CONNECTICUT
Trains collide, injuring about 50 people
Two trains collided in Connecticut on Friday, injuring about 50 people, authorities said. There were no reports of fatalities. Officials with Metro-North Railroad, a commuter line serving the northern suburbs, referred in a news release to a “major derailment” near Fairfield, just outside Bridgeport. The accident occurred shortly after 6 p.m. Railroad officials said a train that departed Grand Central Station en route to New Haven derailed. A westbound train on an adjacent track then struck the derailed train.
KENTUCKY
Navy SEAL killed during exercise
A Humvee carrying six Navy SEALs and two other sailors overturned during a training exercise at Fort Knox in Kentucky, killing one of the SEALs and injuring the others, military officials said Friday. Lt. David Lloyd, a spokesman for the Naval Special Warfare Group Two in Virginia Beach, Va., said the Humvee was part of a convoy on the post when it overturned Wednesday night. What caused it to flip remains under investigation, he said. The Navy said the SEAL who died was Special Warfare Operator Third Class Jonathan H. Kaloust, who was based at Joint Expeditionary Base Little Creek in Fort Story, Va. The seven survivors were treated for minor injuries and released from a hospital, he said.
ARKANSAS
Judge grants abortion ban injunction
A state law banning most abortions 12 weeks into a woman’s pregnancy won’t take effect while a legal challenge is pending, a federal judge ruled Friday. U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright granted a request for a preliminary injunction against the ban, set to take effect in August. The state’s Republican-led Legislature overrode a veto from Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe to enact the law in March. Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas and the Center for Reproductive Rights sued the state on behalf of two Little Rock abortion providers and sought an injunction to block the ban’s enforcement. Those groups also want Wright to block the law permanently, saying it’s unconstitutional.
AFGHANISTAN
Bombs kill 9 inside housing complex
Two bombs hidden in a motorcycle and a car exploded inside an elite gated community linked to the family of Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Friday evening, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 70 near the southern city of Kandahar, an official said. The blasts happened inside Aino Mina, a housing complex on the northern outskirts of the city that was developed in part by Mahmood Karzai, the president’s younger brother. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
BOSTON
Judge rejects request to photograph Tsarnaev
The attorneys for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev cannot take their own periodic photos of him, a judge ruled Friday, denying the request pertaining to “his evolving mental and physical state” and whether his statements to authorities after his arrest were made voluntarily. U.S. Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler found Tsarnaev’s lawyers could not take their own photos, saying the Fort Devens prison where Tsarnaev is housed has a policy against visitors bringing cameras.
PAKISTAN
Deadly blasts hit two village mosques
At least 13 people were killed and 30 injured when two bombs ripped through two separate mosques Friday in a remote mountainous village in northwestern Pakistan. The twin bombings, triggered by remote-controlled devices, targeted two mosques in Baz Darra village in the Malakand region of the restive Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, said Abdullah Mashal, a senior government official. “Both explosions took place in two mosques, barely 100 feet apart.”
LOS ANGELES
Doctor sentenced in cancer cure scam
A Los Angeles doctor was sentenced Friday to 14 years in federal prison for bilking patients out of more than $1 million by promising them that an herbal supplement she hawked could cure late-stage cancer and other diseases. U.S. District Judge Robert Timilin also ordered Dr. Christine Daniel to forfeit $1,277,083. Daniel, 58, enticed patients to take her herbal product and charged them as much as $100,000 for a six-month treatment program that she claimed could cure cancer, diabetes and multiple sclerosis, authorities said.
FRANCE
Court upholds gay marriage law
France’s constitutional high court upheld legislation Friday that grants same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt children, clearing the legal text for passage into law by President Francois Hollande, who said he would sign it today. In its ruling, the Constitutional Council found that the law would not create a “right to a child” for same-sex couples, a contention made by some opponents of the legislation. Those opponents said the new law will open the way to medically assisted procreation for lesbian couples and the use of surrogate mothers, neither of which are legal practices in France.
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