■ UNITED STATES
Man on bird killing spree
Around 3pm on Friday, several people walking in Battery Park, New York, called 911 to report curious goings-on -- a man driving a Parks Department golf cart was tearing erratically through a city park. As the calls came in, the police said, it emerged that the cart's driving pattern may have been reckless, but it was not without purpose. The driver was apparently trying to run over as many birds as he could. Officers responded, "and over the course of the investigation we uncovered videotape," a Police Department spokesman said. Five birds were killed, the police said, three pigeons and two seagulls. The authorities said the man at the wheel of the golf cart was Martin Hightower, a 45-year-old Parks Department employee. He was arrested and charged with two misdemeanors, reckless endangerment and intentional injury to animals.
■ MEXICO
Migrants hold mass wedding
Nearly 600 Mexican couples tied the knot in a mass Valentine's Day wedding by the US border on Thursday, many of them undocumented migrants who met while working illegally in the US. As a live band blasted out sugary Mexican love songs in the border city of Tijuana, a short walk from the busy San Ysidro crossing to California, a judge simultaneously married a crowd of couples whose ages ranged from 16 to 65. More than three-quarters were migrants returning from, or trying to get into, the US.
■ UNITED STATES
Diplomat HIV rules changed
Under pressure from a lawsuit, the State Department is changing rules that had disqualified HIV-positive people from becoming US diplomats. Effective on Friday, the department removed HIV from a list of medical conditions that automatically prevent foreign service candidates from meeting an employment requirement that they be able to work anywhere in the world. The change was made after consultation with medical experts and in response to a lawsuit filed by an HIV-positive man who was denied entry into the foreign service despite being otherwise qualified, the department said.
■ UNITED STATES
Fossett declared dead
Steve Fossett, the wealthy, record-setting adventurer who for years blithely sailed, soared and drove through all manner of danger before disappearing in September during what was meant to be a routine short flight, was declared dead on Friday by a Chicago court. He was 63, and had homes in Chicago, Beaver Creek, Colorado and Carmel, California. Fossett was declared legally dead by Judge Jeffrey Malak of the Circuit Court of Cook County, said Mary Downie, a lawyer for Fossett's widow.
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