NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. Police in South Carolina are looking for a 1-month-old boy taken from a vehicle at a North Charleston post office.

The State Law Enforcement Division issued an Amber Alert on Monday evening for Angel Miguel Perez. The child was last seen about 5 p.m.

A police dispatcher says the search continued Tuesday.

The Post and Courier of Charleston reported North Charleston police spokesman Spencer Pryor said Angel’s mother left him in her idling vehicle as she dropped off mail. She says the boy was gone when she returned.

A witness told police a woman left with the child in a gray, four-door compact vehicle with a spoiler.

The 11-pound boy was wearing a blue shirt, pants and hat.

Police are looking for a black woman in her mid-20s, about 5-foot-1 and 175 pounds, wearing a blue and white striped shirt.

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. Authorities are searching wooded areas near a mobile home community in southeastern North Carolina for a 5-year-old girl.

The Fayetteville Police Department issued an Amber Alert for Shaniya Nicole Davis. She was reported missing by her mother shortly before 7 a.m. Tuesday. She was last seen around 5:30 a.m.

Police spokesman David Sportsman says helicopters have been requested to help the Cumberland County Sheriffs Office, Fayetteville Fire Department and Fayetteville K-9 dog team in searching near the girl’s home.

There are no suspects.

Davis is a black female with brown hair and brown eyes. She is about 3 feet tall and weighs 40 pounds. She was last seen wearing a blue T-shirt with pink underwear.

Maria Gonzalez-Lopez, Maria Angela Alvarez

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police on Thursday morning issued their second missing-person report in less than 24 hours, saying they are asking the public’s help in finding a mother and daughter who haven’t been seen since Wednesday evening.

Missing are Maria Gonzalez-Lopez and her 2-year-old daughter Maria Angela Alvarez.

Police say the two were last seen about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in the area near South Boulevard and Arrowood Road.

Anyone with information in the case is asked to call CMPD detectives, at 704-591-2943.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/topstories/story/1013749.html

By JULIET WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer Juliet Williams, Associated Press Writer – 16 mins ago

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Police say a convicted sex offender and his wife have been arrested in the kidnapping of an 11-year-old in 1991 who recently walked into a Northern California police station.

Police say 58-year-old Phillip Garrido and his 54-year-old wife Nancy Garrido were arrested in the kidnapping case Wednesday. The Megan’s Law database says Phillip Garrido has a conviction for rape by force or fear.

The woman came into a San Francisco Bay area police station and said she was Jaycee Lee Dugard, a blond, ponytailed girl when she was abducted as she headed to a school bus stop 18 years ago.

The woman was in good health. It was not immediately clear when she had surfaced at the station.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Sheriff’s officials said Thursday they believe a woman who walked into a police station had been kidnapped as an 11-year-old in 1991 outside her South Lake Tahoe home. Two people were arrested on suspicion of kidnapping.

The woman came into a San Francisco Bay area police station and said she was Jaycee Lee Dugard, a blond, ponytailed girl when she was abducted as she headed to a school bus stop 18 years ago, said sheriff’s Lt. Les Lovell of the El Dorado Sheriff’s Department.

“We’re 99 percent sure it’s her,” Lovell said. He said DNA tests were being conducted. The woman was in good health. It was not immediately clear when she had surfaced at the station.

Lovell said Concord police did an investigation after the woman surfaced, and he received a call Wednesday from investigators who had tentatively identified her as Dugard.

Her family has been contacted and they are in the process of arranging a meeting, said Lovell, who was a detective assigned to help investigate the kidnapping in 1991. “We are very confident at this point in time that it is her.”

Jimmie Lee, a spokesman for the Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Department, said FBI and El Dorado sheriff’s deputies arrested two suspects Wednesday night. They were being held in the Contra Costa County Jail in Martinez.

Lee said the two were being held for investigation of several charges, including kidnapping, but he could not elaborate.

Law enforcement sources said authorities were also searching a home in Antioch.

Dugard’s stepfather, Carl Probyn, said the news was like winning the lottery.

“To have this happen where we get her back alive, and where she remembers things from the past, and to have people in custody is a triple win,” he told The Sacramento Bee.

Witnesses reported that a vehicle with two people drove up to Dugard and abducted her while her stepfather was watching on June 10, 1991, the Sheriff’s Department said in a news release Thursday.

In media reports at the time, the girl’s stepfather said he heard Jaycee scream then jumped on a bicycle and frantically pedaled after the car in a failed effort to follow it up a hill. He then turned around and screamed at neighbors to call 911.

The case attracted national attention and was featured on TV’s “America’s Most Wanted,” which broadcast a composite drawing of a suspect seen in the car.

Probyn said his wife, Terry, had spoken with Dugard by phone on Wednesday. He said the mother and their 19-year-old daughter were flying from their Southern California home to meet with Dugard in Northern California.

Investigators first visited with his wife about three weeks ago, he said.

Probyn said he endured years of suspicion from FBI agents who believed he may have been involved in the abduction. He eventually lost hope that he would ever see his stepdaughter alive.

“Then you pray that you get her body back so there is an ending,” Probyn said.

Lovell said investigators have been working the case consistently since she was abducted and new leads had surfaced over time.

“You bet it’s a surprise. This is not the normal resolution to a kidnapping,” he said.

___

Associated Press Writer Paul Elias in San Francisco contributed to this report.

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Duke cites landmark Alzheimer’s discovery

Confirmation is needed, but scientists report they found a 2nd gene for the brain disease, one that predicts age of onset.

By Sarah Avery
savery@newsobserver.com

Posted: Monday, Jul. 13, 2009

DURHAM In what could be a repeat of their blockbuster gene discovery of 1993, scientists at Duke University Medical Center have identified a second gene linked to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

The new gene not only appears to predict risk, but also pegs the approximate age of onset for the degenerative brain disorder that afflicts 5.3 million Americans.

If the Duke team’s findings are replicated by scientists elsewhere, the discovery could open an additional avenue of research for drug development.

“We now have the ability to look at both [genes],” said Dr. Allen Roses, director of Duke’s Deane Drug Discovery Institute and lead author the study. Findings were presented Sunday at the meeting of the International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease in Vienna, Austria.

The announcement was met with great interest – and caution – by other scientists.

Since Roses and a team of gene hunters at Duke identified the first genetic link to Alzheimer’s disease 16 years ago, many promising leads have fizzled under further analysis.

“I think this is really interesting, but it needs to be replicated,” said Margaret Pericak-Vance, a genetics researcher at Miami University who was a key member of the group at Duke that identified the original gene, known as APOE.

The gene had been the only one associated with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form. It generally hits people after the age of 65 and gradually robs them of memory, personality and function.

Roses agreed that additional confirmation is necessary. He said he welcomes other groups to verify the findings. He also is working to set up a large international study that will gauge how well the new gene predicts Alzheimer’s disease in the general population, as well as test a potential drug for people whose genetic markers indicate they are at high risk of developing illness.

“We would love to be able to start a study by late 2010,” Roses said.

The new genetic target is called TOMM40, and it has been a subject of interest for several years to geneticists exploring the hereditary nature of Alzheimer’s disease.

Roses’ group homed in on TOMM40 and identified how it and APOE appear to interact and predispose people to get sick.

Like cards dealt from a deck, certain combinations of the two genes and their variations have significance. An unfortunate draw increases the risk of disease, and the risk of it striking before the age of 80.

There are four varieties of the APOE gene. If a person is dealt an APOE4 gene from his mother, and an APOE4 gene from his father, he’s got a double shot of APOE4 – the highest genetic risk for Alzheimer’s. About half the cases of late-onset Alzheimer’s disease are associated with APOE4.

But the other half remained a mystery.

Now it turns out that the APOE3 version of the gene may also be important, depending on what a person has been simultaneously dealt from the TOMM40 deck.

In a way, TOMM40 is a wild card. It comes in two forms – long and short. If a long sequence of TOMM40 is found along with the APOE3 gene, a person has an increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease before age 80.

Roses estimates that TOMM40 may account for another 35 percent of Alzheimer’s cases.

“This is potentially a very exciting discovery,” said Dr. Daniel Kaufer of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Medicine’s Memory and Cognitive Disorders Program. “There has been a big black hole in our knowledge of later onset Alzheimer’s. But the real clinical value remains to be seen down the road.”