Gov. Martin O’Malley signed a bill that will make Maryland the 17th state to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana, starting in October, and said the law should improve public safety by freeing police officers to focus on more serious threats.
Stanley Cohen, 63, the New York lawyer who represented Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law at his recent terrorism trial, pleaded guilty in Syracuse to a federal charge of impeding the IRS over accusations that he underreported cash payments from clients.
Tony Boland, 79, joined the band at Kennedy Elementary School in Dubuque, Iowa, where he has volunteered as a reading tutor for more than a decade, and the flute player is a hit with fifth-grade bandmate Courtney Less, who said, “All of us are messing up, but he doesn’t.”
President Gjorge Ivanov of Macedonia emerged as the front-runner for a second term after taking the lead in the first round of presidential elections in the Balkan country.
David Carter, chief of the Phoenix Fire Department, said the department can’t account for 850 keys that allow firefighters responding to emergencies to enter thousands of businesses and apartment complexes, but he said there’s no indication they have been used for criminal purposes.
Joseph Romano, a New York man imprisoned in 2012 in a collectible-coins scam that defrauded elderly people, was sentenced to a life term for paying an undercover FBI agent $40,000 to decapitate a federal judge and a prosecutor.
Andy Coulson, a former editor of Britain’s News of the World newspaper, which was closed during a scandal over phone-hacking, said at trial that his affair with fellow executive Rebekah Brooks “was wrong and it shouldn’t have happened” but that it didn’t lead him to share work secrets with her as prosecutors have alleged.
Robert Corchado, 28, who is accused of causing a crash that killed a 4-year-old girl and injured 14 people at a day-care center in Winter Park, Fla., had his bail set at $100,000 but is expected to be arrested on violation-of-probation charges in Seminole County if he is released.
Laurent Fabius visited Cuba for the first visit by a French foreign minister in more than 30 years as the communist-run nation seeks to attract more foreign investment and improve ties with the European Union.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/15/2014