In brief: Actor Paul Walker laid to rest
LOS ANGELES – “Fast and Furious” actor Paul Walker was laid to rest Saturday in a private funeral service at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills attended by family and close friends, according to news reports.
Those attending the service included his father, Paul Walker Sr., his mother, Cheryl Walker, and his brothers, Caleb and Cody, according to eonline.com.
Walker and his friend Roger Rodas were killed Nov. 30 when a 600-horsepower 2005 Porsche Carrera GT driven by Rodas, 38, crashed into a concrete light pole and a tree on Hercules Street in Santa Clarita, Calif. Walker, 40, was a passenger in the vehicle.
Walker and Rodas were declared dead at the scene.
Mega Millions prize stays unclaimed
LOS ANGELES – Friday the 13th meant no luck for the countless people across the nation who bought tickets for the Mega Millions jackpot. The $425 million prize went unclaimed and has now grown to $550 million, the fourth-largest jackpot in U.S. lottery history.
The winning numbers Friday were 19, 24, 26, 27 and 70. The Mega Ball number was 12.
Still, nine people won $1 million each for matching up the first five numbers, according to the Mega Millions website Saturday.
Thus far, the highest Mega Millions jackpot was $656 million in March 2012, with three winners in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland.
On Tuesday, people have another shot at winning the giant prize.
Eleven found dead in southern Mexico
MEXICO CITY – Eleven people were found slain Saturday in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, in a rural area riven by political and agrarian disputes, though the motive for the killings was not immediately clear.
The bodies were discovered in the morning in the municipality of Santiago Juxtlahuaca, on the western side of the state, about a six-hour drive southeast of Mexico City. Ten burned bodies were found in a Chevrolet Suburban, and the 11th was found a few yards away with a gunshot wound in the head.
The area has seen violent conflicts over farmland that has left five farmers dead in the last three years.
Chinese and U.S. ships avoid crash
WASHINGTON – U.S. military officials say a Chinese warship nearly collided with an American Navy guided missile cruiser operating in international waters.
U.S. Pacific Fleet says it happened Dec. 5 in the South China Sea, and that the USS Cowpens maneuvered to avoid the collision.
The State Department has raised the matter at a high level with the Chinese government.
The incident comes amid heightened tension over China’s growing assertiveness in the region.
Chile has demands for new president
SANTIAGO, Chile – Michelle Bachelet seems almost certain to win the Chilean presidency today, but she’ll face a dramatically different Chile if she returns to power.
The promise she made to keep her country’s economy stable while pursuing social justice when she took the oath for her first presidential term in 2006 will hardly satisfy citizens now.
Millions of Chileans have marched in the streets after Bachelet left office and want more: electoral, educational and tax reforms, a new constitution, an end to the privatization of water – all vestiges of the 1973-90 dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. Even if Bachelet keeps her promise to raise taxes on the wealthy to fund free education, protesters promise to push for more reforms in her four-year presidential term.
Bachelet is expected to easily defeat former Labor Minister Evelyn Matthei in a runoff election today.