The man who killed four members of the Lakewood police force might be on or near the campus.

Mussolini an anti-Semite.

… has killed himself.

The Chicago Sun-Times seems so far to have the best coverage. A breaking story.

The little pisher won’t be running La Défense.

Brainy old hippies can be spies too. Nozette, recently retired from a long career as a high-security government scientist, was arrested today on charges of spying for Israel in exchange for lots of money.

When he worked for NASA, he told an interviewer for one of their newsletters that he enjoys “listening to The Grateful Dead Channel on Sirius satellite radio.” In this YouTube, he looks very casual-wear — not at all the sort who’d sell defense secrets for moolah.

But. You know. Live and learn.

One of Raj’s insider trading associates — the man on the left, Mark Kurland — sports an elegant sweater for his perp walk.

UD finds the detail on Kurland’s sweater of the little man playing golf strangely moving, in a Great Gatsby sort of way… This guy’s saying goodbye to his world… The world he’s wearing on his sleeve…

Ave atque vale, Calusa Pines.

*********************************

UPDATE: This photo, from

the LA Times, suggests

that the sweater

in fact features three

golfers, each representing

different part of the swing.

NEW UPTE MEDIA CAMPAIGN ASKS CALIFORNIANS:
WHO’S UNIVERSITY?

… where a scientist, Malcolm Casadaban, has died after exposure to a weak strain of the plague.

University of Chicago molecular genetics professor studying the origins of harmful bacteria died last weekend after contracting an infection linked to the plague, officials said today.

University hospital officials said there “does not appear to be a threat to the public” following the death of Malcolm J. Casadaban, 60, at the campus’ Bernard Mitchell Hospital on Sept. 13.

None of the people the researcher had contact with has reported illness and symptoms typically develop within 2 to 10 days, officials said.

The researcher was studying a weakened laboratory strain of Yersinia pestis that lacked the plague bacteria’s harmful components, officials said.

… University officials said the weakened strain of the bacteria is used as a vaccine to protect against the plague.

According to university officials, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has approved the weakened strain for laboratory studies. It does not require special safety precautions required for work with more virulent strains, according to the release.

Once the lab strain was identified Friday, officials contacted the Chicago Department of Public Health…

Raymond Clark is now under arrest for murder in the strangulation of Annie Le.

Yale’s president, in his email to the Yale community, writes

This incident could have happened in any city, in any university, or in any workplace. It says more about the dark side of the human soul than it does about the extent of security measures.

Given the panicked stupidity of his response to what he had done, and the resulting reams of physical evidence Clark left, UD wonders… If the crime was – as appears – unpremeditated, might that change in any way the severity of the charge or punishment against him?

… between Raymond Clark, a lab technician, and material in the Annie Le murder.

At this point, if the reports are correct, investigators have an immense amount of evidence against Clark, including this:

Swipe cards Le and Clark used to move through different areas of college buildings showed they were in the same room shortly after 10 a.m. on Sept. 8, The Hartford Courant reported.

Le, 24, wasn’t seen alive after that, and her card wasn’t used again. But Clark swiped into the area where she was found strangled five days later in a crawlspace, a law enforcement source told the paper.

I’m thinking about a couple possible motives:

•  Unrequited passion.  He had perhaps long lusted after her and been rejected.  He knows she’s about to get married, and he decides to make one last try.  Things go very badly.  Enraged, he kills her.

•  He thinks she disrespects him.  He’s a man; she’s a woman.  He’s a big muscular guy; she’s a scrap of a thing.  She should be subordinate to him.  It drives him nuts that he’s a janitor, she a researcher, higher than he on the professional scale.  He has accumulated, over a number of months, an intense sense of grievance against her.  He’ll show that bitch.

… is apparently the suspect in Annie Le’s murder.

… his ex-wife. In a parking lot near a graduate student housing complex.

They were fighting over child custody. He killed her in front of the child.

… are emerging in the Annie Le case. But so far they’re just rumors.

Here’s Yale’s official investigation page.

(A psychotic stalker, as in the Johanna Justin-Jinich case? How did he get in the building?)

(Or, as others suggest, someone who worked in the building? Who knew where crawl spaces were, etc.)

… is now up at Inside Higher Ed.