Man pleads guilty to 49th murder

Man pleads guilty to 49th murder

SEATTLE

One of the nation’s most prolific killers pleaded guilty Friday to killing a 49th person.

Gary Ridgway already is serving 48 life terms at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. He entered his plea on a murder charge at the King County Regional Justice Center in Kent, a Seattle suburb.

Ridgway, who has been dubbed the Green River Killer, confessed killing Rebecca “Becky” Marrero in 1982 as part of a 2003 plea deal that spared him the death penalty.

Ridgway, who was a commercial truck painter, has been convicted of 48 murders and confessed to or been suspected of dozens more. Several victims were dumped in or posed along the Green River.

Facebook adds civil-unions option

NEW YORK

Facebook has added civil unions and domestic partnerships to the list of relationships that its users can choose from to best describe their romantic status.

The world’s largest online social network also gives its users the option to list themselves as single, married, in an open relationship or “it’s complicated,” among others.

The option for civil unions or domestic partnerships is available only to Facebook users in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France and Australia, says the nonprofit Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which has been among the groups working with Facebook to add the options.

Al-Qaida message on Egypt uprising

CAIRO

Al-Qaida’s deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, issued the terror network’s first message since the upheaval began in Egypt, saying the country’s rule long has “deviated from Islam” and warning that democracy “can only be nonreligious.”

The wave of popular protests that ousted Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, appeared to have caught al-Qaida off guard. The terror group long had called for the destruction of Mubarak’s regime — and al-Zawahri, an Egyptian doctor, was part of a militant uprising against Mubarak in the 1990s that was crushed.

But the demonstrations were led by secular, liberal activists calling for greater democracy — in stark contrast to the Islamic state that al-Zawahri and al-Qaida call for.

Being bilingual can delay Alzheimer’s

WASHINGTON

Mastering a second language can pump up your brain in ways that seem to delay getting Alzheimer’s disease later on, scientists said Friday.

Never learned to habla or parlez? Though the new research focuses mostly on the truly long-term bilingual, scientists say even people who tackle a new language later in life stand to gain.

The more proficient you become, the better, but “every little bit helps,” said Ellen Bialystok, a psychology professor at York University in Toronto.

Afghan soldier kills 3 German troops

PUL-E-KHUMRI, Afghanistan

German soldiers, just back from patrol, already had started shedding their heavy body armor when shots rang out Friday at their coalition base in northern Afghanistan. An Afghan soldier, a man they thought was on their side, was spraying them with bullets at close range.

The shooter was gunned down, but not before he killed three German soldiers and wounded six others in a tragic shooting that highlights the challenges of trying to train Afghan security forces so foreign troops can go home.

Associated Press