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false.
• The FBI searched the West Palm Beach, Fla., office of the donor -- eye doctor Salomon Melgen -- on Tuesday night and early Wednesday, but it was unclear if the raid was related to Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat.
• ___

• MIDLAND CITY, Ala. (AP) -- Jimmy Lee Dykes moved to a rural Alabama neighborhood on a rutted red clay road more than a year ago. It didn't take long before he had developed a frightening reputation as a volatile man with anti-government views who threatened his neighbors at gunpoint and was viciously violent to wandering pets.
• Multiple neighbors said Dykes, a 65-year-old retired truck driver, was the man suspected of boarding a school bus near his home, killing the driver and taking a 5-year-old boy hostage to begin a standoff that entered its second full day Thursday.
• The neighborhood near Midland City, population 2,300, remained under siege after the Tuesday shooting, with the suspect and child holed up in a bunker-type shelter on the man's property that was equipped with electricity, food and TV. Early Thursday, dozens of police cars and rental cars that had brought FBI agents to the site were gathered on the state highway at the clay road's entrance. Some police officers milled about, guns holstered.
• Homes on the road had been evacuated after authorities found what they believed to be a bomb on the property. SWAT teams earlier had taken up positions around the gunman's property and police negotiators tried to win the kindergartener's safe release.
• The situation remained unchanged for hours as negotiators continued talking to the suspect, Alabama State Trooper Charles Dysart told a news conference late Wednesday. Earlier in the day, Sheriff Wally Olson said that authorities had "no reason to believe that the child has been harmed."
• ___

• DENVER (AP) -- Marty Lich is ready to bolt.
• It's been a couple of years since the self-described conservative considered her

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