New England Sun-Times

Tie the knot or do the time. A Texas judge sentenced a hot-headed 20-year-old to a lifetime with his  girlfriend. Instead of giving Josten Bundy jail time for picking a fight with his   girl’s ex, Judge Randall Rogers ordered the lovebird to marry his sweetheart, the couple claimed. Bundy said he wed 19-year-old Elizabeth Jaynes shortly after Rogers ordered the  ultimatum, fearing the threatened jail term.  But the court-ordered nuptials denied the young couple of the chance to plan  the wedding of their dreams,  they told KLTV. “It just felt like we weren't going to be able to have the wedding we wanted,”  Jaynes said. “It was just going to be kind of pieced together. I didn't even have a   white dress.”  Bundy was charged with assault in February for a fight with Jaynes’ ex, he said.  Her old boyfriend was “saying disrespectful things about Elizabeth,” so Bundy    challenged him to a fight. “He stepped in ...

There are no less than three movies in development about the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing that killed three people and injured more than 260 others. When movies with similar stories come out close to each other, the first one to the theater usually wins the box office battle, and now the Mark Wahlberg-produced  Patriots’ Day  has taken a big step forward, hiring a director well-suited to the material. Variety  reports that CBS Films has hired  Battleship  director Peter Berg to helm their Boston Marathon Bombing picture.  Patriots’ Day  is said to focus more on the manhunt for the bombers and is described as a thriller, something Berg is well suited to. This won’t be the first time that he has worked from a real life story, either, as  Lone Survivor ,  Friday Night Lights , and the upcoming  Deepwater Horizon  are all based on true events. Patriots’ Day  is based on the account of Ed Davis, the police commissioner of Bosto...

Marianne Zumberge R&B diva  Jill Scott  has nabbed her second No. 1 album with “Woman,” moving 62,000 units to top the U.S. album sales chart for the week ending July 30, according to data from Nielsen Music. Scott’s latest set follows up the success of 2011’s “The Light of the Sun,” which sold more than twice as many copies as “Woman” when it debuted at No. 1 with 133,000 units moved. Another high-charting new album comes from Lamb of God. The rock outfit’s “VII: Sturm and Drang” debuted to sales of 50,000 units, good for third place. The blockbuster soundtrack to Jake Gyllenhaal boxing pic “Southpaw” hit the chart as well, premiering at No. 5. The collection features cuts from Eminem, The Weeknd and 50 Cent, who stars in the pic. The heft of the soundtrack is matched by the movie’s tone, which the  Variety  review  predicts will “land enough visceral blows to catch on with audiences.” The final newcomer to the chart is the debut album ...

Bobbi Kristina Brown and Nick Gordon at the S parkl e premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Aug. 16, 2012 in Hollywood, Calif. (Frazer Harriso/Getty Image) The administrator of Bobbi Kristina Brown's estate has added "wrongful death" to a list of accusations against her partner Nick Gordon. Brown, the daughter of singer Whitney Houston, was found unresponsive in a bathtub on Jan. 31 in the suburban Atlanta home she shared with Gordon. She spent months in a coma, and died at age 22 in hospice care on July 26. The estate had earlier filed a lawsuit accusing Gordon of assaulting Brown during an argument, and has amended the suit to say he gave her a "toxic cocktail." John Lorinc of NPR member station WABE tells the newscast unit: "The suit claims she and Gordon got into a fight Jan. 31, and that Gordon put her face down in a tub of water after she lost consciousness. Acco...

BOSTON (AP) - Boston police are searching for a truck after a bicyclist was struck and killed at a busy city intersection. Police say a woman in her 20s was hit while riding her bike at around 7 a.m. Friday at Beacon Street and Massachusetts Avenue. The woman, whose name has not been released, was pronounced dead at a Boston hospital. Police later released video from a surveillance camera that showed a large flatbed tractor-trailer with a red sleeper cab and that appeared to be missing a piece of its front grill. They're asking anyone who sees a truck matching that description to call police right away. Investigators say they're not sure if the driver was aware that the truck had hit the bicycle.

by Diane Wetendorf  All Rights Reserved. Domestic Violence by Police Officers . Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 2000. Many of the qualities valued in on-duty police officers can make them dangerous domestic violence offenders. All abusers employ similar methods to control and abuse their intimate partners. Officers however, have skills and tactics not commonly possessed by civilians. Professional training in force, weapons, intimidation, interrogation and surveillance — along with the cultural climate — become a dangerous and potentially lethal combination in a domestic situation. Victims face the bias of law enforcement agencies and the legal system, psychological intimidation, and a high lethality risk. Historical Challenges Domestic violence is unique in that the parties share a personal, emotional and sexual relationship. By definition, domestic violence occurs within the family and generally within the privacy of the home. Only physical abuse or ...

Courtney Breanne Schlinke A former Valley Brook, Oklahoma police officer was jailed Tuesday, accused of sex crimes with an underage girl. Courtney Breanne Schlinke, 21, was arrested on 33 complaints, including 16 counts of rape by instrumentation, nine counts of lewd acts with a child under 16 and eight counts of oral sodomy, records show. She has not been charged. A woman called Oklahoma City police July 1 and said Schlinke and the girl possibly had a sexual relationship. The teenager told police there were at least 70 encounters over an eight-month period, according to a probable cause affidavit. Schlinke also was arrested on a burglary complaint. She is accused of kicking in a man's kitchen door July 23 along with another woman and two men. No connection is made between the burglary and the sex crimes in the affidavit. Valley Brook ...

  Dallas police say one of the department's officers was arrested for driving while intoxicated on Saturday. Senior Corporal Jonathan Sharkey was taken into custody in after being pulled over in Wylie, a Dallas police spokesman said in a statement. Sharkey has been a Dallas police officer for nine years and had been assigned to the Narcotics Division at the time of his arrest. An internal affairs investigation was launched as a result of the incident. Sharkey was placed on administrative leave immediately after his arrest.

  CHECOTAH, Oklahoma - A Checotah K9 officer has been arrested following a report of missing drugs, according to the Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation. Matthew Benton LeMasters, 35, is in the McIntosh County Jail on a complaint of obtaining a controlled dangerous substance by fraud. The Checotah police chief requested the OSBI investigate the missing drugs about a month ago, a news release states. On Friday night, the investigation resulted in the arrest of LeMaster's arrest. The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics assisted with the investigation.

  AGAWAM, Mass. (AP) — Police say two western Massachusetts women attacked a lesbian couple from Rhode Island whom they saw kissing at Six Flags New England. The Republican of Springfield reports that 29-year-old Damarielys Mukhtar and 27-year-old Nikia Butt were charged with assault and a civil rights violation with injury in connection with Wednesday's incident at the amusement park in Agawam. Mukhtar also was charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. One of the victims told police that Mukhtar yelled homophobic slurs before initiating the fight. Police say Mukhtar and Butt assaulted the two victims and stopped hitting them as a crowd began to gather. The victims are students at Bryant University in Smithfield, Rhode Island. Phone listings for Mukhtar and Butt couldn't be found Friday. It's not clear if they have lawyers.