CHICAGO - FBI agents following an electronic tracking device hidden in a bag of money stormed a Chicago building, freed a hostage who had been shot and tortured, and arrested six people on charges of extorting $40,000 in ransom from a suburban Chicago bank, authorities said Friday.

According to court papers filed Friday, an employee at the TCF bank in Oak Lawn received calls from her fiance early Thursday in which he warned that he had been kidnapped and that his captors wanted money. The employee notified her boss, who called police, who then called the FBI, said William C. Monroe, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Chicago office.

The bank employee "handled it just perfectly" and may well have saved her fiancee's life,

WISCONSIN RAPIDS, Wis. - A paper mill worker accused of abducting and sexually assaulting two men was charged with 12 felonies Friday, and authorities said he told an investigator "he knew what he did was wrong."

A judge found probable cause for a preliminary hearing for 46-year-old Edward Lanphear.

Police say Lanphear held two men in his house, stripped them, chained them up, beat them and assaulted them several times. One of the men told police Lanphear threatened him with a gun.

Police said that after one of the men escaped early this week, the other was found in the basement of Lanphear's home in a rural area outside Wisconsin Rapids, in the central part of the state.

Lanphear faces felony counts of kidnapping, sexual assault, reckless endangerment, false imp

PONTIAC, Mich. - A teenager remained in a Pontiac hospital Friday after he was shot in the face and his braces saved his life this week, police said.

Police said the youth, Anthony Pittman, 18, of Pontiac, remained in critical condition but was reported to be recovering after a bullet hit him in the mouth Wednesday, NBC affiliate WDIV-TV of Detroit reported.

Police said a .45-caliber bullet struck Pittman’s braces, which fragmented the bullet. He was able to walk into the hospital, where he collapsed, police said.

The incident occurred when several teens got into an argument and several people began shooting late Wednesday. Officers said they found shell casings from at least three different kind of weapons.

Neighbors said they did not see o

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A former Pentagon analyst has been sentenced to nearly five years in prison for giving secret military information to a New Orleans furniture salesman who turned out to be a Chinese spy.

At a sentencing hearing Friday in federal court in Alexandria, Gregg Bergersen said he thought he was helping boost the military program of Taiwan when he gave classified data about U.S.-Taiwanese military relations to Louisiana businessman Tai Kuo.

Bergersen assumed Kuo was working for Taiwan, but the salesman was actually a spy for the People's Republic of China. Kuo has pleaded guilty and will be sentenced later.

Prosecutors had sought a sentence of more than seven years.

Bergersen apologized for his actions and said he never meant to hurt his country.

AVALON, Calif. - It seems even 22 miles of open ocean might not be keeping gangs off Catalina Island, a mist-shrouded outpost of Los Angeles County best known for its Hollywood history and crystal-clear harbors.

Deputies on the isle say a fledgling gang called the Brown Pride Locos has gotten a foothold among the beaches, coves and tourist shops. A stabbing, burglaries and graffiti are being blamed on the gang, and deputies last month surprised teenagers practicing moves with knives on a dark bluff above Avalon's crescent-shaped bay.

A swift crackdown has netted at least six arrests and led to a pair of police raids — but it has also caused an uproar in the tiny community, where residents leave their doors unlocked and putt around in golf carts.

Locals insist that LA