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Newsfeed Shortpeoplehave more risk for heart dis- ease, and now research- ers may know why: Genes that govern height also seem to affect cho- lesterol, especially in men. Doctors have sus- pected that height and heart risks are related. Shorter people are more prone to heart attacks, high blood pressure and diabetes than taller peo- ple are, but the reason has been unclear. Earlier studies that made this link did it by comparing heart risks in groups of people ac- cording to their height. But that method makes it hard to rule out the influence of smoking, weight, nutrition and other things. The new study looked at genes, a factor present from birth. About 180 gene variations are known to affect height. HEALTH Study:Shortpeople may have higher heart disease risks MINNEAPOLIS A ninth Minnesota turkey farm has been hit by a form of bird flu that's deadly to poultry, this time in a large Jennie-O-Turkey Store operation that has 310,000 turkeys, federal authorities and company officials said Wednesday. The U.S. Depart- ment of Agriculture said tests confirmed it was the same highly patho- genic H5N2 strain of avian influenza that in- fected eight other farms in Minnesota, the coun- try's top turkey-produc- ing state. Those farms have lost about 373,000 turkeys to the outbreaks between the disease it- self and birds that were killed to prevent the dis- ease from spreading. Minnesota Board of Animal health spokes- woman Erica Gunderson said the Meeker County operation has 10 barns on various sites. She didn't know immediately how many birds were in the infected barn, but said state officials would be working to determine what to do with the tur- keys in the other barns. MINNESOTA Jennie-O turkey farm hit by deadly bird flu SALT LAKE CITY Efforts by a former member of Warren Jeffs' sect to re- trieve her four children from a polygamous com- munity led to a lengthy standoff after dozens of followers surrounded the woman's van and some allegedly threw chick- ens at it. Deputies were in Col- orado City, Arizona, for seven hours Fri- day until they received a search warrant to en- ter the home of an aunt who refused to give the kids to their mother, said Trish Carter, spokeswoman for the Mohave County Sher- iff's Office. Nobody was hurt, but officials were preparing to fly in more deputies to the remote location be- cause they were so con- cerned. UTAH Standoff erupts when mom comes for kids in sect town CHUCKBURTON—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Anthony Scott, le , hugs visitors outside his home near North Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday. Scott's brother Walter Scott, was killed by a North Charleston police officer a er a traffic stop on Saturday. The officer, Michael Thomas Slager, has been charged with murder. By David Crary The Associated Press NEW YORK Graphic vid- eos have surfaced previ- ously that kindled outrage over police use of force — the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles, last year's chokehold death in New York City. The new video from South Carolina is per- haps the most striking yet — its depiction of a flee- ing, unarmed black man being shot in the back by a white policeman so vivid that a murder charge came swiftly. "I have watched the video and I was sickened by what I saw," Eddie Driggers, the North Charleston police chief, said on Wednesday. The officer who fired the eight shots, Patrolman Mi- chael Thomas Slager, has been fired and charged with killing 50-year-old Walter Lamer Scott after a routine traffic stop. Key questions remained about the 3-minute video, taken by a person whose identity has not been made public. Are there gaps in its portrayal of Saturday's inci- dent? What was the chain of custody as the video made its way to the media and then to local authorities? Yet what was depicted on the video — and subse- quently viewed by untold millions worldwide — may have a profound impact. "In the African-American community, we've known of episodes like this for decades, but until there's graphic video like this, our stories have not been be- lieved," said Paul Butler, a former federal prosecu- tor who is now a professor of criminal law at George- town. "Now people are seeing what we're talking about ... how police literally treat black people like non-hu- man animals," Butler said. The video, provided to the dead man's family and lawyer by the person who shot the footage, shows Slager dropping his stun gun, pulling out his hand- gun and firing at Scott as he runs away. Scott falls af- ter the eighth shot, fired af- ter a brief pause. Scott's father, Walter Scott Sr., said the police- man "looked like he was trying to kill a deer running through the woods." The family's lawyer, Chris Stewart, commended the person who shot the video. "He came forward to the family because what he wit- nessed he just knew was wrong," Stewart said. Shot over a chain link fence and through some trees, the video begins af- ter Scott has left his car. Slager follows him, reach- ing at the man with an ob- ject that appears to be a Taser stun gun. As Scott pulls away, the object falls to the ground, and Slager pulls out his handgun as Scott runs away. There is no indication that Scott was ordered to halt or sur- render. The final shot sends Scott falling face-down. Slager walks toward him and or- ders Scott to put his hands behind his back, but the man doesn't move. Slager pulls Scott's arms back and cuffs his hands, walks back to where he fired the shots, picks up the object that fell to the ground and returns to Scott's body, dropping the object near Scott's feet as another officer enters the scene. Charleston County Sher- iff Al Cannon suggested that investigators would have ascertained Slager's culpability without the video, but the images made their job easier. "Like the family attorney said, once that video came out, things moved quickly," Cannon said. Policeshootingvideo may have major effect SOUTH CAROLINA By Denise Lavoie The Associated Press BOSTON Dzhokhar Tsar- naev was convicted on all charges Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bomb- ing by a federal jury that now must decide whether the 21-year-old former col- lege student should be executed. Tsarnaev folded his arms, fidgeted and looked down at the de- fense table as he listened to one guilty verdict after another on all 30 counts against him, including conspiracy and deadly use of a weapon of mass destruction. Seventeen of those counts are punish- able by death. The verdict — reached after a day and a half of deliberations — was prac- tically a foregone conclu- sion, given his lawyer's startling admission at the trial's outset that Tsarnaev carried out the terror at- tack with his now-dead older brother, Tamerlan. The two shrapnel- packed pressure-cooker bombs that exploded near the finish line on April 15, 2013, killed three specta- tors and wounded more than 260 other people, turning the traditionally celebratory home stretch of the world-famous race into a scene of carnage and putting the city on edge for days. Tsarnaev was found re- sponsible not only for those deaths but for the killing of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police offi- cer who was gunned down days later. "It's not a happy occa- sion, but it's something," Karen Brassard, who suf- fered shrapnel wounds on her legs, said outside court. "One more step behind us." She said Tsarnaev ap- peared "arrogant" and un- interested during the trial, and she wasn't surprised when she saw no remorse on his face as the verdicts were read. In the trial's next phase, which could begin as early as Monday, the jury will hear evidence on whether Tsarnaev should get the death penalty or spend the rest of his life in prison. In a bid to save him from a death sentence, de- fense attorney Judy Clarke has argued that Tsarnaev fell under the influence of his radicalized brother. She portrayed Tamerlan as the mastermind and repeatedly referred to Dzhokhar — then 19 — as a "kid" and a "teenager." "If not for Tamerlan, it would not have happened," she told the jury during closing arguments. Prosecutors, however, portrayed the brothers — ethnic Chechens who moved to the United States from Russia more than a decade ago — as full part- ners in a brutal and cold- blooded plan to punish the U.S. for its wars in Muslim countries. Jihadist writ- ings, lectures and videos were found on both their computers, though the de- fense argued that Tamer- lan downloaded the ma- terial and sent it to his brother. Tamerlan, 26, died when he was shot by police and run over by his brother during a chaotic getaway attempt days after the bombing. The government called 92 witnesses over 15 days, painting a hellish scene of torn-off limbs, blood-spat- tered pavement, ghastly screams and the smell of sulfur and burned hair. Survivors gave heart- breaking testimony about losing legs in the blasts or watching people die. The father of 8-year-old Mar- tin Richard described making the agonizing de- cision to leave his mortally wounded son so he could get help for their 6-year- old daughter, whose leg had been blown off. In the courtroom Wednesday, Denise Rich- ard, the boy's mother, wiped tears from her face after the verdict. The boy's father, Bill Richard, em- braced one of the prose- cutors. BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING Tsarnaev guilty on all charges Tsarnaev By David B. Caruso The Associated Press FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. A year after Americans recoiled at new revelations that sick veterans were getting sicker while languishing on wait- ing lists — and months af- ter the Department of Vet- erans Affairs instituted ma- jor reforms — government data shows that the num- ber of patients facing long waits at VA facilities has not dropped at all. No one expected that the VA mess could be fixed over- night. But The Associated Press has found that since the summer, the number of medical appointments delayed 30 to 90 days has largely stayed flat. The number of appointments that take longer than 90 days to complete has nearly doubled. Nearly 894,000 appoint- ments completed at VA medical facilities from Aug. 1 to Feb. 28 failed to meet the health system's timeli- ness goal, which calls for patients to be seen within 30 days. That means roughly one in 36 patient visits involved a delay of at least a month. Nearly 232,000 of those ap- pointments involved a delay of longer than 60 days. A closer look reveals deep geographic disparities. Many delay-prone facili- ties are clustered in a hand- ful of Southern states, often in areas with a strong mil- itary presence, a rural pop- ulation and patient growth that has outpaced the VA's sluggish planning process. Of the 75 clinics and hospitals with the high- est percentage of patients waiting more than 30 days for care, 12 are in Tennes- see or Kentucky, 11 are in eastern North Carolina and the Hampton Roads area of Virginia, 11 are in Georgia or southern Ala- bama and six are in north Florida. Seven more were clus- tered in the region between Albuquerque, New Mexico and Colorado Springs, Col- orado. Those 47 clinics and hos- pitals represent just a frac- tion of the more than 1,000 VA facilities nationwide, but they were responsible for more than one in five of the appointments that took longer than 60 days to com- plete. VETERANS AFFAIRS Li tt le h ea dw ay m ad e in fi gh t to shorten waits for care The Associated Press NASHUA, N.H. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, a newly declared Republican pres- idential candidate, is dodging a central ques- tion about abortion: What exceptions, if any, should be made if the procedure were to be banned? In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Paul would not say if his opposition to abortion rights includes an exception in cases of rape, incest or risk to the life of the mother. "The thing is about abortion — and about a lot of things — is that I think people get tied up in all these details of, sort of, you're this or this or that, or you're hard and fast (on) one thing or the other," Paul said. In the past, Paul has supported legislation that would ban abortion with exceptions, while at other times, he's backed bills seeking a broader bar on abortion. Campaigning in New Hampshire, Paul told the AP that it's his conviction that "life is special and de- serves protection." POLITICS Pa ul w on 't s pe ll o ut abortion exceptions www.TehamaCountyRealEstate.com 530529-2700 314 Washington St, Red Bluff, CA Smog Check (MOST CARS & PICK-UPS) 527-9841 • 195 S. Main St. starting at $ 29 95 + $ 8 25 certificate SERVICESATLOWERPRICES All makes and models. 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