according to an internal report released Thursday. The findings sparked concern among legislators that the proliferation of cellphones in state lockups is a growing security problem. More than 100 illegal phones were discovered at the California Institution for Men in Chino, including 10 in August, according to the report from Matthew Cate, head of the state prisons system.

Stephen Abraham, a Newport Beach lawyer and lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserves, hardly seemed like whistle-blower material. A decorated intelligence officer, he served after 9/11 as lead counter-terrorism analyst at the Joint Intelligence Center at Pearl Harbor. He was a longtime Republican, a patriot devoted to protecting national security.

A rusted old gun found last month in a Modesto field has been identified as the same kind of weapon a hit man alleged he used to kill a man 19 years ago. The identification by a state Department of Justice laboratory could help prove the innocence of Dennis Lawley, who has spent almost two decades on death row for the 1989 murder of Kenneth Lawton Stewart.

A mentally ill man who broke his neck in a Glenn County jail cell and is now a quadriplegic has filed suit in federal court, alleging jail officials violated his constitutional rights by denying him mental health care and using excessive force to subdue him with Taser guns and pepper spray. In addition to monetary damages, the lawsuit filed Friday in U.S.

They're singing the blues again at Folsom prison after officials canceled a concert marking the 40th anniversary of Johnny Cash's groundbreaking performance there, with the prison and the promoter blaming each other for the decision. The event, scheduled for Sunday, was canceled late Monday over security concerns and what officials called the changing demands of event organizers.

Scott Anthony Gomez Jr. made his first break from the Pueblo County Jail two years ago. He pushed up a ceiling tile, hoisted himself into the ventilation system and climbed until he reached a roof. Then he shinnied down the wall on bedsheets fashioned into a rope. Caught two days later, he was back in his cell. The next time, Gomez again pried loose a ceiling tile and vanished into the guts of the building. But as he tried to rappel on bedsheets down the side of the 85-foot building, he fell.

In many churches this weekend, religious leaders will extol the life and legacy of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in anticipation of Monday's federal holiday in his honor. Some will quote from his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech, delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington on Aug. 28, 1963. Others will invoke a letter he wrote while in an Alabama jail four months earlier.