South Africa
Police add confusion to Pistorius case
PRETORIA - The prosecution case against Oscar Pistorius began to unravel Wednesday with revelations of a series of police blunders and the lead investigator's admission that authorities have no evidence challenging the double-amputee Olympian's claim he killed his girlfriend accidentally.
Detective Hilton Botha's often confused testimony left prosecutors rubbing their heads in frustration as he misjudged distances and said testosterone - banned for professional athletes in some cases - was found at the scene, only to be later contradicted by the prosecutor's office.
The second day of what was supposed to be a mere bail hearing almost resembled a full-blown trial for the 26-year-old runner, with his lawyer, Barry Roux, tearing into Botha's testimony step by step during cross examination.
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Police, Botha acknowledged, left a 9 mm slug from the barrage that killed Reeva Steenkamp inside a toilet and lost track of illegal ammunition found inside the house. And the detective himself walked through the crime scene without wearing protective shoe covers, potentially contaminating the area.
The bail hearing will continue today.
Bolivia
President unable to meet ailing Chavez
Bolivian President Evo Morales says he wasn't able to meet his cancer-stricken "brother," President Hugo Chavez, during a visit to Venezuela.
Morales said he met Chavez's head doctor and his family Tuesday, and "my understanding is that they are very encouraged." But he added that "there are days where the situation of his health are very difficult, according to information from his ministers."
Puerto Rico
High court denies gays right to adopt
SAN JUAN - Puerto Rico's Supreme Court narrowly voted Wednesday to uphold a law banning gay couples from adopting children.
The 5-4 vote came in the case of an unidentified woman who has sought for the last eight years to adopt a 12-year-old girl who her partner of more than 20 years had through in vitro fertilization. It was the first time that the court heard a case on same-sex adoptions.
The court's opinion comes as Puerto Rican legislators prepare to debate several bills that would extend more rights to gays and lesbians, setting off a heated debate in recent weeks.
Vatican
Some want cardinal from US to stay home
VATICAN CITY - Popular pressure is mounting in the U.S. and Italy to keep California Cardinal Roger Mahony away from the conclave to elect the next pope because of his role in shielding sexually abusive priests, a movement targeting one of the most prominent of a handful of compromised cardinals scheduled to vote next month.
Amid the outcry, Mahony has made clear he is coming, and no one can force him to recuse himself. A Vatican historian also said Wednesday that there is no precedent for a cardinal staying home because of personal scandal.
But the growing grass-roots campaign is an indication that ordinary Catholics are increasingly demanding a greater say in who is fit to elect their pope, and casts a shadow over the upcoming papal election.
Russia
Government wants adopted child returned
MOSCOW - Russia is seeking to repatriate the brother of a 3-year-old boy who died in Texas after being adopted by a U.S. family, less than two months after Moscow banned all adoptions by Americans.
"We have every reason to demand the return of the boy to his homeland," Pavel Astakhov, Russia's ombudsman for children's rights, told reporters in Moscow Wednesday. "If adoptive parents have committed a crime, we are entitled to demand the child come home."
The toddler died Jan. 21 after an alleged fatal beating by his adoptive American mother. He and his 2-year-old brother were adopted at late last year from an orphanage in the Pskov region in the country's northwest.
Wire reports
