In the news
Sergio Torres Duarte, 18, and Julio Cesar Moreno, 19, were freed by a federal judge in Mexico after being jailed for nearly 10 months despite evidence showing the cocaine that police found in their van had likely been hidden in the vehicle before it was bought at a U.S. government auction.
Richard Schaen, 69, was getting worried about the cost of his eldest daughter’s wedding until the Cleveland man remembered an old comic-book collection he had stored away decades ago, which contained a copy of Amazing Spider-Man No. 1, a comic he bought for 12 cents in 1963 and sold in an online auction for $7,900.
Martire Fulcar, 32, a Maryland murder suspect who fled to Miami, where he jumped off the roof of a nine-story hotel and survived, pleaded guilty to killing his estranged girlfriend.
President Joseph Kabila of Congo vowed to keep the central African country united amid a year-old rebellion, saying government troops were ready to resume fighting if coming peace talks with the M23 rebel group stall again.
Hugo Macha, 31, was in good condition in a Colorado hospital after a wild elk gored the sheep herder in the mountains in Utah, puncturing a lung and knocking him unconscious for a while, after which the injured man had to walk several miles for help.
Chad Dixon, 34, an Indiana man who taught sex offenders and aspiring federal law-enforcement officers how to cheat their court or job-imposed lie-detector tests, was sentenced to eight months in prison for wire fraud and obstruction of an agency proceeding.
President Traian Basescu of Romania called on the government to pass a law that would allow thousands of stray dogs in Bucharest to be euthanized after a 4-year-old boy was killed by one of the animals.
Maj. Gen. John Nichols, the commander of the Texas National Guard, is asking the state’s attorney general for a legal opinion about whether he can process applications for military benefits for same-sex couples under a Pentagon directive even though gay marriage is banned in Texas.
Simone Baker, a 24-year-old Kansas City, Mo., mother, was charged with assault after being accused of beating up a kindergarten teacher over a scratch on her 6-year-old son’s neck, which the child said the teacher caused when she disciplined him, an accusation he later retracted.