Tsarnaev lawyers start laying out case

Tsarnaev lawyers start laying out case

BOSTON

Prosecutors rested their case against Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Monday after jurors in his federal death-penalty trial saw gruesome autopsy photos and heard a medical examiner describe the devastating injuries suffered by an 8-year-old boy killed in the 2013 terror attack.

But Tsarnaev’s lawyers began their defense by quickly trying to show that his older brother was the mastermind of the plan to detonate pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the famous race.

Pharmacists group discourages giving execution drugs

SAN DIEGO

A leading association for U.S. pharmacists adopted a policy Monday that discourages its members from providing drugs for use in lethal injections — a move that could make carrying out such executions even harder for states with the death penalty.

The declaration approved by American Pharmacists Association delegates at their annual meeting in San Diego this year says the practice of providing lethal-injection drugs is contrary to the role of pharmacists as health care providers.

The association lacks legal authority to bar its members from selling execution drugs, but its policies set pharmacists’ ethical standards.

Guinea shuts border to try to end Ebola

CONAKRY, Guinea

Guinea closed its border with Sierra Leone on Monday as part of new efforts to stamp out Ebola, an official said.

The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed more than 10,300 people, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Liberia currently has no Ebola patients, and Sierra Leone has seen a fairly steady decline in cases in recent weeks. But the disease remains stubbornly entrenched in Guinea more than a year after the outbreak started.

Agents charged with digital-currency theft

SAN FRANCISCO

Two former federal agents were charged with fraud in the theft of digital currency during an investigation into an online black market known as Silk Road that let users buy and sell drugs and other illegal items, authorities said Monday.

Former U.S. Secret Service special agent Shaun W. Bridges, 32, of Laurel, Md., appeared in federal court in San Francisco but didn’t enter a plea.

He has been charged with wire fraud and money laundering. He was later released on $500,000 unsecured bond.

Carl M. Force, 46, of Baltimore, a former special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, also has been charged in the case.

Defense chief mulls easing standards

ABINGTON, Pa.

Saying the military needs to do more to compete with corporate America for quality recruits, Defense Secretary Ash Carter opened the door Monday to relaxing some enlistment standards — particularly for high-tech or cybersecurity jobs.

Speaking to students at his former suburban Philadelphia high school, Carter said the military could ease age requirements and bring in older people who are mid-career, or provide student- loan repayments to attract students who have finished college.

There are few details so far, but Carter said the military needs to be more flexible in order to recruit and retain quality people.

The idea, largely in line with the civilian approach to recruitment, upends the military’s more-rigid mindset, which puts a high value on certain standards.

Associated Press