LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – An Iraq war veteran already accused in the serial killings of four Orange County transients was charged on Monday with two more murders — the October stabbing deaths of a high school friend’s mother and brother.

The additional charges mean that former Marine Itzcoatl Ocampo faces a total of six counts of murder with special circumstances linked to the two October deaths and the slayings of four homeless men in a crime spree that rattled Orange County residents.

Los Angeles (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors on Friday dropped an investigation centered on whether seven-time Tour De France champion Lance Armstrong and his teammates cheated the sponsor of their bike racing team with a secret doping programme.

The decision means that Armstrong, a cancer survivor and one of his sport’s greatest champions who has always vehemently denied using performance-enhancing drugs, will not face charges following the two-year-long probe.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors on Friday dropped an investigation centred on whether seven-time Tour De France champion Lance Armstrong and his teammates cheated the sponsor of their bike racing team with a secret doping program.

U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr., in a brief written statement, did not detail the nature of the probe — saying simply that his office was “closing an investigation into members and associates of a bicycle racing team owned in part by Lance Armstrong.”

Los Angeles, Feb 3 (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors on
Friday dropped an investigation centered on whether seven-time
Tour De France champion Lance Armstrong and his teammates
cheated the sponsor of their bike racing team with a secret
doping program.

U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr., in a brief written
statement, did not detail the nature of the probe — saying
simply that his office was “closing an investigation into
members and associates of a bicycle racing team owned in part by
Lance Armstrong.”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors on Friday dropped an investigation centered on whether seven-time Tour De France champion Lance Armstrong and his team mates cheated the sponsor of their bike racing team with a secret doping program.

U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr., in a brief written statement, did not detail the nature of the probe — saying simply that his office was “closing an investigation into members and associates of a bicycle racing team owned in part by Lance Armstrong.”

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – An elusive assailant known as the “Civic Center Slapper” — or possibly a copycat — has struck again in Los Angeles, punching a federal prosecutor in the jaw, police said on Thursday.

The bold attacker struck his latest victim as he walked near a federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles on Friday evening, knocking his head into the side of the building, a police spokesman said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Influential contemporary artist Mike Kelley has been found dead at his home in a Los Angeles suburb and authorities said on Wednesday they were investigating his death as a possible suicide.

Kelley, 57, was found dead in the bathtub of his home in South Pasadena by a friend on Tuesday night, Los Angeles County Coroner’s spokesman Ed Winter said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The family of a teen whose mangled corpse was shown in horrific car-crash photos that went viral online has settled a lawsuit against the California Highway Patrol for $2.37 million, ending a 5-year legal battle that changed state law.

The extremely graphic pictures, taken by investigators and leaked by two dispatchers, were posted across the Internet and used to taunt family members of 18-year-old Nicole “Nikki” Catsouras following her 2006 crash on an Orange County highway.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Film star John Travolta’s vintage Mercedes-Benz, stolen from a Los Angeles suburb, has been recovered in pieces and two men have been arrested, police said on Wednesday.

Travolta’s convertible 1970 Mercedes-Benz 280-SL vanished from the street in Santa Monica while the “Pulp Fiction” star was visiting a nearby Jaguar dealership in September.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A German national pleaded innocent on Tuesday to charges stemming from a wave of fires set across Los Angeles over the New Year’s weekend in what authorities called a spasm of anti-American rage.

Harry Burkhart, 24, entered not guilty pleas to 100 counts of arson and related charges during a brief hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court and was ordered held on $7.5 million bail.