■ United States
Pakistani pleads not guilty
A Pakistani man who was arrested in July after the Charlotte police saw him videotaping buildings downtown pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to six offenses unrelated to terrorism. Federal prosecutors say the man, Kamran Akhtar, lied to the authorities about his name and his immigration status, possessed false identification, and refused to leave the country after he was denied asylum in 1997. Tapes in Akhtar's possession included images of buildings and transit systems in Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and New Orleans, and the building in Charlotte where the FBI office is located.
■ United States
Felons need approval to vote
About 600 felons who have lost their voting rights must write a letter to the state seeking permission to reregister to vote, provide three personal references, and gain approval from a prosecutor, according to new rules approved by Governor Ernie Fletcher. The felons must meet an Oct. 4 deadline in order to vote in the November general election. Voting rights advocates say the new rules unfairly single out members of minorities and the poor, but Fletcher, a Republican, said he believed felons should explain why they deserved to regain their voting rights.
■ United States
Alzheimer sufferer kills wife
An 88-year-old Queens County man with Alzheimer's disease stabbed his 80-year-old wife and beat her to death with a broomstick on Tuesday morning, the police said. One of the couple's sons entered their basement apartment, on 28th Avenue near 146th Street in College Point, around noon after no one answered the telephone, and found his father, Vincenzo Pizzurro, beating his mother, Francesca Pizzurro, on the head, a law enforcement official said. She was taken to hospital, where she was pronounced dead. Pizzurro appeared to be extremely disoriented, perhaps unaware of what he had done, the official said.
■ United States
Dinosaurs not so bad: report
Dinosaurs may not all have been the terrifying creatures portrayed in blockbuster films but could have had a more caring, loving nature. A fossil found in China of a Psittacosaurus, a small dinosaur that lived about 110 million years ago, shows it may have been a doting parent, scientists said yesterday. "This is a nice, straightforward example of parental care in dinosaurs," said David Varricchio of Montana State University in Bozeman. The fossil was found last year and shows a single adult dinosaur clustered with 34 youngsters. Varricchio and scientists in China and Taiwan said the dinosaurs could have been buried by volcanic ash or trapped by a collapsed underground burrow.
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