Troops pose with maimed Afghan insurgent bodies

Troops pose with maimed Afghan insurgent bodies
Occupy movement turning to shareholder meetings
California's "Princeton of Pot" reopens in bare-bones state
Retired Illinois couple claims huge lottery prize
Florida judge steps down from George Zimmerman trial
Man charged with snatching, killing Alaska teenage barista
Secret Service says three employees to leave over Colombia scandal
Gun in USC robbery tested for links to murder of Chinese students
Nebraska votes to offer prenatal care to illegal immigrants
California Lieutenant Governor Newsom gets Current TV show
Teen pleads guilty to weapons charge in Utah school bomb plot
Animal sacrifice case underpins Guantanamo legal challenge
In court, Zazi describes al Qaeda bomb training
Confining pigs in crates stirs complaint from Humane Society
Secret Service says three employees to leave over Colombia scandal
No bail for nurse charged in killing, baby kidnapping
Watergate figure, ministry founder Colson near death
Virginia legislature approves $85 billion budget
Shell card case prompts judge to ask: Who cares?
House panel okays $33 billion in food stamp cuts
Secret Service probing possible past misconduct: Senator
JetBlue pilot who had midair meltdown to plead insanity-filing
U.S. returns 474-year-old painting to Jewish owner's heirs
Iraq war vet wins Arizona Republican primary for Giffords' seat
Senate Democrat Conrad offers budget but no vote
Texas forward electricity prices on the upswing
Revenue wilted, states rely on cuts to meet budget
Man strips at Oregon airport to protest security measures
Manhattan tech/media companies grow up and out
Top U.S. colleges to offer free classes online
Ted Nugent says Secret Service to quiz him about Obama remarks
Nebraska votes to offer prenatal care to illegal immigrants
Nebraska votes to offer prenatal care to illegal immigrants
Man charged with snatching, killing Alaska teenage barista
California's "Princeton of Pot" reopens in bare-bones state
California Lieutenant Governor Newsom gets Current TV show
Secret Service says three employees to leave over Colombia scandal
Teen pleads guilty to weapons charge in Utah school bomb plot
Gun in USC robbery tested for links to murder of Chinese students
Secret Service says three employees to leave over Colombia scandal

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BRUSSELS/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. troops are seen posing with the maimed bodies of suspected Afghan insurgents in photos published on Wednesday, an incident that threatened to further fray U.S.-Afghan ties and prompted yet another apology from Washington for soldiers' misbehavior. In one of the pictures, a U.S. paratrooper posed next to an unofficial patch placed beside a body that read "Zombie Hunter," while in another photo soldiers posed with Afghan police holding the severed legs of an insurgent bomber. ...

Occupy movement turning to shareholder meetings

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(Reuters) - Looking to build on the Occupy Wall Street movement, activists say they're turning to corporate shareholder meetings this spring to vent their anger over economic disparity in the United States and to promote an assortment of other causes. A group called 99% Power -- a reference to those not among the top 1 percent of earners -- says it plans actions at 36 shareholder meetings, with the first big push coming at Tuesday's Wells Fargo & Co gathering in San Francisco. ...

California's "Princeton of Pot" reopens in bare-bones state

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OAKLAND, California (Reuters) - A California school known as the "Princeton of Pot" has reopened after a federal raid, but with a bare-bones staff of volunteers to teach the art of cannabis cultivation, after the crackdown crimped its funding and forced it to lay off 25 paid employees. The raid earlier this month on Oaksterdam University, which offers courses on the growing and dispensing of marijuana, turned the Oakland-based school into the latest flashpoint between federal law enforcement and medical cannabis advocates in states where pot has been decriminalized for medicinal purposes. ...

Retired Illinois couple claims huge lottery prize

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RED BUD, Illinois (Reuters) - A retired couple in a southern Illinois town claimed their one-third share of a record $656 million Mega Millions lottery jackpot on Wednesday, saying they would invest most of the windfall and possibly buy a new car. Merle Butler, 65, a former insurance agent, and Patricia Butler, 62, who worked at several companies, retiring nearly five years ago from investment firm Edwards Jones, are the only winners of the March 30 jackpot to publicly identify themselves. Illinois requires winners' identities to be revealed. ...

Florida judge steps down from George Zimmerman trial

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ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - A Florida judge removed herself as expected on Wednesday from presiding over the second-degree murder trial of George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester Jr. will take over the racially charged case, which captured national attention and prompted demonstrations across the United States when Zimmerman remained free and without charge for more than six weeks. ...

Man charged with snatching, killing Alaska teenage barista

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - An Anchorage construction contractor was indicted on Wednesday on charges of kidnapping a teenage barista from a drive-up Alaska coffee stand, killing her, and extracting ransom payments from her family after she was already dead. Israel Keyes, 34, was accused of murdering 18-year-old Samantha Koenig, whose body was found in early April in an ice-covered lake just outside of Anchorage two months after she was snatched from the coffee stand at the end of her shift. ...

Secret Service says three employees to leave over Colombia scandal

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Three U.S. Secret Service employees under investigation for alleged misconduct with prostitutes in Colombia before a trip by President Barack Obama are leaving their jobs, the agency said on Wednesday. They were among 11 Secret Service agents and 10 U.S. military personnel who allegedly took as many as 21 women back to their hotel virtually on the eve of Obama's weekend trip to Cartagena for the Summit of the Americas. ...

Gun in USC robbery tested for links to murder of Chinese students

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Four students were robbed at gunpoint near the University of Southern California on Wednesday, and investigators were testing the weapon in that case to see if it was the same one used to murder two graduate students from China last week, police said. A man brandishing a handgun confronted the three men and a woman as they walked near USC's fraternity row after midnight, demanding property from them, Los Angeles police officer Sara Faden said. The students handed over the belongings, but then two of the men chased the gunman, she said. ...

Nebraska votes to offer prenatal care to illegal immigrants

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OMAHA, Neb (Reuters) - The Nebraska legislature voted on Wednesday to provide prenatal care to illegal immigrants under a government program for the poor, overriding Governor Dave Heineman's veto of the proposal. Heineman, a Republican, had vetoed the measure last week, saying he opposed providing taxpayer benefits to illegal immigrants. About 1,600 low-income women were affected when Nebraska eliminated the program in 2010. About half were illegal immigrants and others were women who lost benefits for failing to comply with all requirements. ...

California Lieutenant Governor Newsom gets Current TV show

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SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Gavin Newsom, California's lieutenant governor who made international headlines when he granted marriage licenses to gay couples as San Francisco's mayor in 2004, will host a weekly talk show for left-leaning Current TV starting next month. The announcement by the network on Wednesday came amid a war of words and legal filings over Current's firing last month of former host Keith Olbermann. "The Gavin Newsom Show" will not replace Olbermann's "Countdown." "Viewpoint with Eliot Spitzer," hosted by the disgraced former New York governor, filled that spot. ...

Teen pleads guilty to weapons charge in Utah school bomb plot

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SALT LAKE CITY (Reuters) - A 16-year-old boy who authorities said plotted to bomb his Utah high school, inspired by the 1999 Columbine school massacre, has pleaded guilty to a weapons charge, and prosecutors recommended he spend six months in juvenile detention. The teenager entered the plea on Tuesday in juvenile court in Ogden, Utah, to one count of possession or use of a weapon of mass destruction, court spokeswoman Nancy Volmer said. Prosecutors said the teen, who attended Roy High School about 30 miles north of Salt Lake City, was serious about carrying out the bomb plot. ...

Animal sacrifice case underpins Guantanamo legal challenge

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MIAMI (Reuters) - A pending challenge to the jurisdiction of the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals relies in part on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld the right of Santeria priests in Florida to sacrifice chickens during religious ceremonies. The ruling was easily the most unusual cited last week in pretrial hearings for Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi prisoner who could face the death penalty if convicted of orchestrating a suicide bomb attack that killed 17 U.S. sailors aboard the warship USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden. It was part of a larger defense argument that the U.S. ...

In court, Zazi describes al Qaeda bomb training

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - An admitted conspirator in a plot to bomb New York City subways learned to make explosives at an al Qaeda training compound in Pakistan and recorded a "martyrdom" video to be played after his suicide attack, he told a court on Wednesday. Najibullah Zazi, 27, a legal U.S. resident from Afghanistan, testified for the second day against Adis Medunjanin, 28, a Bosnian-born U.S. citizen on trial in Brooklyn federal court on charges of conspiring to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan, providing material support to al Qaeda and plotting to use weapons of mass destruction on U.S. ...

Confining pigs in crates stirs complaint from Humane Society

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(Reuters) - The Humane Society of the United States filed a legal complaint asserting that a national campaign that portrays the pork industry as ethical and humane is misleading consumers because of practices such as confining breeding pigs to small crates. The complaint, filed with the Federal Trade Commission, charges that the National Pork Producers Council's We Care campaign and its Pork Quality Assurance Plus program obscure practices such as keeping breeding sows in so-called gestation crates, the Humane Society said in a press release on Wednesday. ...

Secret Service says three employees to leave over Colombia scandal

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No bail for nurse charged in killing, baby kidnapping

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SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - A registered nurse charged with murder for shooting a young mother outside of her doctor's office and kidnapping her three-day-old baby boy was denied bail at a hearing on Wednesday. Verna McClain, 30, had told her fiancé she was pregnant, and took the abducted child to the fiancé, telling him it was theirs, according to police. If convicted, McClain could face the death penalty. McClain was arrested late on Tuesday night after officials in The Woodlands, north of Houston, Texas, tracked a blue Lexus seen leaving the site of the murder to an apartment. ...

Watergate figure, ministry founder Colson near death

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chuck Colson, an aide to President Richard Nixon who went to jail over the Watergate scandal and later became an evangelical Christian and founder of a prison ministry, was near death on Wednesday at a Northern Virginia hospital, his associate said. Colson, 80, underwent surgery more than two weeks ago to remove clotting on his brain and there had been some "hopeful signs" during his recovery, Jim Liske, chief executive of Prison Fellowship Ministries, said in a message to staff on the organization's website. ...

Virginia legislature approves $85 billion budget

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(Reuters) - The Virginia state Senate approved an $85 billion biennial budget in a special session on Wednesday, sending the spending plan already passed by the House to the governor for review. "I look forward to conducting an expedited comprehensive review of this final document in the weeks ahead, and making amendments as may be necessary," Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell said in a statement. The state Senate had failed to pass the budget on Tuesday over disputes about funding an extension of the metro train system to Dulles International Airport. ...

Shell card case prompts judge to ask: Who cares?

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(Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc has won a U.S. appeals court's dismissal of a $1 billion lawsuit over the contents of its credit card receipts, in a decision questioning why anyone should care how the oil company acted. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago said Shell's printing of the last four digits of account numbers on receipts complied with the federal Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, which allows the printing of as many as the last five digits of a "card number. ...

House panel okays $33 billion in food stamp cuts

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. congressional panel approved about $33 billion in cuts over 10 years from food stamp benefits, in a largely symbolic and highly partisan vote opposed by committee Democrats and by anti-poverty groups. The cuts advanced by the House of Representatives Agriculture Committee on Wednesday would reduce spending on food stamps that help 46 million people buy food by $7.7 billion in the first year, by $19.7 billion in five years, and the balance in the next five years. The cuts are expected to die in the Democratic-controlled Senate. ...

Secret Service probing possible past misconduct: Senator

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Secret Service is "scrubbing" its files for past incidents involving agents like last week's alleged misconduct with prostitutes at a Colombia hotel, a Republican senator said on Wednesday. U.S. Senator Susan Collins said she told Secret Service director Mark Sullivan she found it hard to believe the episode was the only one of its kind, because "there were too many people involved." "He said they were scrubbing the files and looking at whether there were any hints that there had been previous incidents," Collins told reporters outside the Senate. ...

JetBlue pilot who had midair meltdown to plead insanity-filing

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(Reuters) - A JetBlue pilot whose midair meltdown prompted a cross-country flight to make an emergency landing in west Texas last month will plead he was insane at the time of the incident, his lawyer said in a federal court filing on Wednesday. Attorney Dean Roper filed the notice in U.S. District Court in Amarillo, Texas, saying pilot Clayton Osbon would use an insanity defense. ...

U.S. returns 474-year-old painting to Jewish owner's heirs

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TALLAHASSEE, Florida (Reuters) - A 474-year-old painting plundered by the Nazis during World War Two was turned over on Wednesday to the heirs of its Italian Jewish owner, ending a 15-year international effort to restore the work to its rightful owners. Flanked by representatives from Interpol and the U.S. Attorney's office, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Susan McCormick outlined the events leading to the return of "Christ Carrying the Cross Dragged By A Rascal" by Italian artist Girolamo de' Romani. ...

Iraq war vet wins Arizona Republican primary for Giffords' seat

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TUCSON, Arizona (Reuters) - Iraq war veteran Jesse Kelly has won the Republican primary in Arizona to pick the party's candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives seat of former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was wounded in a shooting spree last year and later resigned. Kelly, who narrowly lost to Giffords in 2010, won the four-way primary with 36 percent of the vote, the Arizona Secretary of State's office said on Wednesday. ...

Senate Democrat Conrad offers budget but no vote

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republicans have been pressuring Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad to offer up a budget plan, and on Wednesday, he gave them one - sort of. Conrad, a fiscal hawk who is due to retire early next year, will try to revive a 2010 fiscal commission's mix of recommendations to slash federal deficits through tax hikes and spending cuts. But no votes on the plan are expected before November's election. ...

Texas forward electricity prices on the upswing

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HOUSTON (Reuters) - Forward power prices in Texas have moved up in response to efforts by state regulators to boost the wholesale market cap in its competitive electric market, industry sources said this week. The Public Utility Commission of Texas proposed increasing the cap on wholesale price to $4,500 per megawatt-hour beginning in August, up from the current $3,000 price cap. ...

Revenue wilted, states rely on cuts to meet budget

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(Reuters) - Trapped in a revenue wasteland, U.S. states have cut spending by $290 billion over the last five years, with the largest reductions coming this year, according to a think tank that tracks state fiscal conditions. In fiscal 2012, which for most states began last July, cuts totaled $140 billion, "almost as much as the combined total for the previous four years," according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The recession began at the end of 2007 but did not affect state revenue until 2008. ...

Man strips at Oregon airport to protest security measures

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PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - A 49-year-old Oregon man became so fed up with airport screening that he stripped naked at Portland International Airport security checkpoint, police said. Some passengers covered their own eyes, as well as their children's, during the Tuesday evening incident, a Port of Portland Police report said, while others "stepped out of the screening lanes to look, laugh and take photos." Officials asked John Brennan numerous times to put his clothes back on, but "Mr. Brennan refused to dress" and was taken into custody, according to the police report. ...

Manhattan tech/media companies grow up and out

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Less than four months after new technology company SocialFlow Inc moved from the fashionable digs it shared with six other firms in Manhattan's chic Meatpacking District, it is again looking for more office space. "We're no longer a scrappy start-up," Frank Speiser, SocialFlow chief executive and co-founder, said from his new Midtown offices. "We're a start-up, but we have a lot of momentum." The start-ups are growing up. They need more space, more privacy and offices located near their larger business partners. ...

Top U.S. colleges to offer free classes online

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(Reuters) - Five prestigious U.S. universities will create free online courses for students worldwide through a new, interactive education platform dubbed Coursera, the founders announced Wednesday. The two founders, both professors of computer science at Stanford University, also announced that they had received $16 million in financing from two Silicon Valley venture capital firms. Coursera will offer more than three dozen college courses in the coming year through its website at coursera. ...

Ted Nugent says Secret Service to quiz him about Obama remarks

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(Reuters) - Ted Nugent said on Wednesday that the U.S. Secret Service has arranged to meet with him after the rock musician severely criticized President Barack Obama during the National Rifle Association convention last week. Nugent, who told the gun rights group last week that he would be "dead or in jail" next year if Obama is re-elected in November, appeared on conservative radio host Glenn Beck's show on Wednesday. He was asked if he had heard from the Secret Service. "We actually have heard from the Secret Service, and they have a duty, and I salute them. ...

Nebraska votes to offer prenatal care to illegal immigrants

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Nebraska votes to offer prenatal care to illegal immigrants

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Man charged with snatching, killing Alaska teenage barista

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California's "Princeton of Pot" reopens in bare-bones state

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California Lieutenant Governor Newsom gets Current TV show

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Secret Service says three employees to leave over Colombia scandal

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