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Nation in brief

Woman gets prison for burning ex-husband

By wire services
Published January 22, 2006

GALENA, Mo. - A woman who killed her ex-husband by dousing him with gasoline and setting him on fire has been sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Barbara Ann Banning, 60, poured the fuel on her ex-husband while he was sitting in a recliner recovering from knee surgery. She then lit a piece of newspaper on a stove and threw it at him.

Neighbors put out the flames, but Fred Bounous died hours later.

"No one's going to miss him more than I will," said Banning, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and first-degree arson.

Public defender Brian Smith said Banning snapped after years of emotional and physical abuse.

Bounous' relatives, however, have questioned the abuse claims.

"No matter what the relationship was like in the past, there was no evidence the defendant was pushed into that situation," prosecutor Robert George said.

WHEATON, Ill. - A woman got a 30-day jail sentence for leaving her three young children home alone for several hours while she and her boyfriend attended a videotaping of The Jerry Springer Show.

Shannon Cook, 25, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor child endangerment. She also was placed on probation for a year.

"It was an appropriate sentence, given what she did," said DuPage County Assistant State's Attorney Joseph Ruggiero.

The two girls and one boy, all younger than 4, have been placed in foster homes by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

Police said Cook left the children alone at a suburban home Oct. 19 while she and her boyfriend went to Chicago for the taping. About five hours later, the two oldest knocked on the door of a neighbor, who called police.

Cook was arrested when she returned home after midnight. According to a police report, she said: "I didn't think I'd be gone that long."

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. - Former President Gerald Ford underwent further treatment for pneumonia Saturday at a hospital where he was admitted a week earlier.

"His pneumonia continues to improve," Penny Circle, Ford's chief of staff, said in a statement. A decision about when he will be released is being considered on a day-to-day basis, Circle said.

Ford, 92, was admitted to the Eisenhower Medical Center near his desert home on Jan. 14. The nation's 38th president was initially expected to be discharged by Thursday, but doctors decided he needed additional therapy.

NEW YORK - Entertainer Harry Belafonte attacked the Bush administration again Saturday, comparing the Homeland Security Department to the Nazi Gestapo and claiming the president is a liar.

"We've come to this dark time in which the Gestapo of Homeland Security lurks here, where citizens are having their rights suspended," Belafonte said in a speech to the annual meeting of the Arts Presenters Members Conference. "You can be arrested and not charged. You can be arrested and have no right to counsel."

Belafonte called President Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" during a trip to Venezuela two weeks ago. Belafonte, 78, made that comment after a meeting with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez.

While Belafonte acknowledged that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks demanded a reaction by the United States, he said the policies of the Bush administration were not the right response.

Bush, he said, ". . . lies to the people of this nation, misleads them, misinstructs and then sends off hundreds of thousands of our own boys and girls to a foreign land that has not aggressed against us."

[Last modified January 22, 2006, 01:03:12]