■ United States
Boy faces murder charge
A 13-year-old US schoolboy appeared in court on charges that he murdered a 15-year-old acquaintance who allegedly teased him about his team losing a youth baseball game. The boy is accused of killing teenager Jeremy Rourke with a blow to the head with an aluminum baseball bat on Tuesday after a row broke out in a snack bar line at a baseball field near Los Angeles. If convicted in a juvenile court, the boy could be sentenced to anything between probation to youth incarceration until he is 25.
■ United States
Geffen allows beach access
Colorful movie and music mogul David Geffen has given up a years-long battle to bar the public from the beach in front of his multi-million-dollar compound in the ritzy enclave of Malibu. Ending a three-year dispute with local residents over access to public beaches, the founder of DreamWorks SKG studios handed over the key to locked wooden gates next to his home. California Coastal Commissioner Sara Wan said, "The public will be able to go to the beach in a couple of days. I don't think he had a choice." The case was brought against the billionaire Hollywood mogul by the group Access for All. Geffen has forked over a total US$300,000 dollars in attorneys' fees and in fines.
■ United States
Asian cops file lawsuit
Asian police officers working for Port Authority of New York and New Jersey have been subjected to racial slurs and denied promotions, a federal lawsuit charged. The lawsuit, filed by an Asian police society, accused non-Asian officers in the Port Authority of making derogatory references to Asian food and mocking Asian accents over police radio. "The derogatory remarks and racial slurs against Asian police officers create a hostile work environment and perpetuate prejudice, disparate treatment and employment discrimination against Asian police officers," the lawsuit said. It said anyone who complained was either ignored or faced retaliation. It said no Asian officers were promoted to sergeant from 1996 to January 2001, even though more than a dozen were eligible.
■ Mexico
Human remains unearthed
Construction workers digging a ditch outside a home in an exclusive Ciudad Juarez neighborhood found a skull and a femur and alerted authorities. Police were sent to the scene to determine whether there are remains of other people buried there. The house was uninhabited at least since September when it was put up for sale. Juarez has been plagued by a string of unsolved slayings against women. About 100 killings follow an eerily similar pattern in which young women were sexually assaulted, strangled and dumped in the desert outside the city.
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