High court alters sex-offender law

High court alters sex-offender law

COLUMBUS

The Ohio Supreme Court on Thursday threw out sections of a new sex-offender law, saying the Legislature violated the constitution when it forced state officials to change convicts’ classifications.

The ruling means that sex offenders convicted before the law went into effect Jan. 1, 2008, would revert back to the classifications they received under the old Megan’s Law — and potentially be subject to less-stringent registration and notification requirements. The ruling leaves in place the new, tougher requirements for those convicted since.

Texas man faces terrorism charges

WASHINGTON

The Justice Department alleged Thursday in a new terrorism case that a Texas man communicated with the fugitive al-Qaida cleric whose name surfaced in the shootings at Fort Hood.

Court documents say Barry Walter Bujol of Hempstead, Texas, had been communicating via e-mail with Anwar al-Awlaki, a native-born U.S. citizen who exchanged e-mails with the alleged Fort Hood gunman, Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan.

A federal grand jury indictment in Houston alleges that Bujol attempted to supply al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula with personnel, currency and other items.

Peace jirga heads to Taliban talks

KABUL, Afghanistan

After two days of sometimes acrimonious debate, President Hamid Karzai on Thursday looked likely to win a national peace conference’s support for his plan to invite the Taliban to negotiations to try to end Afghanistan’s years of war.

But delegates differed about exactly what to offer, and to whom and when. They argued over whether the top leadership should be welcomed to the negotiating table.

Coleman’s parents seek return of body

SALT LAKE CITY

The estranged parents of former child TV star Gary Coleman are seeking custody of his body and want it returned to the star’s boyhood home in Illinois, his former manager said Thursday.

Coleman died Friday in Utah from a brain hemorrhage at age 42.

His former manager and family spokesman Victor Perillo said Coleman’s parents, Sue and Willie Coleman, are the legal custodians of his body because Coleman was divorced from his wife, Shannon Price, in 2008. It was Price who ordered that Gary Coleman be taken off life support.

Slain activists hailed as martyrs

ISTANBUL

Thousands of mourners hailed activists killed in an Israeli commando mission as martyrs Thursday, hoisting their coffins to cheers of “God is great,” and Turkish leaders said Israel had jeopardized its relationship with its closest Muslim ally despite meeting Ankara’s demand to release the hundreds captured in the raid.

The father of the youngest of the nine activists killed — 19-year-old high school student Furkan Dogan, who had dual U.S.-Turkish citizenship — praised his son for dying in a just cause.

More than 100 die in Bangladesh blaze

DHAKA, Bangladesh

A devastating fire raced through several apartment complexes in the Bangladeshi capital, killing more than 100 people and injuring just as many, local media reported today.

Fire official Nazrul Islam said the blaze started when an electric transformer exploded late Thursday, igniting a three-story apartment building in the Najirabazar area of old Dhaka. He said the blaze then spread to other buildings where 87 charred bodies were later recovered.

Associated Press