NAIROBI, Kenya

Man cleared of having his wife killed on honeymoon

A judge in Cape Town, South Africa, on Monday threw out murder charges against a British businessman accused of conspiring to kill his wife on their honeymoon. Deputy Judge Jeanette Traverso said the evidence fell short of what was required to prove that Shrien Dewani was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The prosecution alleged that Dewani hired a hit man to stage a fake hijacking and kill his new wife, Anni, in the Western Cape province township of Gugulethu in 2010. The couple were in a taxi when it was hijacked, and Anni Dewani was shot dead, her body left in the car.

CAIRO

Security forces arrest 25 as crackdown on gays continues

Egyptian security forces raided a bath house and arrested 25 men suspected of homosexuality, dragging them naked out of the building in downtown Cairo, an official said Monday.

The raid is part of an ongoing crackdown on gay men and comes after an Egyptian court last month convicted eight men on charges of “inciting debauchery” following their appearance in an alleged same-sex wedding party on a Nile boat, sentencing each to three years imprisonment.

Egyptian law does not explicitly prohibit consensual same-sex relations but prosecutes and imprisons gay men on charges such as “debauchery” and “shameless public acts.”

TAYLOR, Mich.

Authorities say postal worker stole out of boredom

Federal authorities say a Detroit-area postal employee accused of stealing as many as 2,000 pieces of mail said she did so out of boredom.

Sharon Berrien is accused of pocketing any cash from the mail and dumping the leftovers along Interstate 94. Most of the items were greeting cards.

Berrien was charged Monday with stealing mail while working at a Detroit mail processing center.

NEW YORK, N.Y.

Guard charged with killing homeless ex-Marine in cell

A guard at a troubled unit for the mentally ill at the New York City jail on Rikers Island has been arrested and charged in connection with the death of a homeless ex-Marine in a 101-degree cell, officials said Monday.

Carol Lackner, who was arraigned and released on her own recognizance, faces up to four years in prison if convicted on the 26 counts relating to the death of Jerome Murdough in February. Murdough died from hyperthermia due to exposure to extreme heat, according to the New York medical examiner’s office. Lackner, 35, faces multiple counts of falsifying business records and official misconduct for writing in a logbook that she toured the special unit every 30 minutes. Video from the jail did not show any such visits, prosecutors allege.

GAITHERSBURG, Md.

Private jet slams into house, kills mother and two children

A small, private jet crashed into a house in Maryland’s Montgomery County on Monday, killing a woman and her young sons inside the home and three people on the aircraft, authorities said. The jet slammed into the home around 11 a.m. in Gaithersburg, a Washington, D.C., suburb, Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Chief Steve Lohr said during a news conference.

Authorities quickly said all three people in the plane had been killed but it took hours for them to sweep the home and confirm that three people were inside when the plane crashed. They were later identified as a woman and her two sons, a month-old infant and a 3-year-old, said Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger.