National news briefs

Man charged with slaying 20 years ago

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (AP) — An attorney who wrote a book about Internet dating has been charged with killing his girlfriend's daughter 20 years ago.

Prosecutors say 74-year-old Eric Fagan was charged Thursday with one count of premeditated murder and one count of attempted murder.

Fagan was arrested Wednesday at his home in Chula Vista and was being held without bail.

Authorities say Fagan fatally shot Cathy Lynn Paternoster, then 32, and wounded her boyfriend, Carl Fuerst, then 41, outside their Spring Valley Lake home in 1989.

Officials believe Fagan killed Paternoster so her mother, Betty Paternoster, would obtain custody of her granddaughter.

'Night Stalker' suspect in 1984 killing

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — San Francisco police say the infamous serial killer known as the "Night Stalker" is a suspect in the 1984 killing of a girl in San Francisco.

Richard Ramirez, now on death row at San Quentin State Prison, was identified as a suspect Thursday by cold-case detectives examining DNA in the killing of Mei Leung.

She was sexually assaulted and killed in the basement of her family's home in the Tenderloin neighborhood.

Ramirez was convicted in 1989 of 13 murders committed in Southern California.

Bong water now illegal drug in Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — In Minnesota, bong water can count as an illegal drug.

That decision from Minnesota's Supreme Court on Thursday raises the threat of longer sentences for drug smokers in that state who fail to dump the water out of bong — a type of water pipe often used to smoke drugs.

The court said a person can be prosecuted for a first-degree drug crime for 25 grams or more of bong water that tests positive for a controlled substance.

Lower courts had held that bong water is drug paraphernalia. Possession of that is a misdemeanor crime.

N.C. governor blocks release of inmates

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina's governor is saying that the Department of Correction wrongly gave inmates credit for good behavior and is refusing to release 20 of the state's violent offenders next week.

Gov. Beverly Perdue said in a news release that she questions whether the prison's agency had the authority to apply the credits to inmates serving life sentences.