A police chief in Western Massachusetts pleaded not guilty yesterday to involuntary manslaughter in the death of an 8-year-old boy who accidentally shot himself with an Uzi at a gun show.

Pelham Chief Edward Fleury owns COPS Firearms & Training, which promoted the October show where Christopher Bizilj, of Ashford, Conn., shot himself in the head.

Fleury's lawyer, David Kuzmeski, also entered not guilty pleas yesterday to four counts of furnishing a machine gun to a person under 18. Fleury faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

Source: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/12/23/police_chief_pleads_not_guilty_in_boys_fatal_gun_show_shooting/

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A man in a pickup truck killed two drivers and injured another in four rush-hour shootings near a Dallas freeway on Monday evening, police said.

Police were searching Tuesday for a shooter they described as a balding white man in his 40s driving a tan Ford F-150 truck.

All four attacks happened along a 3-mile stretch near and on the LBJ Freeway, about 10 miles northeast of downtown Dallas.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/12/23/dallas.road.shootings/index.html

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Gay groups and activists have reacted angrily after Pope Benedict XVI said that mankind needed to be saved from a destructive blurring of gender.

Speaking on Monday, Pope Benedict said that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour was as important as protecting the environment.

The comments were "irresponsible and unacceptable", the UK's Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement (LGCM) said.

Vladimir Luxuria, a transgender former Italian MP, called his words "hurtful".

The row erupted as news emerged that the pontiff is to pay his first visit to the Holy Land in May next year.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7797269.stm

A power company official said today that most of the people in a cluster of north central Massachusetts towns who are still without electricity after a Dec. 12 ice storm will have their service restored by Tuesday.

Source: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/12/by_globe_staff_40.html

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The University of Chicago is joining a nationwide trend of allowing male and female students to live not just on the same dorm floor, but in the same dorm room.

The school sent a letter out to parents last week informing them of the decision. The school says it was a student-led initiative that isn't aimed at romantic couples. However, the school says couples won't be banned from asking to be roommates when the program begins next month.

Nationally more than 30 campuses allow co-ed dorm rooms.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081222/ap_on_re_us/co_ed_dorm_rooms

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A compromise has been reached to let Iraq's parliament vote on a resolution allowing non-US forces to remain in Iraq beyond the end of 2008, MPs say.

On Saturday, they rejected a bill which gave the 6,000 troops from the UK and other states a legal basis to stay once the UN mandate expires on 31 December.

A resolution would allow the government to sign deals with each country.

The 140,000 US troops are allowed to remain until the end of 2011 under a separate status of forces agreement.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7794646.stm

The Bush administration, in its final days, has issued a federal rule reinforcing protections for doctors and other health care workers who refuse to participate in abortions and other procedures because of religious or moral objections.

Critics of the rule say the protections are so broad that they limit a patient's right to get care and accurate information. For example, they fear the rule could make it possible for a pharmacy clerk to refuse to sell birth control pills and face no ramifications from an employer.

http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2008/12/18/new_rule_for_health_providers_stirs_objections/

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Citing danger to the national economy, President Bush approved an emergency bailout of the U.S. auto industry Friday, offering $17.4 billion in rescue loans in exchange for tough concessions from the deeply troubled carmakers and their workers.

The government will have the option of becoming a stockholder in the companies, much as it has with major banks, in effect partially nationalizing the industry.

Source: http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/12/19/paulson_orderly_auto_bankruptcy_might_be_best/

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President Robert Mugabe has said that "Zimbabwe is mine" and rejected calls from some African leaders to step down.

Zimbabwe is currently gripped by economic collapse and a cholera epidemic. The UN on Thursday reported that the death toll from the disease had risen to 1,123 and that 20,896 people had been infected.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7791574.stm

Federal regulators on Thursday adopted sweeping new rules for the credit card industry that will shield consumers from increases in interest rates on existing account balances among other changes.

The rules, which take effect in July 2010, will allow credit card companies to raise interest rates only on new credit cards and future purchases or advances, rather than on current balances.

Source: http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2008/12/18/regulators_adopt_new_credit_card_rules/

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All but one of Boston's public indoor pools will close tomorrow because they lack drain covers required by a new federal law. Swim lessons, water aerobics, public lap times, and school swim teams will have to go on hiatus or find another venue for a few weeks.

Nationwide, public pools, universities, hotels, YMCAs, and spas have been scrambling to satisfy the law, which requires covers on drains to help prevent accidental drownings caused by suction when water is flowing through them.

Source: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/12/18/new_regulation_puts_lid_on_city_pool_use/

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Former senior defence official Theoneste Bagosora has been convicted of instigating Rwanda's 1994 genocide and sentenced to life in prison.

Bagosora and two co-defendants were found by a UN tribunal to have led a committee that plotted the massacre of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

It is the first time the Rwanda tribunal has convicted anyone of organising the killings.

More than 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda's genocide.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7789039.stm

A Brighton man was convicted of murder today in the brutal 2005 stabbing death of a Brookline cabbie in what prosecutors said was a robbery gone bad.

Suffolk jurors deliberated for about seven hours over two days before delivering guilty verdicts against Cleveland Martin, 22, who they also convicted of armed robbery.

Judge Regina Quinlan sentenced Martin, an admitted crack cocaine dealer, to the mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.

Source: http://bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1139509&srvc=news&position=3

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Time magazine has given its annual Person of the Year award to US President-elect Barack Obama.

Mr Obama was awarded the title "for having the confidence to sketch an ambitious future in a gloomy hour," said the US-based magazine.

It said he showed "the competence that makes Americans hopeful he might pull it off".

Recent winners have included Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the American soldier and the online public.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7787887.stm

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The ruins of an entire city have been discovered in northern Peru, researchers say.

Archaeologists say the find could provide the missing link between the ancient cultures of the Wari people and the earlier Moche civilisation.

The site, near the Pacific coastal city of Chiclayo, probably dates to the Wari culture which ruled the Andes of modern Peru between the 7th and 12th Century.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7787053.stm

Millions face being struck down by a deadly winter vomiting bug sweeping the country.

Scores of hospitals have been forced to close wards to new patients as they struggle to cope with the influx of norovirus sufferers.

One of London’s leading hospitals has even had to turn away 999 emergency patients after being overwhelmed with cases of the virus.

Last year more than three million people were struck down by the bug as it reached epidemic levels. Now experts are warning that the virus could affect even more this year.

Source:http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/75741/Killer-virus-grips-Britain

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Police arrested Vincent A. Primo Saturday, ending an intense search by Cambridge and Somerville police for a man who had alarmed residents in both cities.

Police believe Primo has robbed or tried to rob seven women in Cambridge and Somerville since Nov. 19.

Police said that in the space of three days last week, Primo stabbed two Somerville women, one in the hand and the other just inches from her heart, as he tried to snatch their purses.

Yesterday, Primo, a 40-year-old Medford man with a record of 35 convictions, pleaded not guilty to felony charges that included armed assault with intent to murder, armed robbery, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon.

Source: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/12/16/suspect_charged_in_somerville_attacks/

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President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday announced Arne Duncan, the head of Chicago public schools, as his choice for education secretary.

Duncan has headed the Illinois city's public schools district since 2001. It's the third-largest in the nation. Like Obama, he is a graduate of Harvard University.

Duncan also worked for six years with the Ariel Education Initiative, which tried to create educational opportunities for inner-city students on Chicago's South Side.

Source: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/12/16/transition.wrap/index.html

A paralyzing storm has coated much of Central and Western Massachusetts with an inch of ice, snapping countless limbs and power lines and knocking out electricity to nearly 1 million homes and businesses across New England. Hardest hit was northern Worcester County, where 119,000 people are without power and some roads are impassable in communities such as Fitchburg and Leominster (note to DJ: pronounced "lemin-ster")

Source: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2008/12/ice_storm_leave.html

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The Bush administration said Friday that it will consider using the money set aside to help banks and Wall Street to rescue the auto industry.

The statement -- a change in the administration's long-held position -- might be the last best chance to keep troubled automakers General Motors and Chrysler LLC out of bankruptcy.

The defeat of a $14 billion bailout plan in the Senate late Thursday left the administration little choice but to tap the $700 billion bailout approved by Congress in October, the Troubled Asset Relief Program or TARP, according to White House Press Secretary Dana Perino.

Source: http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/12/news/companies/auto_future/index.htm?postversion=2008121209

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Bettie Page, the iconic pinup and cult figure, died yesterday in Los Angeles, at the age of 85. She suffered a heart attack last week and had been in a coma ever since.

Between the years 1949 and 1957, Page was the subject of more than 20,000 pinup photos, many of them dealing with bondage subjects that are today regarded as an important gateway to the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

Source: http://jezebel.com/5108259/pinup-girl-pop-culture-icon-bettie-page-dead-at-85

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Prosecutors in Taiwan have formally indicted ex-President Chen Shui-bian and his wife on corruption charges.

The charges include forgery and money laundering, a spokesman for the prosecutors said.

The 57-year-old former leader has been held in a Taipei jail since 12 November, pending the results of the prosecutors' probe into his affairs.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7778960.stm