Man gets 35 years in mall bomb plot

CHICAGO - A 24-year-old convert to Islam has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for plotting to set off hand grenades in a crowded shopping mall during the Christmas season. Derrick Shareef must serve 30 of those years - with five off for good behavior - unless he can get an appeals court to reduce the sentence. He was arrested in 2006 on charges of scheming to use weapons of mass destruction at the Cherryvale Mall in the northern Illinois city of Rockford. (AP)

CHICAGO - A gene related to a hormone secreted by the body's fat cells may lower the risk of colon cancer, a discovery that could reassure people with a family history of the disease, researchers said yesterday. The gene variation, shared by about half of all those in the study, probably helps control how much of the hormone adiponectin fat cells secrete, researchers said in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (Reuters)

WASHINGTON - A proposed nuclear waste dump in Nevada must be designed to ensure that people living near it a million years from now are exposed to no more than 100 millirems of radiation annually. And over the next 10,000 years, radiation exposure to the waste dump's neighbors may be no more than 15 millirems a year, or about what people get from an X-ray. People receive 350 millirems a year of radiation on average from all background sources. The Environmental Protection Agency deliberated three years. (AP)

MISSOULA - A judge ruled in favor of a woman who sought parental rights to a boy and girl adopted by her former same-sex partner, a decision described as a first for Montana. Michelle Kulstad sought joint custody of a boy, 8, and a girl, 5, adopted by Barbara Maniaci. In his ruling Monday, District Judge Ed McLean agreed. (AP)