In the news

Michelle Obama, the first lady, urged Hispanic activists at the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza in New Orleans to help sign people up for her husband’s health-care overhaul, especially the millions of younger, healthier people the system will need to offset the cost of caring for older, sicker consumers.

Tracy Martin, the father of slain Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, will speak today in Washington at the first hearing of the Congressional Caucus on Black Men and Boys, a newly formed group led by District of Columbia Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and Rep. Danny Davis, D-Ill.

Klarissa Barrera, a 2-year-old girl from Long Beach, Calif., was given a rabies shot and treated for a 2½-inch gash on her calf after she was bitten and dragged by a coyote at a Southern California cemetery.

Abbas Araghchi , spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said at a news conference that the United States and Israel have not been invited to attend the Aug. 4 inauguration of the country’s president-elect, Hasan Rouhani, though leaders from all other countries, including Britain, are invited to the swearing-in.

President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi of Yemen pardoned a journalist, Abdelela Shayie, who was jailed for three years on charges of helping al-Qaida and U.S.-born militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in 2011 in a U.S. drone strike in Yemen.

Thomas Ravenel, 50, a Republican multimillionaire who resigned as South Carolina’s treasurer in 2007 after he was indicted on cocaine charges, was charged with drunken driving in the Hamptons in New York.

Betina Young, 44, a former license agency employee in Ohio, was ordered by a judge to spend the next five Christmases in jail as part of her sentence for issuing state ID cards and driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.

Anthony Marshall, 89, the son of the late New York City philanthropist Brooke Astor who was convicted of defrauding his mother, has been classified as eligible for medical parole because of his frail health, according to the Department of Correction in New York.

Andy Ashkar, 35, a former auto dealership manager convicted of possessing an apartment complex maintenance worker’s winning $5 million New York lottery ticket, was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison by a judge who cited his “rapacious greed.”

Front Section, Pages 1 on 07/24/2013

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