Briefs package

Democrats used their newly initiated lower threshold for defeating filibusters Monday to win Senate confirmation of President Barack Obama’s nomination of former top Pentagon lawyer Jeh C. Johnson to be secretary of homeland security. On a 57-37 vote, Democrats broke a GOP blockade against Johnson before the Senate minutes later confirmed him on a 78-16 vote. Johnson is replacing Janet Napolitano as head of the Homeland Security Department. About 40 percent of the senior leadership positions are now vacant, and Johnson said filling those posts was among his top priorities.

NEW YORK

Man sentenced for killing son

A man who killed his son and then collected a $700,000 insurance payout that he had purchased on the 23-year-old less than three weeks earlier was sentenced Monday to 15 years to life in prison. Karl Karlsen, 53, pleaded guilty in November to a charge of second-degree murder after admitting to shifting a truck off a jack and onto his son, Levi Karlsen, while he was working on it in 2008. Karlsen was the sole beneficiary of Levi’s insurance policy, purchased 17 days earlier. The death had been ruled an accident but Karlsen eventually admitted to jumping into the cab of the truck, causing it to fall, and leaving his son to die underneath while he attended an event with his wife.

PENNSYLVANIA

Pastor won’t quit over gay wedding

A United Methodist pastor vowed Monday to defy a religious order to surrender his credentials for performing a same-sex wedding, saying church officials will have to defrock him if they want him out of the ministry. The Rev. Frank Schaefer has been told to give up his pulpit in central Pennsylvania by Thursday if he cannot support the denomination’s Book of Discipline. But Schaefer, who describes the book as contradictory and biased against gay people, said he will not go quietly. Schaefer is serving a 30-day suspension for officiating the 2007 wedding of his gay son in Massachusetts, where same-sex unions are legal.

WEST VIRGINIA

Doctor gets probation in tongue incident

A West Virginia doctor has avoided jail time after being convicted of putting his tongue in the mouth of a patient who then bit off part of the physician’s tongue. Dr. Kenneth Seen of Spencer was sentenced Monday to two years of probation. He must also register as a sex offender for 10 years. Seen was found guilty of sexually motivated battery last month. According to a criminal complaint, Seen accused the patient of grabbing his tongue and biting it last year. The man had been immobilized and confined to a bed at Roane General Hospital.

CHINA

Clash with police kills at least 16

At least 16 people were killed late Sunday in Xinjiang, the ethnically tense region of far western China, when the police clashed with attackers who used explosives and knives, the region’s news service said. A brief report from the Tianshan news service on Monday did not give details of the attack, but it appeared to be the latest spasm of ethnic violence in the region. The report said the bloodshed occurred late at night in Shufu County near Kashgar, a part of Xinjiang plagued by tensions between Muslim Uighurs and the government authorities.

MEXICO

Legislatures pass energy reform bill

In a steam-roller operation that ended Monday, a majority of Mexico’s state legislatures approved sweeping energy legislation that will allow private companies to explore for and produce oil and gas in the country. It took only about three days for 17 of the 31 state legislatures, one more than needed, to approve the transformation of Mexico’s state-controlled oil industry that congress passed last week. Some of the state legislatures voted through the laws in the early morning hours after little or no debate. President Enrique Pena Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party relied on its dominance of most legislatures to push the bill through despite protests staged by opponents of the changes.