In the news

Michelle Obama, the first lady, arrived in China, traveling with her mother and two daughters on the seven-day, three-city visit focusing on education and people-to-people contacts.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told an audience at the University of California, Berkeley, that he found it “ironic that the first African-American president has without compunction allowed this vast exercise of raw power” by the National Security Agency, noting that other black heroes such as Martin Luther King Jr. were targets of illegal government spying.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan will visit the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam this weekend to express regret over the vandalism at Tokyo libraries of books related to the young Holocaust victim, a Japanese official said.

Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s defense minister, apologized to his U.S. counterpart, Chuck Hagel, for criticizing Washington and for calling it weak in its stance on Iran’s nuclear program, according to Yaalon’s office.

Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, said the health-care law looms as a political winner for her party, despite Republican attacks and nervousness among some in the party who fear their re-elections may be in jeopardy because of it.

Tyler Hadley, a Florida man accused of killing his parents, Mary Jo and Blake Hadley, in July 2011 when he was 17 and then throwing a party while the Hadleys’ bodies were still in the house, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York called the death of Jerome Murdough, a mentally ill, homeless former Marine who was found in a jail cell that had overheated to at least 100 degrees, “very troubling.”

Nicholas Helman, 19, was arrested at his home in Hatboro, outside Philadelphia, on a charge of attempted murder and is accused of sending a birthday card laced with the deadly poison ricin to his ex-girlfriend’s current boyfriend in hopes of winning her back.

Kelli Jo Griffin, 40, who was convicted of a drug-related felony in 2008 and voted in an election last year believing that her voting rights had been restored when her probation ended, which was the law until three years ago, was acquitted of perjury, with Iowa jurors rejecting the claim that she intentionally lied on a voter-registration form.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/21/2014

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