USA
Teenage sniper Lee Boyd Malvo, convicted Oct. 14 for his role in the 2002 Washington, D.C.-area killing spree, was formally sentenced to life in prison at a hearing in Chesapeake, Va. Judge Jane Roush upheld the jury's recommendation a day after fellow sniper John Allen Muhammad was sentenced by another Virginia judge to be put to death. Malvo (above) was 17 at the time he and Muhammad terrorized the area with a series of shootings that killed 10 people. Malvo, who was found guilty of shooting FBI analyst Linda Franklin outside a Home Depot in Falls Church, Va., still could face death-sentence charges in Alabama and Louisiana, which are seeking his extradition for his alleged involvement in earlier murders.
In an unusual joint effort of four of the Internet's largest service providers, Microsoft, America Online, Earthlink Inc., and Yahoo! filed lawsuits against hundreds of people accused of sending millions of unwanted e-mails. The suits represent the first major industry action based on new federal antispam legislation that went into effect Jan. 1.
CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate Armed Services Committee that when he believed Bush administration officials were misconstruing intelligence he "said something about it." In testimony Tuesday, he also said he didn't believe the White House had misrepresented facts to justify the war in Iraq.
The day after a basically uncontested sweep of four more Southern primaries, presumed Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry was to meet with ex-rival Howard Dean about a possible endorsement. President Bush, meanwhile, crossed the necessary threshhold of 1,255 delegates in Tuesday's primaries to wrap up the Republican nomination. In Texas, where GOP-led redistricting has been a source of controversy, freshman US Rep. Chris Bell (D) of Houston lost Tuesday's primary. But fellow Democrat Lloyd Doggett, who also was redistricted, held onto his Austin-area seat.
Poor diet and physical inactivity were the second-leading cause - after smoking - of deaths in the US in 2000, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report said. It attributed 16.6 percent of fatalties to obesity, compared to 18.1 percent for smoking.
New images from the orbiting Hubble telescope of the deepest points yet photographed were released by the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. The images show an estimated 10,000 galaxies and capture light that has been streaking through space for more than 13 billion years.
