In brief: McCain, 80, plans to run for re-election
Phoenix – Sen. John McCain announced Tuesday that he will run for re-election in 2016, making official a move that has been widely expected for the Republican as he looks to extend his nearly three-decade career in the Senate.
McCain will be 80 by Election Day, but says he is in great shape and has much work to do in the Senate.
“I work 16-hour days. Look at what I’ve done for Arizona and America,” he told the Associated Press. “Make your own judgment.”
McCain is a former prisoner of war during the Vietnam War who was first elected to the Senate in 1986, succeeding longtime conservative stalwart Barry Goldwater. He ran for president in 2000 and secured the Republican Party’s nomination in 2008, losing to Barack Obama.
Bombing jury sends questions to court
Boston – After deliberating for more than seven hours Tuesday, a federal jury in the capital murder trial of Russian immigrant Dzhokhar Tsarnaev adjourned for the day without reaching a verdict and will return this morning to continue considering the fate of the lone defendant in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing.
Jurors sent two questions to the court at the end of the day. U.S. District George A. O’Toole Jr. did not reveal the questions or characterize them in any way. Instead, he said he would meet with prosecutors and defense lawyers to discuss the questions.
A panel of seven women and five men was chosen to hear the case. Tsarnaev faces 30 counts, 17 of which could carry the death penalty.
‘Dukes of Hazzard’ Sheriff Coltrane dies
Raleigh, N.C. – Prolific character actor James Best, best known for playing the giggling and inept Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on “The Dukes of Hazzard,” has died. He was 88.
His wife of 29 years, Dorothy Best, said that Best died Monday night from complications of pneumonia.
Best starred on the television series that ran from 1979 to 1985. He was the lawman futilely chasing the Duke boys, often in the company of his droopy-faced basset hound Flash.
During a wide-ranging career of several decades, he also acted in movies including “The Caine Mutiny” and “Rolling Thunder,” and he appeared on television shows including “Gunsmoke” and “The Andy Griffith Show.”