Tunnel trouble stops 5 Mexicans

Five people trying to sneak into the United States from Mexico became trapped in a narrow tunnel and had to be rescued Tuesday after the largest of them, a nearly 200-pound man, got stuck trying to climb out through a storm drain, authorities said.

Firefighters used jackhammers at the city’s border with Tijuana to widen the opening and free the man, who had become stuck at the hips, said James Jacques, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Then they pulled out the four others who had become trapped behind him in the drainage tunnel.

All appeared to be uninjured.

Seven more people who were behind that group managed to crawl back into Mexico through the tunnel.

Asked why one of the biggest members of the party had been put near the front of the line, Jacques said, “I’d tell you that was poor planning.”

Attica, N.Y.

Lennon’s killer denied parole

John Lennon’s killer was denied parole for a fourth time Tuesday because of the “bizarre nature” of his crime.

Mark David Chapman, 51, must remain at Attica Correctional Facility for at least two more years for gunning down the former Beatle outside his Manhattan apartment building in 1980.

“The panel remains concerned about the bizarre nature of this premeditated and violent crime,” the board wrote in a one-page decision issued shortly after Chapman’s appearance before the three-member panel at Attica.

The decision came one day after what would have been Lennon’s 66th birthday.

Lawrenceville, Ga.

Runaway bride arrives in court

The runaway bride is taking her former fiance to court, claiming he took advantage of her hospitalization to defraud her of her share of the proceeds from a book deal about their adventure.

Jennifer Wilbanks, then 32, ran off four days before she was to be married in a lavish wedding in 2005. She turned up in New Mexico, claiming she had been abducted and sexually assaulted. She later recanted, saying she fled because of personal issues, and pleaded no contest to telling police a phony story.

She was sentenced to two years’ probation and performed community service.

In a lawsuit filed Sept. 13, she and her lawyer said that while she was hospitalized and under medication, she granted her ex-boyfriend John C. Mason power of attorney to negotiate the sale of the couple’s story to a publisher in New York, and Mason struck a deal for $500,000.

But she said Mason used the money to buy a house in his name only and later evicted Wilbanks from the home.

Grand Haven, Mich.

Ballot typo costs county $40,000

Ottawa County will pay about $40,000 to correct an embarrassing typo on its Nov. 7 election ballot: The “L” was left out of “public.”

A total of 170,000 ballots will have to be reprinted.

The mistake appeared in the text of a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would ban some types of affirmative action.

The word “public” was misspelled one of the six times it appears, county Clerk Daniel C. Krueger said Tuesday. Five or six people in his office had proofread the ballot, but it was an election clerk who found the mistake early last week.