No federal charges for Zimmerman

No federal charges for Zimmerman

MIAMI

George Zimmerman, the former neighborhood-watch volunteer who fatally shot Trayvon Martin in a 2012 confrontation with the teenager, will not face federal charges, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

The decision, announced in the waning days of Attorney General Eric Holder’s tenure, resolves a case that focused public attention on self-defense laws and became a flashpoint in the national conversation about race two years before the Ferguson, Mo., police shooting.

Zimmerman has maintained that he acted in self-defense when he shot 17-year-old Martin during a confrontation inside a gated community in Sanford, Fla., just outside Orlando. Martin, who was black, was unarmed when he was killed. Zimmerman identifies himself as Hispanic.

Reprieve for errors in health law tax

WASHINGTON

Taxpayers who’ve filed their 2014 returns only to learn that the government provided them with erroneous information on health care subsidies won’t be required to submit corrected returns, the Treasury Department said Tuesday.

The decision amounts to a reprieve from paperwork headaches for an estimated 50,000 early filers, out of a pool of some 800,000 HealthCare.gov customers affected by a tax reporting goof disclosed last week.

The majority who haven’t yet filed their tax returns are still being urged to wait until they receive corrected information from the federal Health and Human Services department.

UK allows embryos from 3 people

LONDON

Britain has become the first country in the world to allow the creation of human embryos from the DNA of three people, a technique intended to help mothers avoid passing on genetically degenerative diseases to their babies.

The bill granting the controversial techniques was passed Tuesday by the House of Lords, after being approved earlier this month by the House of Commons.

4 students arrested in drug injuries

MIDDLETOWN, Conn.

Four Wesleyan University students were arrested Tuesday in connection with a dozen hospitalizations among people who took a party drug known as Molly.

The students were arrested on assorted drug charges, police said. They were suspended from the university, which is based in Middletown.

The charges against the students include possessing a controlled substance, illegally obtaining or supplying drugs, selling a hallucinogen and possessing drug paraphernalia.

Motorist arrested after train crash

OXNARD, Calif.

A commuter train bound for Los Angeles derailed before dawn Tuesday in a fiery collision with an abandoned commercial pickup after the truck’s driver took a wrong turn and got stuck on the tracks.

There was a loud boom and the screech of brakes before three of the train’s five cars toppled over, sending 30 people to hospitals. Four were in critical condition, including the engineer.

Police found the disoriented driver of the demolished Ford F-450 pickup 1.6 miles from the crossing 45 minutes after the crash, said Jason Benites, an assistant chief of the Oxnard Police Department. He was arrested Tuesday afternoon on suspicion of felony hit-and-run, Benites said.

Associated Press