2: 60 injured during gay pride march TODAY’S NEWS BRIEFING
1: Man in Bulger case killed by cyanide
BOSTON — The Massachusetts medical examiner’s office says cyanide poisoning killed an alleged extortion victim of James “Whitey” Bulger who had hoped to testify at Bulger’s trial.
A spokeswoman for the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office said Sunday that the medical examiner concluded that acute cyanide toxicity killed 59-year-old Stephen Rakes of Quincy in July. His death was ruled a homicide.
Rakes learned before his death that he wouldn’t be called as a witness against Bulger, the Boston gangster convicted of murder in August.
Authorities say Rakes’ death wasn’t related to the Bulger case. Rakes’ business associate, 69-year-old William Camuti of Sudbury, was charged with attempted murder and other crimes in Rakes’ death and has pleaded not guilty.
PODGORICA, Montenegro — Police in Montenegro fired tear gas to repel anti-gay extremists who threw rocks and firebombs at officers protecting a gay pride march Sunday, officials said. About 60 people were injured.
The violence occurred when the attackers tried to push through hundreds of police to reach those taking part in the march in Podgorica, the capital of the staunchly conservative Balkan country.
Police said about 20 of the injured during the clashes were officers, and 40 were from “hooligan groups.” About 60 of the 1,500 extremists who rioted were arrested, police said.
3: Former first lady of Yugoslavia dies
BELGRADE, Serbia — Jovanka Broz, who was married to Yugoslavia’s dictator, Josip Broz Tito, for nearly 30 years but lived in isolation as the federation he had built broke apart, died Sunday. She was 88.
Broz died of heart failure at Belgrade’s emergency hospital, where she had been receiving care since August, said Zlatibor Loncar, its director.
Tito led the Partisan communist resistance movement that fought the Nazi occupiers of Yugoslavia during World War II.
Tito died in 1980.
4: Suicide bomber kills dozens in Iraq
BAGHDAD — A suicide bomber slammed his explosive-laden car Sunday night into a busy cafe in Iraq’s capital, part of a day of deadly violence across the country, authorities said.
The bombing at the cafe in Baghdad’s primarily Shiite Amil neighborhood happened as it was full of customers.
The cafe and a nearby juice shop is a favorite hangout in the neighborhood for young people, who filled the area at the time of the explosions.
The blast killed 35 people and wounded 45, Iraqi officials said.