National News



 

Runaway Prius driver: Brakes were 'almost burned' (AP)

Driver James Sikes talks about his experiences in his Toyota Prius during a news conference held at Toyota of El Cajon Tuesday, March 9, 2010, in El Cajon, Calif. Sikes' 2008 Toyota Prius raced out of control on a San Diego freeway Monday. A California Highway Patrol officer helped him stop the car.  (AP Photo/Denis Poroy)AP - Before he called 911, James Sikes says he reached down with his hand to loosen the "stuck" accelerator on his 2008 Toyota Prius, his other hand on the steering wheel. The pedal didn't move.


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Calif. jury recommends death for serial killer (AP)
AP - It was 2005 when Bruce Barcomb received the call he'd been awaiting for nearly three decades: Police had finally identified the man who raped and murdered his little sister in a remote canyon on a dark night in 1977.
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Roberts: Scene at State of Union 'very troubling' (AP)

FILE - In this Sept. 29, 2009, file photo, Chief Justice John Roberts sits for a new group photograph with other Supreme Court judges at the Supreme Court in Washington. For a short time Thursday, March 4, 2010, Washington buzzed over a rumor reported exclusively by an online gossip Web site with no particular Supreme Court expertise that Chief Justice John Roberts was considering stepping down. He is not resigning, as even the Radar Online site quickly concluded in backing away from its own story. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)AP - U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts said Tuesday the scene at President Barack Obama's first State of the Union address was "very troubling" and that the annual speech to Congress has "degenerated into a political pep rally."


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In rare case, Pa. woman accused of aiding terror (AP)

This image provided by the SITE Intelligence Group shows Colleen LaRose an American woman from Pennsylvania indicted Tuesday March 9, 2010 accused of using the Internet to recruit jihadist fighters and help terrorists overseas. A federal indictment charges that Colleen R. LaRose, who called herself JihadJane and Fatima LaRose online, agreed to kill the Swede on orders from the unnamed terrorists and traveled to Europe to carry out the killing. It doesn't say whether the Swede was killed, but LaRose was not charged with murder. (AP Photo/SITE Intelligence Group) -- MANDATORY CREDIT SITE INTELLIGENCE GROUP --AP - An indictment against a suburban Philadelphia woman accused of recruiting jihadist fighters online and moving to Europe to try to kill a Swedish artist is a rare case of an American woman aiding foreign terrorists, authorities say, and shows the evolution of the threat of terrorism.


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Dozen same-sex couples tie knot in DC (AP)

Sinjoyla Townsend, left, and Angelisa Young smile at the crowd as they are married by Rev. David K. North, center, on Tuesday, March 9, 2010, the first day that gay marriage is legal in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)AP - At least a dozen couples tied the knot in the District of Columbia on the first day same-sex ceremonies were legally allowed, and many more unions were on the way.


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Workers urge faster rebuilding at ground zero site (AP)

Laborers hoping to help rebuild the World Trade Center site hold a rally  to urge for quicker action on the project, Tuesday, March 9, 2010 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)AP - Hundreds of construction workers raised a rallying cry of "Build it now!" on Tuesday, gathering with elected officials at the World Trade Center site to urge a quick rebuilding of the complex.


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Ex-Edwards aide narrowly avoids jail over sex tape (AP)

Andrew Young, right, former aide to former Senator John Edwards, speaks with his attorneys Robert Elliot, left, and David Pishko, center, during a hearing at the Chatham County Superior Court House in Pittsboro, N.C., Tuesday, March 9, 2010.   John Edwards former mistress, Rielle Hunter, has sued Young for invasion of privacy.   Superior Court Judge Abraham Penn Jones considered twice whether to send Young to jail for contempt over his handling of copies of photographs taken by Rielle Hunter.  (AP Photo/Sara D. Davis)AP - A former aide to John Edwards has been given until Friday to provide a judge with a full explanation of how he handled materials including a videotape purportedly showing the two-time presidential candidate in a sexual encounter.


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NH campaign finance activist Granny D dies at 100 (AP)
AP - Doris "Granny D" Haddock, a New Hampshire woman who walked across the country at age 89 to promote campaign finance reform and later waged a quixotic campaign for U.S. Senate, has died. She was 100.
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Texas ed board set to take 1st vote since primary (AP)

In this Sept. 17, 2009 file photo, Don McLeroy, former Texas State Board of Education chairman, talks with new Chairwoman Gail Lowe during a break in a meeting of the board where hearings on a new social studies curriculum were taking place. On Wednesdsay, March 10, 2010, McLeroy, a devout Christian conservative, will be attending his first board meeting as a lame duck, where the board is set to take their first vote on new social studies curriculum standards. (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck, File)AP - Texas' state education board, rocked by primary elections that may push the influential panel's far-right leanings toward the center, is set to take its first vote on a new social studies curriculum that could reverberate in classrooms nationwide.


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Ohio State janitor's gunfire kills co-worker, self (AP)

In this ID photo released by Ohio State University, is shown Nathaniel Brown. Brown, a university custodial employee, reportedly shot two co-workers in a campus maintenance building, killing one of them, and then fatally shot himself, Tuesday, March 9, 2010, in Columbus, Ohio, according to officials. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Ohio State University) NO SALESAP - An Ohio State University janitor who was about to lose his job walked into a maintenance building for his early morning shift Tuesday and shot two supervisors, killing one of them and fatally shooting himself. No students were hurt.


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All 6 dead in Ariz. crash were Mexican citizens (AP)

Arizona Department of Public Safety police officers and members of the medical examiner's office remove bodies from the site of a tour bus crash on Friday, March 5, 2010, in Sacaton, Ariz.  Police are saying six people were killed in the crash on Interstate 10 about 25 miles south of Phoenix after a bus traveling from Mexico to Los Angeles struck a pickup truck and rolled before landing upright on its wheels. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)AP - Authorities say all six people killed in last week's pre-dawn bus crash on an Arizona interstate were Mexican citizens.


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Assisted suicide network members indicted in Ga. (AP)

FILE - In a March 17, 2009 file photo, Thomas E. Goodwin, former president of the Final Exit Network, is pictured during an interview with The Associated Press, in Atlanta. A Georgia grand jury indicted Goodwin and three other members of the assisted suicide group Final Exit Network Tuesday, March 9, 2010 on charges they helped a 58-year-old with cancer kill himself.  (AP Photo/John Amis, File)AP - A grand jury indicted four members of an assisted suicide group Tuesday on charges they helped a 58-year-old man with cancer kill himself, clearing the way for a trial that could not only decide their fate but also help validate — or repudiate — their work.


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Probation report cites predatory traits of suspect (AP)

John Albert Gardner III appears in San Diego Superior Court on Tuesday March 9, 2010 in San Diego. A San Diego judge has postponed the preliminary hearing for the sex offender accused of murdering 17-year-old Chelsea King. Superior Court Judge David J. Danielsen on Tuesday rescheduled the hearing from March 18 to Aug. 4. Gardner is also under investigation in the death of 14-year-old Amber Dubois, whose remains were found Saturday 10 miles from the site where King disappeared. (AP Photo/John Gibbins, Pool)AP - A decade-old probation report on a sex offender accused of murdering California teenager Chelsea King contained a psychiatrist's conclusion that the defendant had "significant predatory traits" toward underage girls and should be kept in prison for as long as possible.


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Calif. test-taking case shows gap in visa security (AP)

This photo released Monday March 8, 2010 by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shows evidence of fake test scores and California identification cards after they were confiscated from a California man who was charged Monday with operating a ring of illegal test-takers who helped dozens of Middle Eastern nationals obtain U.S. student visas by passing various proficiency and college-placement exams for them, federal authorities said. (AP Photo/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)AP - A ring accused of helping people from the Middle East obtain student visas by taking their proficiency exams and classes has exposed vulnerability in the nation's security tracking system for foreigners who attend U.S. schools, experts said Tuesday.


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Man who caused Newark airport breach pleads guilty (AP)

Haisong Jiang appears in Newark Municipal Court on a charge of defiant trespassing, Tuesday, March 9, 2010.  Jiang is accused of breaching security at Newark Liberty International Airport in January. (AP Photo/Elizabeth Lara, Pool)AP - A lovesick graduate student from China who slipped under a rope barrier at Newark Liberty International Airport to say goodbye to his girlfriend, prompting a security breach and leading to worldwide flight delays, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge Tuesday and apologized publicly for the first time.


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