WORLD
May 14, 2013 | By Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times
NEW DELHI - At least 58 people were missing and feared dead Tuesday after a boat capsized off Myanmar while residents tried to flee an approaching cyclone, United Nations officials said. The boat was carrying about 100 Rohingya Muslims, many of whom lived in camps in low-lying areas to escape Buddhist-Muslim violence, officials said. The boat apparently ran into rocks off Pauktaw township in the western state Rakhine and sank late Monday as people were evacuating, said Aye Win, spokesman for the U.N. Information Center in Myanmar, based on preliminary information.
NATIONAL
May 6, 2013 | By Richard A. Serrano and Matt Pearce, Los Angeles Times
A federal magistrate released a friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from jail Monday on strict pretrial conditions that include 24-hour home confinement and $100,000 bail. The friend, Robel Phillipos, a 19-year-old Boston native, is charged with making false statements to the FBI related to the April 15 explosions that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others. After a hearing before Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler, Phillipos quickly left the courthouse in street clothes and a baseball cap, surrounded by family and friends.
WORLD
April 26, 2013 | By Paul Richter, Ken Dilanian and David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times
WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously agree that Syrians have been exposed to deadly sarin gas in recent weeks, but they are divided over how certain they can be that the Syrian regime is to blame, U.S. and congressional officials said Friday. As the Obama administration weighs how to respond to the use of poison gas, intelligence officials say they are confident that sophisticated tests of tissue and soil samples and other evidence point to sarin. But reactions in the U.S. intelligence community have varied because of the possibility - however small - that the exposure was accidental or caused by rebel fighters or others outside the Syrian government's control, officials said.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 24, 2013 | By Richard Winton
Jean Crump made up fabulous fictional deaths. She wasn't a best-selling author or a fabled storyteller, but a mastermind of an elaborate life insurance scam, federal prosecutors say. For the fictional "Jim Davis," Crump created a bogus death certificate, purchased a grave plot and loaded the casket with items to simulate the weight of a corpse. On Tuesday, her tales got her 18 months in federal prison. Even when confronted during her trial with a secret FBI video of a meeting in July 2006 with a doctor, who unbeknownst to her was a federal informant, she continued to lie about her actions, federal prosecutors said.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 24, 2013 | By Tony Perry, Los Angeles Times
CAMP PENDLETON - A female Marine was convicted Wednesday of "attempted adultery" and lying to investigators in a case involving allegations of sexual misconduct and alcohol abuse in the enlisted ranks. The Marine, a staff sergeant with 17 years' service, could receive a year in the brig and a bad-conduct discharge when the judge, Lt. Col. Leon Francis, announces the sentence Thursday. She was convicted of attempting "to have sexual intercourse with … a man not her husband," but she was acquitted of adultery.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
April 23, 2013 | By Tony Perry
SAN DIEGO -- A Marine is on trial at Camp Pendleton on charges of committing adultery and then lying to investigators by saying she was drunk and had been raped. Under military law, adultery can lead to a bad-conduct discharge and a year in the brig. Although adultery has long been a crime under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, cases of prosecution are rare, officials said. According to the official charge sheet at the special court martial, the defendant, a staff sergeant, had sex with another staff sergeant at or near Temecula on March 2 of last year.