***DUPLICATION ALERTS, please check your lineups:
BUSINESS: Note Google brief.
AAS: Note immigrant game brief
PBP: Note Mars brief
***
PENNSYLVANIA
Methodist pastor convicted for gay wedding
A United Methodist minister was convicted Monday in a Pennsylvania church trial of breaking church law by officiating at his son’s same-sex marriage. The Rev. Frank Schaefer testified that he tried to follow God’s command to minister to all, even if he disobeyed the Methodist Book of Discipline. Schaefer could face punishment ranging from a reprimand to losing his minister’s credentials. Schaefer said he could have avoided the trial by agreeing to avoid any more same-sex ceremonies, but he declined, noting that three of his four children are gay.
CALIFORNIA
Father: Google image shows dead son
A San Francisco Bay Area man wants Google Maps to remove a satellite image that shows the body of his 14-year-old son, who was shot and killed in 2009. Richard Barrea said he became aware of the image of his son Kevin last week. He said he wants Google Inc. to take down the image out of respect for his son, but it wasn’t clear whether he had asked Google directly to take it down. The image shows what appears to be a body on the ground near a rail line with several other people, presumably investigators, and what looks like a police car nearby. It was visible on Google’s website Monday. The teen’s body was found on a path near railroad tracks on Aug. 15, 2009. His slaying remains unsolved.
PHOENIX
Federal workers dismissed from lawsuit
A judge dismissed federal employees from a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of a slain Border Patrol agent over the botched “Fast and Furious” gun operation, noting congressionally mandated remedies are already in place for when an agent dies in the line of duty. Agent Brian Terry was killed in a Dec. 14, 2010, firefight near the Arizona-Mexico border between U.S. agents and five men who had sneaked into the country to rob marijuana smugglers. The family’s lawsuit was filed in 2012 against six ATF employees, a federal prosecutor who had previously handled the case and a gun store.
TEXAS
Students to stage ‘immigrant game’
A conservative student group announced Monday it will play a “Catch an Illegal Immigrant Game” this week on the University of Texas at Austin, drawing condemnation from Democrats and a threat of expulsion from campus officials. The Young Conservatives of Texas scheduled the game for Wednesday. A club spokesman said the event’s purpose “is to spark a campus-wide discussion about the issue of illegal immigration.” Club members will wander the campus wearing signs that say “illegal immigrant,” and students who capture them and take them to the Young Conservatives’ recruiting table will get $25 gift certificates. Gregory Vincent, the university’s vice president for diversity, said students who participate in the game Wednesday would be exercising their freedom of speech “to the detriment of others.”
FLORIDA
NASA launches robotic Mars explorer
NASA’s newest robotic explorer, Maven, rocketed toward Mars on Monday on a quest to unravel the ancient mystery of the red planet’s radical climate change. The Maven spacecraft is due at Mars in the fall of 2014 after a journey of more than 440 million miles. This is NASA’s 21st mission to Mars since the 1960s, but it’s the first devoted to studying the Martian upper atmosphere. The mission’s cost is $671 million.
UNITED NATIONS
Palestinians cast first U.N. vote
The Palestinian U.N. delegation cast its first General Assembly ballot Monday to a warm round of applause, which its ambassador called a symbolic step toward full membership in the world body. U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour voted in the assembly’s election of a judge for the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Koffi Kumelio Afande of Togo was elected to the court. It was the first time that a Palestinian “state” voted in the General Assembly, almost a year after the 193-nation body elevated it to a non-member U.N. observer state, the same status the Vatican holds.
BELGIUM
No offers to destroy Syria gas
Not a single European Union nation came forward on Monday offering to host the destruction of Syria’s poison gas stockpile, with many instead calling for the arsenal to be eradicated close to Syria. Belgium had been considered a strong candidate after the withdrawal of Albania, but Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said that “we have to find a way to send experts and the technology on site.” After Albania refused to take on the task Friday, Belgium — as well as France — had been considered possible candidates.
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