In the news

Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and current prime minister, was elected head of the country’s United Russia party, and he urged members not to fear opposition, because “when criticism of the party stops, it will mean that it has lost power.”

Tom Hardin Sr ., a Fresno, Calif., motorcycle police officer, pursued a 1,500-pound runaway bull that forced the lockdown of two elementary schools before he lassoed it in the backyard of Yesenia Ochoa, who said Hardin “was in a cop uniform on a motorcycle, but he had a rope over his head like a cowboy.”

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister, speaking to the women’s unit of the governing Justice and Development Party, said abortion is a “devious plan” to crimp Turkey’s population growth and “remove this nation from the world stage.”

Adolfo Devia, vice president of the Cali Municipal Corporations Workers Union in Colombia, safely escaped an attack in which his brother, Jonathan, died of a gunshot in the head and two other people, including a 4-year-old girl, were hurt.

Richard Leakey, 67, a Kenyan-born anthropologist and professor at Stony Brook University in New York, said he thinks that in the next 15 to 30 years, scientific discoveries on evolution will have accelerated to the point that “even the skeptics can accept it.”

Brandon Gillman, 30, a Utah bus driver who was to take a group of Canyon View High School students to Disneyland for their senior trip, was arrested after parents and faculty members asked police to check the teens’ bags for drugs, and a K-9 unit instead found pills,drug paraphernalia and suspected cocaine in Gillman’s backpack, police said.

Abdoulaye Wade, the former president of Senegal, denied accusations that he stole cars and other state assets when he left the presidential palace, saying he had purchased the cars and later gave them to his supporters, adding, “These vehicles belong to me. I can give them to whomever I want!”

Aaron Hickman, 20, an upstate New York man angry over getting tossed out of his brother’s home, poisoned his sibling’s two toddlers by pouring bleach in their milk, police said.

Christine Lagarde, head of the International Monetary Fund, said she has more sympathy for poor African children than Greeks suffering from economic problems, “because I think they need even more help than the people in Athens.”

Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/27/2012

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