Lawrence.com

Actor Robert Blake's wife shot to death near restaurant

The wife of actor Robert Blake was shot to death in her car while she waited for the former "Baretta" TV star near a Los Angeles restaurant, police said Saturday.

There were no immediate arrests. The woman was shot once in the head Friday evening and was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Blake, 67, told officers that as the couple returned to their car from a restaurant he realized he had forgotten something and went back inside to retrieve it. When he returned, Blake said, he found his wife shot and went to a nearby home to call police. Blake was questioned early Saturday as a witness.

Blake played a tough TV detective in a 1970s show.

Death penalty opponent speaks as McVeigh nears execution

The author of "Dead Man Walking" said Saturday a more fitting punishment for Timothy McVeigh than execution would be to keep him locked up for the rest of his life surrounded by pictures of Oklahoma City bombing victims.

Sister Helen Prejean, whose book was made into an Academy Award-winning movie, said before an address to about 90 graduates at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College that it was hypocritical for the government to execute people.

"The key moral question about Timothy McVeigh is if, in the book of justice, anybody deserves to die, it's Timothy McVeigh," Prejean said at a news conference Saturday. "But the key question to us, as a society, is who deserves to kill him?"

Berry to settle case out of court

A woman who sued actress Halle Berry over an auto accident has agreed to settle the case out of court, attorneys said in Los Angeles.

Berry, 32, was sued by Hetal Raythatha for negligence after their cars collided at an intersection in February 2000.

Both women were injured. Berry suffered a gash on her forehead that needed stitches and Raythatha suffered a broken wrist. The actress pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of leaving the scene and was ordered to pay $13,500 in fines and to serve 200 hours of community service.

Conductor says Wagner concert in Israel should be performed

Conductor Daniel Barenboim, whose plan to perform music by German composer Richard Wagner in Israel has stirred opposition, says going ahead with the concert would be a sign of Israeli tolerance.

In an article published Saturday by a German magazine, the conductor said no one should be forced to listen to Wagner but that Israel should show itself to be a "100 percent democracy."

Denying Israelis a chance to hear the music "would indirectly condone the misuse of Wagner's music by the Nazis," he wrote.