■MEXICO
Crystal meth seized
The army says it seized almost 8 tonnes of crystal methamphetamine at a clandestine drug lab in the western state of Michoacan. The Defense Department said in a statement on Tuesday that soldiers found the drugs in a raid on an apparently abandoned building near the town of Ziracuaretiro on Monday. Soldiers also found barrels, pots and beakers apparently used to process the drug.
■UNITED STATES
Beauty keeps crown
Miss California USA Carrie Prejean can retain her crown after questions arose about semi-nude photographs taken of her as a teenager and her association with an anti-gay marriage group, pageant owner Donald Trump said Tuesday. “We’ve reviewed the pictures carefully,” Trump said at a packed news conference at Trump Plaza in New York City. “We’ve made a determination that the pictures taken were acceptable. Some were risque, but we are in the 21st century.” Before competing in the Miss California USA competition, all prospective contestants are required to sign a detailed 12-page contract prohibiting Miss California USA from making personal appearances, giving interviews or making commercials without permission from pageant officials and asking if they have ever been photographed nude or partially nude.
■MEXICO
Police defend conviction
Police said on Tuesday that a suspected kidnapper told them French citizen Florence Cassez not only participated in abductions, but helped lead the gang that carried them out. Cassez is serving a 60-year term for kidnapping. She was convicted largely on testimony from victims, but police said they captured David Orozco Hernandez on Monday, and that he confessed to having participated in kidnappings along with Cassez and her Mexican boyfriend, Israel Vallarta. Cassez, 34, has acknowledged that she lived at the ranch outside Mexico City where three of the kidnap victims were held. But she said she was simply dating a Mexican arrested in the case and did not know the people at the ranch had been kidnapped.
■UNITED STATES
Clean-up clears office
A California office worker cleaning a refrigerator full of rotten food created a smell so noxious that it sent seven co-workers to the hospital and made many others ill. Firefighters had to evacuate the AT&T building in San Jose on Tuesday after the fumes led someone to call emergency services. A hazardous materials team was called in. Authorities say an enterprising office worker had decided to clean the fridge out, placing the food in a conference room while using two cleaning chemicals to scrub down the mess. The mixture of old lunches and disinfectant caused 28 people to need treatment for vomiting and nausea. The worker who cleaned the fridge didn’t need treatment — she can’t smell because of allergies.
■PERU
Protesters block supplies
Protesters upset over oil and natural gas developments in the resource-rich Amazon are threatening to choke energy supplies in the north of the country, Environmental Minister Antonio Brack said on Tuesday. Some communities in the central regions of Loreto, Amazonas, Ucayali and Cuzco have been demonstrating for weeks, demanding the government revoke decrees aligning national laws with a recently signed free-trade pact with the US. Protesters fear the new rules make it easier for foreign companies to control land, especially in the Amazon rain forest.
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