Lawyer: Suspect in Patz case mentally ill

Lawyer: Suspect in Patz case mentally ill

NEW YORK

A man who claims to have abducted and strangled Etan Patz, who vanished 33 years ago Friday, has suffered from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and hallucinations, his attorney said as the man had his first court appearance since making his surprise confession a day earlier.

Pedro Hernandez, 51, did not enter a plea to the second-degree murder charge filed earlier Friday. He also did not speak during a hearing that lasted just a few minutes. As his court-appointed attorney, Harvey Fishbein, outlined what he called Hernandez’s “long psychiatric history,” Hernandez sat slumped in a chair, clad in an orange jumpsuit, his hands manacled behind his back.

Texter not liable for driver’s car crash

MORRISTOWN, N.J.

A woman who texted her boyfriend while he was driving cannot be held liable for a car crash he caused while responding, seriously injuring a motorcycling couple, a judge ruled Friday in what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the country.

A lawyer for the injured couple argued that text messages from Shannon Colonna to Kyle Best played a role in the September 2009 wreck in Mine Hill. But Colonna’s lawyer argued she had no control over when or how Best would read and respond to the message.

Activists: Troops kill 50 in Syria

BEIRUT

President Bashar Assad’s forces killed at least 50 civilians, including 13 children, in central Syria on Friday, activists said, in one of the highest death tolls in one specific area since an internationally brokered cease-fire went into effect last month. Syrian troops using tanks, mortars and heavy machine guns pounded the area of Houla, a region made up of several towns and villages in the province of Homs, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees activist groups said.

Churches raise cash to fight gay marriage

PORTLAND, Maine

Scores of Maine churches will pass the collection plate a second time at Sunday services on Father’s Day to kick off a fundraising campaign for the lead opposition group to November’s ballot question asking voters to legalize same-sex marriages.

Between 150 and 200 churches are expected to raise money for the Protect Marriage Maine political- action committee, said Carroll Conley Jr., executive director of the Christian Civic League of Maine evangelical organization and a member of the PAC. Conley also is trying to drum up support for the Maine campaign from religious leaders from around the country.

Climber, 73, felt old at Everest summit

KATMANDU, Nepal

The oldest woman to climb Mount Everest said she finally felt she had gotten old when she scaled the world’s highest peak last weekend.

Tamae Watanabe, 73, beat her own age record for an Everest climb by a woman set 10 years ago. She also recovered from an accident in 2005 in which she broke her back and feared she would never climb again.

“It was much more difficult for me this time,” Watanabe told reporters Friday after returning to Nepal’s capital, Katmandu, from the mountain. “I felt I was weaker and had less power. This time it was certainly different. I felt that I had gotten old.”

She reached Everest’s summit from the Tibetan side May 19, at age 73 years and 180 days.

Combined dispatches