Former Tenn. senator convicted for corruption

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- A former state senator was convicted Thursday of extortion for taking payoffs from a fake company set up by the FBI to catch corrupt lawmakers. Roscoe Dixon, a Memphis Democrat, was the first of five lawmakers charged in the case to go to trial. He had been charged with seeking and accepting payoffs from E-Cycle Management, which offered bribes to state and local officials across Tennessee.

Survey: Hispanic youths lead in suicide, drug use

ATLANTA -- Hispanic high school students use drugs and attempt suicide at far higher rates than their white and black classmates, says a new federal survey that has the experts somewhat perplexed. More than 11 percent of all Latino students -- and 15 percent of Latino girls -- said they had attempted suicide, according to the report issued Thursday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The white and black rates were about 7.5 percent.

U.S. offers $5 million for capture of cartel leader

MEXICO CITY -- The United States has offered up to $5 million for information leading to the capture of the reputed chief of a powerful Mexican drug trafficking cartel, U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza said Thursday. Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez has been charged in the United States with 12 counts of drug trafficking and money-laundering and is also wanted for assaulting a federal law enforcement officer," Garza said in a U.S. Embassy statement.

Everest climber rescues stranded mountaineer

KATMANDU, Nepal -- No gloves. No hat, oxygen bottles or even sleeping bag. Lincoln Hall had been left for dead two hours from the peak of Mount Everest. American guide Daniel Mazur of Olympia, Wash., escorting two paying clients, came across the 50-year-old Hall on the morning of May 26. Hall's two guides had abandoned him a day earlier, believing he was dead. Mazur's team gave up on their ascent of the 29,035-foot peak to help Hall, spending four hours pulling him away from the slopes and giving him bottled water and food. By the time Sherpas showed up to help get Hall back to base camp, they were too exhausted to attempt the peak. "We all looked at the summit and then returned," he said. But he had no regrets. "Oh yeah, it was worth it," he said. "You can always go back to the summit but you only have one life to live. If we had left the man to die, that would have always been on my mind ... How could you live with yourself?"

-- From wire reports