Lincoln Chafee, a former Republican senator from Rhode Island who became a political independent in 2007 and then was elected as the nation’s only independent governor in 2010, will announce his decision today to join the Democratic Party ahead of his 2014 bid for a second term.
Staff Sgt. Robert Bales, the soldier accused of slaughtering 16 villagers in 2012, one of the worst atrocities of the Afghanistan war, has agreed to plead guilty at Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Seattle in a deal to avoid the death penalty, his attorney said.
Olga Yegorova, chairman of Moscow’s highest court, upheld a Russian punk group’s conviction last year for “hooliganism motivated by religious hatred” during a protest against Vladimir Putin in Moscow’s main cathedral and denied the case was politically motivated.
Vincent Autin, 40, and 30-year-old Bruno Boileau became the first gay couple to marry in France in a ceremony broadcast live on French television as their country became the 14th country so far to recognize gay marriage.
Alejandro Garcia Padilla, the governor of the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, signed a bill that prohibits employment discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation.
Luis Briones, 25, who police in Albuquerque, N.M., say was having sex with a woman while driving drunk and crashed, causing the woman to be thrown from the vehicle and to suffer deep face and head cuts, was charged with aggravated DWI, reckless driving and evading police.
Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor who says he’s undecided about running for president, joked with a Michigan crowd that “we all have mothers, right?” when asked about Barbara Bush’s recent televised remark that enough members of their family have occupied the White House.
Christian Barnes, 22, a Disneyland employee, was arrested on accusations that he put a dry-ice bomb in a theme-park trash can where it exploded, said authorities in Anaheim, Calif.
George Zimmerman, the former neighborhood-watch leader who has pleaded innocent in the fatal shooting of Florida teen Trayvon Martin, has less than $5,000 left in his defense fund, according to Zimmerman’s attorneys, who say their client needs another $120,000 to put on a good defense or even another $75,000 to give him a fighting chance.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/30/2013