■ United states
Lennon killer denied parole
Mark Chapman, the man who shot and killed John Lennon in 1980, was denied parole on Tuesday for the third time, the New York State Parole Board said. The panel of three Parole Board members at Attica state prison wrote that a release of Chapman, 49, would "significantly undermine respect for the law," because he had demonstrated "extreme malicious intent" when he fired a revolver at Lennon outside his Manhattan apartment building on Dec. 8, 1980. Chapman first requested parole in October 2000. He was sentenced to 20 years to life in 1981 for the shooting, which devastated music fans throughout the world.
■ United States
No bail for `regretful' Gotti
Rejecting a lawyer's argument that his client now prefers writing children's books to extortion and racketeering, a federal judge on Tuesday denied bail for John Gotti, prince of the Gambino crime family, who is accused of trying to murder Curtis Sliwa, the New York radio talk show host, 12 years ago. "He's done with organized crime, and he's made it impossible to go back to it," said Gotti's lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, citing jailhouse conversations secretly recorded by the government. On the tapes, Gotti is heard cursing the violent life he said his family had imposed on him, according to an affidavit describing the conversations. "I am ashamed of who I am; I'd rather be a Latin King," he said, referring to the notorious Hispanic street gang.
■ Mexico
Leftists storm Congress
Mexican leftists defending the embattled mayor of Mexico City stormed the nation's lower house of Congress on Tuesday to protest a plan to cut federal education funding for the city. Dozens of Mexican leftists, mostly Mexico City legislators from the Party of the Democratic Revolution, seized the dais to protest a proposal by the two biggest parties to cut federal funding to capital city schools. Demonstrators, many of whom got into shoving matches with federal legislators trying to remove them from the podium, still held their positions late into the night on Tuesday.
■ Brazil
Powell woos president
US Secretary of State Colin Powell, stepping up courtship of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, said on Tuesday that the US had no concerns that Brazil was planning to develop nuclear weapons, despite the country's resistance to allowing international inspectors greater access to one of its nuclear reactors. Powell also said that Brazil's contributions to peacekeeping in Haiti and other actions made it worthy of permanent membership on the UN Security Council.
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