JOLIET, ILL. - Drew Peterson, the swaggering former suburban Chicago police officer who generated a media storm after his much-younger fourth wife vanished in 2007, was convicted Thursday of murdering his third wife in a case based mainly on secondhand hearsay statements from the two women.
Peterson, 58, sat stoically looking straight ahead and did not react as the verdict was read. Several of his third wife's relatives gasped before hugging each other as they cried quietly in the courtroom.
Illinois has no death penalty, and Peterson now faces a maximum 60-year prison term when sentenced in Kathleen Savio's death on Nov. 26.
LONDON - Mammograms aimed at finding breast cancer might actually raise the chances of developing it in young women whose genes put them at higher risk for the disease, a recent study by leading European cancer agencies suggested.
The added radiation from mammograms and other types of tests with chest radiation might be especially harmful to them, and an MRI is probably a safer method of screening women under 30 who are at high risk because of gene mutations, the authors conclude.
The study couldn't prove a link between the radiation and breast cancer, but it is one of the biggest ever to look at the issue. The research was published Thursday in the journal BMJ.
TOKYO - The head of the Japanese utility that owns the tsunami-hit Fukushima nuclear power plant says that last year's meltdowns sapped away money it might have used to switch to alternative energy, making it all the more important for the company to stick with nuclear.
Naomi Hirose, president of Tokyo Electric Power Co., said Thursday it is "quite troubling" that the government, responding to public opinion, is moving toward eliminating nuclear power, but he said that TEPCO would follow whatever energy policy Japan adopts.
The March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami wiped out the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant and caused extensive radioactive meltdowns that took months to control and will take decades to clean up. It was the world's worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl.
WASHINGTON - A national coalition of state highway-safety officials on Thursday called for outlawing all hand-held use of cellphones while behind the wheel.
The recommendation by the Governors Highway Safety Association carries particular weight because its members are the chief highway-safety officers in each state. Regulation of drivers' use of mobile devices falls in the purview of state legislatures, where lawmakers in many states have been hesitant to tackle the cellphone issue and endure the public backlash.
A ban on hand-held use could be the first step toward what some experts argue is the real solution: a ban on any cellphone use in moving vehicles.
- Daily News wire services
