■ TRINIDAD
Not guilty, then guilty
A truck driver got only 10 minutes to celebrate his not-guilty verdict. Kaleel McFarlane had already left the courthouse on Friday when a juror alerted the judge that the foreman meant to say the jury had cleared him of manslaughter, but found him guilty of reckless driving. The judge instructed police to return a puzzled McFarlane back to court, where he sentenced him to four-and-half months in prison. The decision sparked a revolt by McFarlane's relatives inside the courtroom. The reversal would have been illegal had the jury already disbanded, Trinidad senior counsel Israel Khan said on Saturday.
■ IRAQ
Mass grave discovered
A mass grave containing about 100 bodies has been discovered in a region north of Baghdad that has seen years of intense fighting between Shiites and Sunni extremist members of al-Qaeda. The grisly discovery on Saturday came as the Sunni parliament speaker called on Shiites and Kurds to work together with the minority he represents to pass an election law that would help reconcile warring sects and splinter groups. The grave, near Khalis in the Diyala Province about 80km north of Baghdad, is still being investigated, but the US military said the skeletal remains appear to have been there for a long time.
■ UNITED STATES
Four killed in heavy snow
A heavy winter storm walloped the Midwestern state of Ohio with more than 51cm of snow. Four people died after shoveling the heavy snow, authorities said. Snow plows and clean-up crews were to continue working overtime yesterday to dig out of a record-setting snow storm that buried many parts of Ohio and Indiana. Three men in the Cleveland area and one in the Columbus area died on Saturday while shoveling snow or shortly after, authorities said. High winds whipped the snow into 1m-tall drifts in some places and cut visibility to less than half a kilometer, the National Weather Service said.
■ UNITED STATES
Bush at Gridiron Club
President George W. Bush said an early farewell to political Washington, making his first appearance on the stage of the Gridiron Club of Washington journalists. Bush surprised the white-tie audience on Saturday night of more than 600, including Supreme Court justices, Cabinet members and lawmakers, by appearing as the final act of the club's annual revue. To the tune of Green Green Grass of Home, he sang about looking forward to his return to Texas. "As I step down from the plane and there to meet me is my mama and my papa, down the lane I look and here comes Barney, heart of gold and breath like honey," he sang.
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