Times Leader
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ORLANDO, Fla.
Zimmerman files suit
George Zimmerman is suing NBC, claiming he was defamed when the network edited his 911 call to police after the shooting of Trayvon Martin to make it sound like he was racist.
The former neighborhood watch volunteer filed the lawsuit seeking an undisclosed amount of money on Thursday in Seminole County, outside Orlando.
The lawsuit claims NBC edited his phone call to a dispatcher last February. Zimmerman describes following Martin in the gated community where he lived, just moments before he fatally shot the 17-year-old teen during a confrontation.
NBC spokeswoman Kathy Kelly-Brown didn’t immediately return a phone call. Three employees of NBC or an NBC-owned television station lost their jobs because of the changes.
Zimmerman is charged with second-degree murder but has pleaded not guilty, claiming self-defense.
NEW BATAAN, Philippines
Hundreds lost to typhoon
A powerful typhoon that washed away emergency shelters, a military camp and possibly entire families in the southern Philippines has killed almost 350 people with nearly 400 missing, authorities said Thursday.
More bodies were retrieved from hardest-hit Compostela Valley and Davao Oriental provinces and six others impacted by Tuesday’s storm, the Office of Civil Defense reported.
At least 200 of the victims died in Compostela Valley alone, including 78 villagers and soldiers who perished in a flash flood that swamped two emergency shelters and a military camp.
COLUMBIA, S.C.
Sen. DeMint leaving office
Republican U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, a tea party favorite known for bucking party leaders to back challenges to centrist veterans he didn’t view as conservative enough, said Thursday he was resigning to take the helm of a conservative think tank.
The South Carolina lawmaker said in a statement he was stepping down to become president of the Heritage Foundation. His office said his resignation is effective Jan. 1.
DeMint, 61, was first elected to the Senate in 2004 and easily re-elected six years later. He previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives for three terms.
Violence grows in Egypt
The Egyptian army deployed tanks outside the presidential palace Thursday following fierce street battles between supporters and opponents of Mohammed Morsi that left five people dead and more than 600 injured in the worst outbreak of violence between the two sides since the Islamist leader’s election.
The intensity of the overnight violence, with Morsi’s Islamist backers and largely secular protesters lobbing firebombs and rocks at each other, signaled a turning point in the 2-week-old crisis over the president’s assumption of near-absolute powers and the hurried adoption of a draft constitution.
Opposition activists defiantly called for another protest outside the palace later Thursday, raising the specter of more bloodshed as neither side showed willingness to back down.
