In brief: Weiner gets into altercation with fellow bakery customer

New York – Ex-congressman and struggling mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner said Wednesday a video showing him in a shouting match with a bakery customer is just an example of him putting a heckler in his place.

The 2-minute video shows Weiner, surrounded by reporters and campaign supporters in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of Borough Park, going back inside the bakery after someone yells, “Scumbag!”

A clearly annoyed Weiner, his mouth full of honey cake, turns around and yells at the man.

“Yeah?” Weiner says. “It takes one to know one, jackass.”

Weiner, who quit Congress in 2011 after a sexting scandal, and the man then confront each other inside the bakery as onlookers take photos.

“You did disgusting things … you have the nerve to even walk around in public,” the man tells Weiner.

“Oh, yeah? And you’re a perfect person? You’re my judge?” Weiner responds. “What rabbi taught you that?”

Weiner, once a front-runner among the Democratic candidates for mayor, was in the neighborhood greeting voters ahead of the Sept. 10 primary. Support for his campaign has collapsed amid a new sexting scandal similar to the one that forced him to resign from Congress. Polls show Weiner is now a distant fourth among the Democratic candidates seeking to replace independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who’s serving the last of three consecutive terms.

Weiner, who’s Jewish, was buying sweet cake at the bakery ahead of the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashana, which began Wednesday at sundown.

Marijuana grow eliminated as cause of Yosemite wildfire

Yosemite National Park, Calif. – There was no evidence of an illegal marijuana grow near the spot where a raging wildfire started near Yosemite National Park, a federal forestry official said Wednesday.

Investigators have ruled out the illicit activity as a potential cause, ending speculation by a local fire chief that the gardens that plague federal land could be to blame.

Jerry Snyder of the U.S. Forest Service said that the steep and inaccessible canyon where the Rim Fire started Aug. 17 in the Stanislaus National Forest doesn’t have a water source that growers look for when they set up remote gardens.

“The lead investigator says there’s no evidence of any type of grow in the area where the fire started,” Snyder said.

Snyder also said lightning isn’t to blame. It could take months for investigators to determine what ignited the blaze that has consumed more than 370 square miles of Sierra Nevada forests.

Texas high school stabbing leaves one dead, three injured

Spring, Texas – A fight inside a Houston-area high school escalated into a series of stabbings Wednesday that left a 17-year-old student dead and three others wounded, sheriff’s officials said.

The stabbings happened during a fight between several students in a school corridor. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office said 17-year-old student Luis Alonzo Alfaro pulled a knife during the fight and fatally stabbed one student and wounded three others.

Alfaro admitted to the stabbing under questioning by sheriff’s homicide detectives and was charged with murder, the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement released Wednesday evening.

Authorities provided few details on what may have led to the fight.

“We believe a confrontation of some sort occurred … that ultimately led into a physical confrontation that produced weapons,” Sheriff Adrian Garcia said. “There has been some information that this may have been gang related.”

School district officials canceled classes at the high school for the rest of the week.