News Briefs

Local and VCU

Chris Brown sentenced in Rihanna assault case

Richmond Police Chief Bryan Norwood will oversee R&B singer Chris Brown’s community labor sentence stemming from his beating of former girlfriend Rihanna.

A judge on Tuesday sentenced Brown to five years’ probation and six months’ community labor for the beating of Rihanna and ordered the pop star to stay away from his former girlfriend for the next five years.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patricia Schnegg told Brown that he could be sent to state prison if he violated any terms of his sentence, including an order to stay 100 yards away from Rihanna unless they’re attending music industry events.

Brown will serve his sentence in his home state of Virginia.

Brief by The Associated Press

Remains identified of missing Chesterfield woman

Chesterfield County police said Tuesday skeletal remains found Aug. 18 are those of a woman missing for more than eight years. Police said it was uncertain what killed Pamela Sue Dodson and they are continuing to investigate the circumstances of her death.

Dodson, 32, was last seen May 4, 2001, after her brother dropped her off at House of Dave’s Restaurant at about 10 p.m. When he returned to pick her up about an hour later, she was gone. Dodson’s family reported her missing 10 days later.

Maintenance workers found her remains near the Falling Creek Apartments on the 2500 block of Marina Drive. Authorities originally said they did not know the person’s gender or exactly how long the remains had been there.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Retired VCU professor dies at 71

Joseph Liberti, who lived in Richmond, died unexpectedly Friday at a local hospital after suffering an aortic aneurysm. He was 71.

Liberti came to Richmond in 1967 as an assistant professor in the department of biochemistry at MCV. As a full-time professor, he taught at VCU’s schools of medicine, pharmacy, dentistry and graduate studies. Liberti retired in 2000.

Over the years, Liberti trained and inspired many medical students and ran a research program with a focus on the structure and function of growth hormones, said Glenn Van Tuyle, a colleague and friend at VCU’s School of Medicine.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

National and International

Mass. Sen. Ted Kennedy dies at age 77 ?

Sen. Ted Kennedy, the liberal lion of the Senate and haunted bearer of the Camelot torch after two of his brothers fell to assassins’ bullets, died at his home in Hyannis Port Wednesday after battling a brain tumor. He was 77.

For nearly a half-century in the Senate, Kennedy was a powerful voice on health care, civil rights and war and peace. To the American public, though, he was best known as the last surviving son of one of America’s most famous political families, the eulogist of a clan shattered again and again by tragedy.

His family announced his death in a brief statement released early Wednesday.

Brief by The Associated Press

Most red ink ever: $9 trillion over next decade

The White House is predicting a 10-year federal deficit of $9 trillion-more than the sum of all previous deficits since America’s founding. And it says by the next decade’s end, the national debt will equal three-quarters of the entire U.S. economy.

Before President Barack Obama can do much about it, he will have to weather recession aftershocks including unemployment that his advisers said Tuesday will still reach 10 percent.

In a brace of new estimates, White House and congressional budget analysts said the economy will shrink overall by 2.5 to 2.8 percent this year even as it begins to climb out of the recession. Those estimates reflect this year’s surprisingly deep economic plunge.

Brief by The Associated Press

Pakistani Taliban admit leader Mehsud dead

After weeks of denials, two Pakistani Taliban commanders acknowledged Tuesday that the group’s top leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was dead-claiming he died 18 days after a U.S. missile strike and disputing reports that the al-Qaida linked movement he left behind was falling apart.

Pakistani officials said the Taliban were in disarray after Mehsud was killed in a CIA missile strike Aug. 5 and that his would-be successors were locked in a bitter power struggle. Some unconfirmed reports said two contenders – Hakimullah Mehsud and Waliur Rehman – were killed in a shootout during a meeting to choose an heir.

Mehsud’s death is a victory for the United States and Pakistan. Pakistan considered him its No. 1 internal threat because of the numerous attacks he staged on its soil, while the Americans saw him as an unacceptable danger to the stability of a nuclear-armed ally and to the war effort in neighboring Afghanistan.

Brief by The Associated Press