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First Posted: 3/21/2013
BEIRUT
Pro-Assad preacher killed
A suicide bombing tore through a mosque in the Syrian capital Thursday, killing a top Sunni Muslim preacher and longtime supporter of President Bashar Assad along with at least 13 other people.
The assassination of Sheikh Mohammad Said Ramadan al-Buti removes one of the few remaining pillars of support for the Alawite leader among the majority sect that has risen up against him. The powerful explosion struck as al-Buti, an 84-year-old cleric and religious scholar who appeared often on TV, was giving a religious lesson in the Eman Mosque in the central Mazraa district of Damascus, according to state TV.
NEW YORK
Hit-run suspect enters plea
A driver pleaded not guilty to three counts of manslaughter on Thursday in a crash that killed a pregnant woman and her husband. The couple’s premature baby was delivered after the wreck but died as well.
Julio Acevedo also pleaded not guilty Thursday to criminally negligent homicide. A lesser charge, announced earlier this month, accuses him of leaving the scene of the accident in Brooklyn. He could face up to life in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors say Acevedo was traveling nearly 70 miles per hour — more than twice the speed limit — on March 3 when he crashed into a hired car carrying Nachman and Raizy Glauber, who were on their way to a hospital because she wasn’t feeling well.
PHILADELPHIA
Cops: Mom enlists daughter in fight
A woman who had been banned from an Upper Darby dollar store doused store employees with pepper spray as they tried to escort her out on Monday, and when they tackled her to the ground, she gave the spray can to her 7-year-old daughter and told her to finish the fight, police said.
” ‘You know what to do, baby. Spray it!’ ” Delaina Garling allegedly told her daughter.
The store manager was able to wrestle Garling to the ground, where she continued to spray the workers, Upper Darby Police Superintendent Michael Chitwood said. The girl never shot the pepper spray, and the manager held Garling to the ground until police arrived, he said.
BETHLEHEM, Pa.
Body spray sends teen home
An eastern Pennsylvania teenager whose allergic reaction to body spray prompted officials at his high school to ask students to stop using the fragrance is now being taught at home.
Freedom High School in Bethlehem this week asked students to stop using Axe Body Spray as a cologne or fragrance due to a student’s allergic reaction.
On Wednesday, Rosa Silk told WFMZ-TV the student who suffered the reaction was her son, 15-year-old Brandon Silk. The freshman says his throat started to close after breathing in the smell. In the span of nine days, the family says his throat closed three times and he had to be rushed to the hospital.
For now, he’s being taught at home.
Unilever, which makes Axe, says it is looking into the report.