Nation in brief: Snoop Dogg gets probation

Rapper and actor Snoop Dogg was sentenced Thursday to three years’ informal probation and ordered to serve 160 hours of community service after agreeing to plead guilty to carrying a police baton in his carry-on luggage while boarding a plane at Orange County’s John Wayne Airport last year.

Under the deal, he cannot work with anti-gang or his youth football programs to fulfill his community service obligation because Orange County prosecutors did not want him to be able to do something he enjoys or to be “glorified in the eyes of children,” said Deputy District Attorney Andre Manssourian.

The deal was struck on the same day a preliminary hearing was to begin to determine if there was enough evidence to bring the artist, whose real name is Calvin Broadus, to trial.

South Charleston, W.Va.

Man selling pot messages police

A man who thought he was asking a friend about a drug deal instead sent a text message to the state police and was arrested, authorities said.

Joshua Wayne Cadle, 19, allegedly sent the message Wednesday to a phone number that used to belong to an unidentified friend. The number is now held by the state police, Trooper B.H. Moore said Thursday.

“He text messaged that and asked his friend if he wanted to buy some reefer,” Moore said.

Another trooper who received the message responded and set up a meeting. Moore arrested Cadle on Wednesday night in the parking lot of a shopping center in South Charleston.

Washington

Agriculture secretary resigns

President Bush announced the resignation Thursday of Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns and immediately offered support for his anticipated campaign for a Senate seat from Nebraska.

“If it’s Mike’s decision and Nebraska’s choice, he would make an outstanding member of the United States Senate,” Bush said Thursday, while announcing that Johanns had resigned as head of the Agriculture Department.

Deputy Agriculture Secretary Charles Conner has taken over as acting secretary.

Johanns, a former Republican governor of Nebraska, is expected to seek the Senate seat being vacated at the end of next year by Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel.

Johanns drew immediate criticism from congressional Democrats for leaving the Agriculture Department in the middle of negotiations on the farm bill.