Colombian rebel raid kills 15; first major attack since 2002

Bogota, Colombia

A leftist guerrilla raid on a remote Colombian navy base that killed 15 people and wounded about 25 on Tuesday was the first major rebel attack since President Alvaro Uribe launched a powerful military offensive in 2002.

Helicopter gunships, patrol boats and the heavily armed, slow-flying aircraft known as “ghost” planes were chasing the 200 members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, who staged the attack, navy officers said.

They said the rebels fired devastatingly powerful homemade mortar bombs – fashioned from cooking-gas containers like those in barbecues – at a navy river base in the western Iscuande section of Narino province, about 350 miles southwest of Bogota.

Among the dead were several marines and so-called “peasant soldiers,” troops who serve in specific rural areas, usually where they grew up.

The attack was FARC’s largest and deadliest since 2002, when the hard-line Uribe ordered his military to launch Plan Patriota, an unprecedented offensive against FARC targets in southeastern Colombia involving 15,000 troops.

The military has boasted that the operation so far was a huge success, reporting more than 200 rebel deaths, 400 captures and thousands of desertions. But the latest attack showed FARC still retains some force.

Canada mulls same-sex marriage bill

Toronto Canada’s government introduced a bill Tuesday to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, describing it as crucial protection for minorities despite deep divisions over the issue in parliament and among citizens.

“The government cannot, and should not, pick and choose which rights they will defend and which rights they will ignore,” Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said at a news conference in Ottawa after presenting the bill. “I appreciate the concern, sometimes even the anguish, that some Canadians feel.”

Opinion polls show that Canada’s population is almost evenly split, with a slight majority supporting same-sex marriage.

Prime Minister Paul Martin said because courts have allowed gay marriage in eight of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories, the government should ensure there is no discrimination against gays in remaining areas of the country. The new legislation defines marriage as a civil union between two people, as opposed to the current definition of marriage between a man and a woman.

California AG joins anti-logging suits

Sacramento, Calif. California’s attorney general joined environmental groups Tuesday in suing the federal government to block its plan to manage 11.5 million acres of Sierra National Forest, which calls for increased logging.

The lawsuits argue there is no scientific justification for the Forest Service to change a plan for managing the forest that was approved in the final days of the Clinton administration.

“Their plan will increase harvesting between 470 percent (in the first decade of the plan) and 640 percent (in the second decade). I think that’s their goal,” Attorney General Bill Lockyer alleged.

In a teleconference with reporters, Lockyer and several environmentalists took particular exception to a provision that would allow the federal government to cut trees up to 30 inches in diameter.

Jim Lyons, a professor at Yale University and former agriculture undersecretary under President Clinton, said larger trees are more fire-resistant and provide key wildlife habitat.

Forest Service spokesman Matt Mathes said harvesting larger trees would help pay to clear out smaller brush and trees that are fire hazards.

Trainer fatally trampled by elephants

Fort Wayne, Ind. Elephants being loaded onto a truck trampled a circus animal trainer to death after the man fell down inside the trailer, authorities said.

Pierre Spenle, 40, was trying to leave the trailer after the circus Monday when a security bar he was holding on to gave way, Coroner Jon Brandenberger said. More than one of the three Asian elephants – each weighing more than 7,000 pounds – then stomped on him, the coroner said.

“Once he’s on the floor, animal trainers will tell you, he’s no longer the trainer. He’s another object as if he were a basketball or whatever thrown in among the elephants’ feet,” Brandenberger said.

The coroner said the elephants likely began stepping on him out of curiosity, not out of aggressiveness.

The accident happened in the parking lot as the circus was packing up after performing in the Fort Wayne Mizpah Shrine temple’s annual circus.

Larry Solheim, general manager of Tarzan Zerbini Circus, said Tuesday that the trainer, from Plantersville, Texas, had been working with the elephants for 18 years.

He said the animals were being taken to an undisclosed location where they will be monitored. Whether they will return to the circus depends on an investigation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Indiana Department of Labor, Solheim said.

Man dies after nine stun-gun shocks

Toledo, Ohio A county inmate died after being shocked nine times with a stun gun, authorities said Tuesday.

Jail officers used a Taser gun four times to subdue Jeffrey Turner, 41, after he banged repeatedly on a security window of a first floor cell Monday night, Lucas County jail administrator Rick Keller said.

He had been shocked five times while being arrested on charges of loitering, resisting arrest and obstructing official business, police said.

Keller said Turner was still responsive after he was shocked the final time. A few minutes later, however, a jail nurse was called. Turner was later pronounced dead at a hospital. The county coroner’s office said Tuesday an initial autopsy on the cause of death was inconclusive.

Hospital bag held amputated leg

Center Moriches, N.Y.

A man expecting to find his recently deceased father’s belongings opened a plastic bag sent to him by a funeral home and discovered an amputated human leg.

Christopher Runyan received the bag Monday from Sinnickson’s Moriches Funeral Home, which handled the funeral of his father, Paul, 77, who died last week.

Runyan said a foul odor was coming from the bag, and he opened it and discovered the leg.

“The stench that came out almost knocked me over,” Runyan told the Daily News. “I turned totally white.”

The funeral home had received the bag from the hospital, and Lee W. Sinnickson said in a statement that it is the policy of his funeral home “not to open the contents of a decedent’s personal effects.”

Suffolk County police Sgt. George Kelly said Tuesday that investigators determined that the leg belonged to a patient who died Jan. 13. “We believe it was just a case of human error,” Kelly said.

Central Suffolk Hospital spokeswoman Nancy Uzo said Tuesday the case would be investigated, but she would not say how the error may have happened, citing patient confidentiality rules.