Bristol Palin gets diploma

Bristol Palin gets diploma

WASILLA, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin’s oldest daughter is now a high school graduate.

Palin family spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton says 18-year-old Bristol Palin received her Wasilla High School diploma Thursday night at a ceremony with her fellow classmates at the Wasilla Sports Complex.

The teenager gave birth in December to son Tripp but has since separated from Levi Johnston, the boy’s father.

She is now a Teen Ambassador for The Candie’s Foundation, an organization devoted to educating teenagers about the consequences of teen pregnancy.

Brown offers apology, rebuke in spending scandal

LONDON — Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Saturday that any lawmakers in his party who is found to have broken rules regarding their expense accounts must leave his government.

In an article he wrote for a London newspaper, Brown offered what amounted to a public apology and a strongly worded rebuke of his own governing Labour Party regarding a deepening scandal about questionable expense-account claims that have been made by British legislators in the top three parties.

On Friday, the Labour Party suspended a second member of Parliament for claiming reimbursement for nonexistent mortgage payments.

Police seek ID of boy buried in playground

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An autopsy was conducted Saturday on the body of an unidentified small child found buried in the sand of a public-park playground, as investigators looked for the boy’s parents or guardian.

The body was discovered Friday by a woman who had taken her own children to the city’s Alvarado Park and spotted a shoe sticking out of the sand.

Police renewed their call for the public’s help Saturday in finding the 3- to 5-year-old boy’s family and learning how he ended up buried in the playground sand.

“No one has stepped forward as parent, guardian or caretaker or any other relationship with this child,” police spokesman John Walsh said Saturday. “Anybody who has seen or heard of any, anything, involving a child in that area, we want them to call us.”

Gang frees 53 prisoners

MEXICO CITY — An armed gang freed more than 50 inmates from a prison in central Mexico on Saturday — including two dozen with ties to a powerful drug cartel — in a daring raid that took just five minutes, a state governor said.

The prison director, 40 guards and two police commanders who were on duty at the Cieneguillas prison in Zacatecas state were detained for questioning, according to Gov. Amalia Garcia Medina. She said footage from the security cameras inside and outside the prison indicates that guards helped the armed gang, although she did not provide details.

About 20 gunmen arrived at the prison before dawn in 10 vehicles and freed 53 prisoners, including at least 27 with ties to the Gulf cartel, she said.

Gay-rights activists demonstrate in Moscow

MOSCOW — Riot police broke up several gay-rights demonstrations in Moscow on Saturday, hauling away scores of protesters hours before the capital hosted a major international pop music competition.

Activists had targeted Moscow, which was holding the finals of the Eurovision song contest, hoping to use the event’s global popularity to draw attention to their claims that Russia officially sanctions homophobia.

Led by a mayor who describes homosexuality as “satanic,” city officials had warned they would not tolerate marches or rallies supporting the rights of gays and lesbians.

Alaska rocked by quakes

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska’s Kodiak Island is being slammed by a swarm of earthquakes — one with a magnitude of at least 5.9.

Richard Buckmaster, a geophysicist at the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo., says the southeast region of the island was hit Saturday by 20 earthquakes with magnitudes of 2.6 or greater.

He says the 5.9-magnitude quake is expected to be upgraded to 6.1.

The quakes are centered southeast of Old Harbor, but there have been no reports that they’ve been felt.

The earthquakes follow two light quakes that struck the same area less than an hour apart Friday.

Buckmaster says the area is seismically active because the Pacific and North American plates intersect along the island and neighboring Aleutian Islands chain.

Associated Press