BOSTON

Grandson of Bobby Kennedy may carry on the tradition

A top Massachusetts Democrat said Saturday that one of Robert F. Kennedy’s grandsons is considering carrying on the family’s political tradition by running for the U.S. House of Representatives.

Joseph P. Kennedy III, one of the twin sons of former Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II, may run this fall if Democratic Rep. William Delahunt decides against seeking re-election in his South Shore and Cape Cod district.

Kennedy, 29, ”has been considering it but he hasn’t made a decision,” said the Democrat, who demanded anonymity to speak about conversations with the father and son.

The younger Kennedy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He is a graduate of Stanford University and Harvard Law School who works as a prosecutor in Barnstable County, near his family’s Cape Cod compound.

 

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico

Latest suspect in massacre is a former police officer

Mexico has arrested a third suspect in last month’s massacre of 15 people in the border city of Ciudad Juarez.

Chihuahua state prosecutors say he is a former police officer believed to have worked as a hit man for the Juarez cartel.

A statement Saturday says he confessed to killing at least one victim.

On Jan. 30, armed men blocked off a dead-end street in a working class area and shot up three houses.

Many of the victims were teens with no known cartel ties, and the attack outraged even hardened residents of the violent city across from El Paso, Texas.

Investigators say the gunmen may have acted on mistaken information.

Drug violence killed over 2,300 people last year in Ciudad Juarez.

 

VANCOUVER, British Columbia

Actress Pamela Anderson calls for end to seal hunt

Pamela Anderson sent a letter Saturday to Canada’s prime minister requesting an end to the country’s annual seal hunt.

The Canadian actress and spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals dropped the letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a mailbox in front of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans office.

Anderson called the hunt ”an embarrassment to Canada” at a news conference, saying she made the appeal during the Winter Olympic Games here because ”the whole world is watching Canada.”

Canada’s annual East Coast seal hunt from mid-November to mid-May, mostly in Newfoundland and Labrador and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, is the world’s largest, killing an average of 275,000 harp seals.

The hunt has long been controversial. Animal rights groups believe it is cruel, poorly monitored and provides little economic benefit. Seal hunters and Canadian authorities say it is sustainable, humane and provides income for isolated communities.

 

ISLAMABAD

Suicide bomber kills four in country’s ongoing conflict

A suicide car bomber attacked a police station Saturday in northwestern Pakistan, killing four people and wounding about two dozen, underscoring the continuing security threat as the country’s army battles militants.

Also, a paramilitary commander said his forces had killed 25 militants in another area of the volatile frontier region.

The blast on the police station in Karak in North West Frontier Province also toppled a mosque next door, said Ajmal Khan, a government official. Two police and two civilians were killed, and both police and civilians were among the wounded.

The wounded were transported to a nearby hospital where some were listed in critical condition. TV footage showed the charred skeleton of a vehicle and rescuers removing debris as they looked for survivors.

No one claimed responsibility, but militants have targeted police, security forces and government offices in various parts of Pakistan in recent years to avenge military operations in the country’s tribal regions, which are close to Afghanistan.

 

MILAN

Berlusconi’s corruption trial to go on despite ruling

A panel of judges ruled Saturday that Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s trial on corruption charges will continue, despite a ruling by Italy’s highest appellate court that overturned the conviction of the lawyer the Italian leader allegedly bribed.

The judges rebuffed a bid by Berlusconi’s defense lawyers to suspend the premier’s trial until the high court makes public its reasons in concluding the statute of limitations had run out in the case of David Mills.

The British lawyer was found guilty by Italian courts of accepting a bribe of more than $800,000 to lie in court to protect Berlusconi’s business interests and was sentenced to 41/2 years in prison.

The verdict and sentence were upheld on the first level of appeals, which had said the alleged corruption had taken place in February 2000. The latest ruling on Thursday, however, changed that date to Nov. 11, 1999.

Berlusconi’s lawyer Niccolo Ghedini requested that the trial be suspended until he has time to study the appellate court decision, which must be issued within three months. He said that the reasoning could help determine if the alleged crime occurred even earlier, in 1998.

 

LOS ANGELES

Tour by poet S.A. Griffin figures to be a literal blast

Poetry readings have always been a blast for S.A. Griffin, but the tour that the Los Angeles poet plans this spring may be his most explosive.

The author of such collections as ”Unborn Again” and ”One Long Naked Dance” will be packing his poems inside a Cold War-era bomb and taking them on the road for a five-week cross-country tour, beginning in April.

His plan: bring the bomb to a city near you, dropping rhymes and free verse by the hundreds on audiences everywhere from Oregon to North Carolina and points in between.

Griffin says the idea is to create the constructive from the destructive and get people to pay more attention to poetry.

He found the bomb on Craigslist and bought it for $100.