FLORIDA
Retired cop shoots
two in theater; one dies
Authorities say a retired Tampa police officer has been charged with fatally shooting a man during an argument over cellphone use at a Florida theater in Wesley Chapel, north of Tampa. Pasco County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Melanie Snow says Curtis Reeves, 71, asked Chad Oulson, 43, to stop texting. The argument led to the shooting. Oulson and his wife, Nichole, were taken to a Tampa-area hospital where he later died. The sheriff’s office says an off-duty Sumter County deputy detained Reeves until police arrived. Reeves has been charged with second-degree murder.
ARKANSAS
Judge OKs deal ending
desegregation payments
A federal judge approved a settlement Monday that will allow Arkansas to stop making payments to three Little Rock-area school districts to aid their desegregation efforts. Since 1989, the state has given the Little Rock, North Little Rock and Pulaski County Special school districts more than $1 billion, total, above their regular state appropriations. The Little Rock and North Little Rock districts have been declared integrated; Pulaski County has been found short in several areas, including facilities.
CALIFORNIA
Bill seeks checks
on homemade guns
A state lawmaker proposed Monday that California extend its requirement that gun buyers undergo background checks and register their weapons to anyone who assembles a firearm in their home. The legislation by state Sen. Kevin de Leon is part of a growing effort to pre-empt the spread of undetectable guns that can be made using 3-D printers. His bill also would apply to anyone who buys parts that can be assembled into a gun.
RHODE ISLAND
Candidate discloses
crash that killed man
A leading candidate for Rhode Island governor disclosed Monday that he was responsible for a crash that killed a man 25 years ago. Allan Fung, the Republican mayor of Cranston, said he was an 18-year-old college student in 1989 when he lost consciousness behind the wheel and hit a man who was changing a tire on Interstate 95. He said drugs and alcohol weren’t involved and a grand jury declined to indict him. He had his arrest record sealed in the 1990s. “I wanted to get the truth out there, get all the facts out there to the voters of the state of Rhode Island,” Fung said. “They need to know the truth about me.”
MICHIGAN
$330 million pledged
to save art collection
National and local philanthropic foundations have committed $330 million toward a deal that would help preserve the Detroit Institute of Arts’ renowned collection by bolstering the city’€™s employee pension funds, federal mediators involved in the city’€™s bankruptcy proceedings announced Monday. A group including the Ford Foundation, the Kresge Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation have pledged to pool the money, which could relieve the city-owned museum of its responsibility to help Detroit pay its debts in its federal bankruptcy case.
CALIFORNIA
‘Octomom’ charged
with welfare fraud
Nadya Suleman, who gained fame as “Octomom” after giving birth to eight babies, has been charged with welfare fraud after failing to report $30,000 in earnings while she collected public assistance, authorities said Monday. Suleman, whose real name is Natalie Denise Suleman, was ordered to appear in court Friday, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said in a statement. She was not immediately taken into custody. If convicted, she could face up to five years and eight months in jail.
CHINA
Rodman apologizes
for not helping detainee
Former basketball star Dennis Rodman apologized Monday for not being able to help an American missionary detained in North Korea while he played there to celebrate the birthday of his friend and leader Kim Jong Un. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything,” Rodman told media on his arrival at Beijing airport from a weeklong trip. “It’s not my fault. I’m sorry. I just want to do some good stuff, that’s all I want to do.” He said he would return to North Korea next month, but gave no details.
NIGERIA
New law bans gay
meetings, organizations
A new law in Nigeria, signed by the president without announcement, has made it illegal for gay people to even hold a meeting. The Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act also criminalizes homosexual clubs, associations and organizations, with penalties of up to 14 years in jail. The act has drawn international condemnation from countries such as the United States and Britain.
ITALY
Pope’s Harley, leather
jacket up for auction
A Harley-Davidson motorcycle donated to Pope Francis last year and signed by him on its tank will be sold at auction in Paris to help raise funds for a soup kitchen and hostel for the homeless in Rome. The Bonhams auction house noted Francis’ “preference for modest modes of transport” in a statement Monday. It says it will also be auctioning off on Feb. 6 a Harley-Davidson 110th anniversary leather motorcycle jacket, size XL, signed by Francis. The auction sales will raise money for Caritas Roma, a Catholic charity based in Rome.
MEXICO
Federal forces take
over security in state
Federal forces will take over security in a large swath of a western Mexico state where firefights between vigilante groups and drug traffickers erupted over the weekend, Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong said Monday. Osorio Chong said federal forces with support from Michoacan state police will patrol an area in the state known as Tierra Caliente, the home base of the Knights Templar drug cartel.
THAILAND
Protesters block roads
in bid to shut capital
Anti-government protesters seized key intersections across Thailand’s capital Monday, blockading major roads into the heart of Bangkok’s downtown districts at the start of a renewed push to derail elections next month and overthrow the prime minister. The protesters vowed to “shut down” the city of 12 million people, but life continued normally in most places, with the majority of businesses and shops open.
ENGLAND
Rare lily stolen
from London garden
A minuscule, nearly extinct water lily has been stolen from London’s Royal Botanic Gardens, officials said Monday. Britain’s Metropolitan Police said the flower theft took place sometime Thursday when a Nymphaea thermarum, considered the world’s smallest water lily, was pulled from a shallow pond in a glasshouse at the garden in Kew, west London. The lily — so rare that it doesn’t have a common name — was discovered in Rwanda in the 1980s. The minuscule plant grows delicate white flowers with yellow stamens and lily pads as small as 1 centimeter across.
CHINA
Tourist town burns
despite safety system
A fire prevention system costing more than $1 million wasn’t functioning and failed to prevent a blaze that razed an ancient tourist town in southwest China, the fire service said Monday. The system in Dukezong had been shut down to prevent pipes from bursting in the below-freezing temperatures, the Deqen prefecture fire brigade said on its microblog. The service said the system was installed in 2011 at a cost of $1.3 million.
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