Around the Nation

Arrest made in Tyson home theft

JOHNSON, Ark. — A college student was arrested in the theft of a briefcase containing more than $140,000 from the home of the chairman of meat-processing giant Tyson Foods Inc., police said.

Ryan Silvey, 19, was arrested in Olathe, Kan., by the FBI Fugitive Task Force, the Johnson Police Department said. He was taken back to Arkansas to answer a theft charge and was being held in lieu of $50,000 bond yesterday at the Washington County jail.

The briefcase was stolen during a party thrown by John Tyson’s daughter at the family’s home in Johnson around Dec. 27 without his knowledge or consent, police said. Mr. Silvey and another friend were uninvited guests who acted suspiciously while looking around the house, police said.

“I regret this happened, and it saddens me, but I’m very grateful to our local police team for all the great work they did to get this resolved,” Mr. Tyson said. “I have certainly learned a lesson through this ordeal and will never leave cash in my house again.”

Bush, Democrats spar over spy law

President Bush said yesterday that lawmakers’ failure to renew an eavesdropping law will make it more difficult to track terrorists, and “we may lose a vital lead that could prevent an attack on America.”

“Because Congress failed to act” and permanently broaden the Protect America Act, which makes it easier for the government to eavesdrop on foreign phone calls and e-mails that pass through the U.S., “it will be harder for our government to keep you safe from terrorist attacks,” he said.

Congress’ two top Democrats faulted the president, who taped his weekly radio address before he left on a trip in Africa, for “whipping up false fears.”

“Their true concern here is not national security,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said in a statement. “Rather, they want to protect the financial interests of telecommunications companies and avoid judicial scrutiny of their warrantless wiretapping program.”

A Senate-passed measure, which Mr. Bush backed, included retroactive legal protections for telecommunications companies that helped the government wiretap U.S. computer and phone lines after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Suspect arrested in therapist slaying

NEW YORK — Police investigators have arrested a Queens man suspected in the vicious slaying of a psychologist who was hacked to death in her office with a meat cleaver

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says David Tarloff, 39, was taken into custody early yesterday. Commissioner Kelly said investigators matched Mr. Tarloff’s fingerprints to prints found at the bloody crime scene.

Therapist Kathryn Faughey was slashed 15 times with a meat cleaver and a 9-inch knife in her Manhattan office on Tuesday evening. A psychiatrist who worked in the building, Dr. Kent Shinbach, came to her aid and was badly injured.

Death linked to ’serial rapist’

RENO, Nev. — A 19-year-old college student missing since she was abducted nearly a month ago was strangled by a serial rapist who has attacked at least two other women and may strike again, Reno police said yesterday.

An autopsy confirmed that a dead woman found Friday in a field on the city’s south side was Brianna Denison and that she died of strangulation, Reno Deputy Police Chief Jim Johns said. Her body had been in the field, about 8 miles from the house where she last was seen early Jan. 20 at the edge of the University of Nevada at Reno, for more than a week, he said.

“I would say this is a serial rapist,” Chief Johns said at a press conference. “We have two, probably three [cases] linked through DNA.”

“The totality of the information in this case leads us to believe it is a sexually motivated crime,” he said.

From wire dispatches and staff reports.