In the news

Donald Trump, the New York real estate mogul who had been considering a run for governor, said he has abandoned that plan because the state’s Republican Party “is totally dysfunctional” but posted on Twitter that he has “much bigger plans in mind.”

Jason Felch, an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times, was fired for “a professional lapse of the kind that no news organization can tolerate” after he failed to reveal that he had an inappropriate relationship with someone who was a source for a front-page story that contained an error, Editor Davan Maharaj said.

William Frederick Buchman, 55, a California teacher who is accused of hoarding more than 400 snakes in his Orange County home, 240 of which were dead, has been charged with felony animal abuse.

Phoenix Scoles-Coburn, an 8-year-old Montana boy who was buried for about an hour after an avalanche roared into his backyard, said after his rescue that his hands had been pinned, so he tried to lick and bite his way out of the snow before he became tired and fell asleep.

Jared Ehlers, 35, of Moab, Utah, was indicted on federal charges after being accused of stealing a 190 million-year-old fossilized dinosaur footprint from the sandstone on the Hell’s Revenge Trail in Utah’s Sand Flats Recreation Area.

Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the new leader of Germany’s Roman Catholic bishops and a member of a panel that is advising Pope Francis on possible Vatican changes, signaled support for allowing some divorced but remarried Catholics to receive Communion after a “penitential period.”

Kathryn Major, 31, of Boca Raton, Fla., was charged with driving under the influence and battery after being accused of driving away after beating up her boyfriend, Michael Lohan, who is the father of actress Lindsay Lohan.

Destinee Bryce, a former part-time deputy in Saginaw County, Mich., who said she was denied full-time work because she’s a 4-foot-7-inch woman, will receive $215,000 after reaching a settlement in a suit against the sheriff’s office.

Robert Paul Palmer, 37, and Tamica Lynn Jeffers, 33, face child-endangerment charges after police said the Indiana couple overdosed on heroin in a Cincinnati-area McDonald’s play area where their 5-year-old girl and 8-year-old boy were playing.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/16/2014

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