Lawyer: Toronto mayor to seek help

Lawyer: Toronto mayor to seek help

TORONTO

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford will take a leave of absence to seek help for substance abuse, his lawyer said Wednesday, as a report surfaced about a second video of the mayor smoking what appears to be crack cocaine.

The Globe and Mail newspaper reported it has viewed a second video of Ford smoking what appears to be crack cocaine in his sister’s basement. The national newspaper reported two Globe reporters viewed the video from a self-professed drug dealer showing Ford taking a drag from a pipe early Saturday morning.

The video is part “of a package of three videos the dealer said was surreptitiously filmed around 1:15 a.m., and which he says he is now selling for ‘at least six figures,’” the paper reported.

Resentencing ordered for rape

BILLINGS, Mont.

A former high-school teacher who served one month in prison after being convicted of raping a 14-year-old student faces more time behind bars after the Montana Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that his original sentence was too short.

Justices in a unanimous ruling ordered the case of Stacey Dean Rambold assigned to a new judge for re-sentencing.

The decision means Rambold must serve a minimum of two years in prison under state sentencing laws, Yellowstone County Attorney Scott Twito said.

The high court cited, in part, the inflammatory comments of the sentencing judge, District Judge G. Todd Baugh, who drew wide condemnation for suggesting that the victim shared some responsibility for her rape.

Iraqis go to polls

BAGHDAD

Iraq voted Wednesday in its first nationwide election since U.S. troops withdrew in 2011, with Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki confident of victory and even offering an olive branch to his critics by inviting them to join him in a governing coalition.

But his optimism will do little to conceal the turmoil and violence that still stalk Iraq in the eight years he has been in office, with the looming threat of the country sliding deeper into sectarian bloodshed and risking a breakup.

Oil train derails

LYNCHBURG, Va.

Multiple CSX train cars carrying crude oil derailed and caught fire Wednesday along the James River, with three tankers ending up in the water and leaking some of their contents, becoming the most-recent crash involving oil trains that has safety experts pushing for better oversight.

Nearby buildings were evacuated for a time in downtown Lynchburg, but there were no injuries, authorities said. CSX said the train was on its way from Chicago to an unspecified destination when most of the cars on the train were knocked off the tracks.

Online photos and videos showed large flames and thick, black smoke right after the crash. The fire burned itself out, but authorities were keeping people out of the area.

3 die in attack at China train station

BEIJING

Explosions rocked a railway station Wednesday in China’s far-western minority region of Xinjiang, and assailants slashed at arriving passengers with knives, killing three people and injuring 79 in what state media called a premeditated terrorist attack.

The violence came as President Xi Jinping wrapped up a four-day visit to the area that has witnessed rising violence against civilians and authorities blamed on radical Islamists and separatists.

Associated Press