Tucson survivors note 6-month mark
PHOENIX - Survivors of the Tucson shootings gathered Friday to remember the rampage six months ago by thanking those who helped save their lives and remembering those who didn't survive.
A group gathered Friday morning for a brief ceremony in the parking lot of the grocery store where a gunman opened fire Jan. 8, killing six people and wounding 13 others, including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D., Ariz.). The ceremony included an emotional moment of silence, and firefighters raised an enormous American flag recovered from the site of the World Trade Center after 9/11.
Giffords' husband, Mark Kelly, reflected on the shooting with a Facebook post that said his wife "continues to show strength and resilience."
The man charged in the shooting, Jared Lee Loughner, has pleaded not guilty to 49 charges. He has been at a Missouri prison facility since a judge declared him mentally incompetent to stand trial. - AP
3 Somalis charged in yacht killings
NORFOLK, Va. - Three suspected Somali pirates were charged Friday with murder in the slayings of four Americans aboard a hijacked yacht off Africa in February.
Ahmed Muse Salad, Abukar Osman Beyle, and Shani Nurani Shiekh Abrar could face the death penalty if convicted. They are among 14 men who were charged with piracy, kidnapping and weapons violations in the hijacking of the yacht Quest. Eleven of those men have already pleaded guilty to piracy, though prosecutors have said none of those men shot at the Americans.
The murder charges were among several new counts returned by a grand jury that carry the possibility of the death penalty. The Quest's owners, Jean and Scott Adam of Marina del Rey, Calif., along with friends Bob Riggle and Phyllis Macay of Seattle, were shot to death days after being taken hostage several hundred miles south of Oman. - AP
Elsewhere:
Wisconsin on Friday became the 49th state to legalize the carrying of concealed weapons. Only Illinois doesn't allow it.
The former director of a historic black cemetery south of Chicago was convicted in a money-making scheme that involved digging up bodies and reselling plots. Carolyn Towns, 51, was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
