“New socialism” looming in Venezuela after election
Caracas, Venezuela – Supporters of President Hugo Chavez vowed Monday to accelerate Venezuela’s shift to a “new socialism” after claiming victory in elections that were expected to give pro-Chavez politicians all 167 seats in the National Assembly.
Several of Venezuela’s major opposition parties boycotted the vote Sunday, which had an estimated turnout of 25 percent and is likely to further polarize Venezuelan society. The country has been deeply divided by the leftist leader’s rhetoric, his alliance with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and his efforts to seize unproductive farms for poor farmers, start state-funded cooperatives and expand social programs for the poor.
Official results were still pending Monday, but internal tallies showed Chavez’s party won 114 seats and the remainder went to aligned parties, said Willian Lara, a leader of Chavez’s Fifth Republic Movement party.
That would give the party the needed two-thirds majority to allow it to amend the constitution. Some lawmakers have said they hope to consider a revision to extend term limits for all offices, including the president.
YAZOO CITY, Miss.
Trucker gets death in slaying of family
A jury decided Monday that a truck driver who killed a couple and their toddler son in anger over a lost inheritance should get the death penalty.
Earnest Lee Hargon, 45, was convicted Saturday in the Valentine’s Day 2004 murders of his cousin Michael Hargon, 27, Michael’s wife, Rebecca, 29, and the couple’s son, James Patrick, 4.
The three victims were killed in their home – the father was shot, while the mother and child were strangled. Their bodies were found in a shallow grave nearly 100 miles away about three weeks later.
Prosecutors said Earnest Hargon killed the three because his adoptive father had written him out of his will and replaced him with his cousin.
WASHINGTON
Teen’s math solution earns scholarship
A 16-year-old California boy won a premier high school science competition Monday for his innovative approach to an old math problem that could help in the design of airplane wings.
Michael Viscardi, a senior from San Diego, won a $100,000 college scholarship, the top individual prize in the Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science & Technology.
Viscardi said he has been home-schooled since fifth grade, although he does take math classes at the University of California at San Diego three days a week. His father is a software engineer and his mother, who stays at home, has a doctorate in neuroscience, he said.
FORT WORTH, Texas
Ex-Scout exec gets 8 years in porn case
A former Boy Scouts executive was sentenced Monday to eight years in prison for collecting child pornography from the Internet.
Douglas S. Smith Jr., 62, an executive in the Boy Scouts of America at the time he was charged, pleaded guilty in March to one count of possessing child porn.
U.S. District Judge Terry Means ordered Smith to surrender to prison officials Jan. 9.
In March, Smith acknowledged receiving and sending over the Internet more than 500 images of boys, some younger than age 12, posing nude or engaging in sex acts.
MEXICO CITY
Ousted police chief running for mayor
Mexico’s leftist Democratic Revolution Party has nominated a controversial former Mexico City police chief as its candidate for the capital’s mayorship, the second-most important position in the country after the presidency.
The party selected Marcelo Ebrard over Jesus Ortega, a former Mexican senator, in internal elections held Sunday.
Ebrard was dismissed a year ago from his post as Mexico City police chief after his officers took hours to respond to a mob attack that left two federal agents dead on the southern outskirts of Mexico City.
JERUSALEM
Netanyahu backs strike on Iran nukes
Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in remarks published Monday that he would support a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear program.
Netanyahu’s comments, made in the heat of a campaign for leadership of the hard-line Likud Party, drew criticism from rivals, who accused him of playing politics with the country’s security.
Iranian leaders brushed off the threat, warning that an attack “will have a lot of consequences.”
Israeli leaders have long identified Iran as the nation’s biggest threat. Israel accuses Tehran of supporting Palestinian militant groups and rejects Iran’s claim that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.
Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said in October that Israel must be “wiped off the map.”
MOSCOW
Russia delays launch of U.S. satellite
Russia’s space agency said Monday that it had postponed by one day the launch of a U.S. communications satellite because of a problem in a booster rocket’s control systems, news agencies reported.
A Russian Proton-M rocket was due to have blasted off today from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan carrying a satellite for U.S. company SES Americom.
The AMC-23 satellite will serve customers across the Pacific region, including western North America, East Asia, the South Pacific, Alaska and Hawaii, and provide links to the world’s premier regional satellite systems.
