Curses, foiled again

The Los Angeles County sheriff’s department solved a 2004 murder case after homicide investigator Kevin Lloyd recognized the crime depicted in a tattoo on the chest of Anthony Garcia, 25. The 30-year department veteran had been at the scene of the liquor store slaying and remembered the details when he spotted Garcia’s elaborate tattoo while reviewing snapshots of gang members’ markings. Deputies arrested Garcia and put him in a cell with an undercover detective posing as suspect. Garcia soon began bragging about the liquor store killing, which the undercover detective dutifully recorded and played at Garcia’s trial. “Think about it,” Capt. Mike Parker said after Garcia’s conviction. “He tattooed his confession on his chest.” (Los Angeles Times)

Off the record

Requests seeking public documents from Mike Huckabee’s 12 years as governor of Arkansas brought a response from current Gov. Mike Beebe’s chief legal counsel, Tim Gauger, that “former Governor Huckabee did not leave behind any hardcopies of the types of documents you seek.

Moreover, at that time, all of the computers used by former Governor Huckabee and his staff had already been removed from the office and, as we understand it, the hard-drives in those computers had already been ‘cleaned’ and physically destroyed.” Huckabee and his aides have also blocked access to videotapes of his sermons as a Southern Baptist minister. An official at one of the churches he led said that much of the archival material pertaining to Huckabee’s tenure had been destroyed. Some of Huckabee’s gubernatorial papers do exist and are in the hands of Ouachita Baptist University, which indicated the records wouldn’t be accessible until after the 2012 presidential campaign. (Mother Jones)

Homeland insecurity

The government reported that 247 people on its official terror watch list legally bought firearms in 2010 after submitting to required background checks. About the same number of people suspected of having ties to terrorism also successfully bought guns in 2009. (Associated Press)

Problem solved

Changing diets for cows and sheep might reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, according to research funded by Britain’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). Feeding the animals highsugar grasses, for example, could reduce the animals’ methane emissions by 20 percent for every kilogram of weight gain, and naked oats could reduce methane emissions from sheep by 33 percent. Burping and farting cows and sheep account for nearly 9 percent of all British greenhouse gas emissions. (Reuters)

Compiled from the nation’s press by Roland Sweet. Authentication on demand.