National News Briefs: 12/1/12
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FORT MEADE, Md. -- As a military prosecutor held up a knotted bedsheet in court, Pfc. Bradley Manning acknowledged on Friday that he fashioned a noose and contemplated suicide shortly after his arrest on charges of engineering the biggest leak of classified material in U.S. history.
The pretrial testimony appeared to support the military's argument that it was trying to protect the former Army intelligence analyst from harming himself by taking his clothes, keeping him in isolation and shackling him when he was outside his cell.
Pfc. Manning's lawyers argue that the conditions he endured for nine months at the Quantico, Va., brig was illegal and charges against him should be dropped as a result.
Maj. Ashden Fein held up the peach-colored sheet, displaying a loop in the fabric.
"You made a noose out of this?" he asked Pfc. Manning. "Yes," the soldier said.
Pfc. Manning, 24, said he fashioned the noose while being held in Kuwait soon after he was accused in May 2010 of leaking documents to the website WikiLeaks.
When he was sent to Quan tico in July 2010, he was classified a suicide risk for eight days, then upgraded.
The hearing is expected to continue into the weekend.
CASPER, Wyo. -- A man wielding a sharp-edged weapon killed one person in a Casper neighborhood Friday before killing a male teacher and himself in front of students in a community college classroom, causing a campuswide lockdown.
Police found the suspect and teacher dead at a science building on the Casper College campus. The other victim, a woman, was found in a street two miles away.
PAULSBORO, N.J. -- A freight train derailed early Friday morning on an old railroad bridge, toppling two tanker cars partially into a creek and causing a leak of hazardous gas, officials said.
More than 40 people were being treated at Underwood-Memorial Hospital, most with breathing problems, said spokeswoman Karen Urbaniak.
A tanker containing 25,000 gallons of vinyl chloride was sliced open and some gas spewed into the air.
BOSTON -- Old South Church is considering selling one of its two copies of the first book ever published in British North America.
Church members are scheduled to vote Sunday on whether to sell a copy of the Bay Psalm Book, published in 1640, to assure the financial future of the church, established in 1669.
A Sotheby's executive said it could fetch $10 million to $20 million at auction. Just 11 copies remain.
AKRON, Ohio -- Anthony Michael Hayne, 36, the first defendant to plead guilty in the unsuccessful plot to blow up the 1,100-foot-long state Route 82 bridge, was sentenced Friday in federal court to six years in prison.
No one was hurt in the attempted bombing, which involved fake, military-grade plastic explosives provided by an FBI undercover informant.
First Published December 1, 2012 12:00 am
