WASHINGTON
Carbon dioxide hits global benchmark
The level of the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, has passed a long-feared milestone, scientists reported Friday, reaching a concentration not seen on the Earth for millions of years. Scientific instruments showed that the gas has reached an average daily level above 400 parts per million. The best available evidence suggests that the amount of the gas in the air has not been this high for at least 3 million years.
LAS VEGAS
O.J. Simpson to ask
judge for new trial
O.J. Simpson will return next week to the Las Vegas courthouse where he was convicted of leading an armed sports memorabilia heist to ask a judge for a new trial on the grounds that his lawyer botched his case. Simpson will take the witness stand to testify that the Florida lawyer who collected nearly $700,000 is to blame for his armed robbery and kidnapping conviction in 2008 and his failed appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court in 2010. Simpson’s testimony in open court will offer a first look at the aging 65-year-old former football star since he was handcuffed and sent to prison more than four years ago.
CALIFORNIA
Woman hopes jail time
will nix smoking habit
A woman who slapped a deputy to get arrested got her wish to go to jail in hopes she can quit smoking. Etta Mae Lopez, 31, pleaded no contest Thursday to smacking Sacramento County sheriff’s Deputy Matt Campoy earlier this week after he left the main jail at the end of his shift. “She knew that the only way to quit smoking was to go to jail because they don’t allow tobacco in the jail,” Campoy said. “She waited all day for a deputy to come out because she knew if she assaulted a deputy she would go to jail and be inside long enough to quit her smoking habit.” After her plea, Lopez was immediately sentenced to 63 days in jail, with credit for the three days she served this week.
NEW ORLEANS
Inmates indicted in
shocking jail video
Indictments were filed Friday against 14 inmates in connection with videos showing prisoners brazenly using drugs, drinking beer and flashing a loaded gun in the New Orleans jail. The videos, made in June and July 2009, came to light in April during a federal court hearing on conditions at the jail. That led to criticism in court of Sheriff Marlin Gusman, who runs the jail, for not doing more to prosecute those involved. Assistant District Attorney Christopher Bowman said Friday that Gusman is cooperating with investigators as their probe continues.
CONNECTICUT
Rock found in front
yard is a meteorite
A strange rock found in the front yard of a Waterbury home appears to be a meteorite, a Yale mineralogist said Friday, marking the second time in a month that a meteorite has fallen to Earth in Connecticut. Stefan Nicolescu, mineralogy collections manager at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, said it’s “highly likely” the meteorite found in Waterbury on Thursday is connected to the meteorite that landed on a house in Wolcott less than a mile away last month. The Waterbury meteorite is about 4 inches long and weighs 1.6 pounds. It had the same type of dark crust, magnetism, and interior color as the Wolcott meteorite.
SYRIA
Arms sales will continue, Russians say
Russia defended its sales of anti-aircraft systems to the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad, just days after joining forces with the U.S. for a new push to end Syria’s civil war through negotiations. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov avoided saying whether those sales included advanced S-300 batteries. Israel has asked Russia to cancel what it said was the imminent sale of the S-300 missiles, portrayed by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry as destabilizing to Israel’s security. The S-300s would make it harder for the U.S. and other countries to even consider intervening militarily or enforcing a no-fly zone in Syria.
ISRAEL
Police guard women praying at Jewish site
Forming human chains and using metal barriers, Israeli police held back thousands of ultra-Orthodox protesters who tried to prevent a liberal Jewish women’s group from praying at a sensitive holy site Friday, the first time police have come down on the side of the women and not the protesters. The reversal followed a court order backing the right of the women to pray at the Western Wall using religious rituals Orthodox Jews insist should be practiced only by men.
MEXICO
Malcolm X’s grandson killed
Malcolm Shabazz, grandson of political activist Malcolm X, died Thursday, hours after being found beaten outside a Mexico City bar, authorities said Friday. He was 28. City prosecutors are investigating the attack, which apparently was sparked by a dispute over a bar bill. Shabazz was taken to a nearby hospital with severe injuries. U.S. officials confirmed Shabazz’s death. In June 1997, Shabazz, then 12, set a fire at his grandmother Betty Shabazz’s home. She died of severe burns, and he served four years in juvenile detention. He later expressed regret for his actions.
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