Nelson Mandela's 13-year-old great-granddaughter was killed in a car crash on the way home from a concert in Soweto on the eve of the World Cup, his office said Friday.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation said Zenani Mandela died in a one-car accident and no one else was injured. No other details on the crash were immediately available.
Zenani, who celebrated her 13th birthday June 9, was one of the anti-apartheid icon's nine great-grandchildren.
"The family has asked for privacy as they mourn this tragedy," the foundation said in a statement.
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WHAT: An Army inspector-general report uncovered gross mismanagement at Arlington National Cemetery, home of the Unknown Solider. Problems include at least 211 misidentified graves, slipshod record keeping and one case where a service member was buried on top of another.
HOW LONG: Problems first surfaced in 2008 when the widow of a staff sergeant complained that the wrong headstone had been placed on his grave. An investigation found that an Air Force master sergeant had been buried on top of her husband’s body in the same site.
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Jury selection is expected to continue Tuesday and Wednesday in the murder trial of former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle, who fatally shot Oscar Grant III on the Fruitvale station platform in Oakland on New Year’s Day 2009. After filling out surveys last week, remaining jurors will be questioned in a Los Angeles courtroom. Opening statements are expected to begin Thursday.
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Taxpayers get fined when they do not pay what they owe for city, state and federal taxes. But when they do not vote — the most important responsibility in a representative republic form of self-government — registered nonvoters do not receive a fine.
Perhaps cities like San Francisco could offer inducements to encourage qualified voters to register to vote, such as cash awards funded from penalty assessments on registered nonvoting citizens.
Frank Norton, San Francisco
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At a time when the U.S. is starved for genuine bipartisanship in Congress, the Earmark Transparency Act of 2010 should be as welcome as a bottle of spring water to man lost in the desert.
Earmarks are special-interest legislative provisions senators and representatives use to direct tax dollars to favored recipients. Earmarks are typically obscure provisions in must-pass spending bills, so individual items rarely get a specific up or down vote. Last year, Congress approved more than 9,000 earmarks worth an estimated $16 billion.
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America’s gun-control proponents might want to consider shooting (pun intended) this memo to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley.
“Dear Mayor Daley: Please shut up. You ain’t helping us.”
Is there anyone doing more damage for advocates of gun control than Daley? The man is a walking billboard for right-to-carry laws. Anyone needing proof of that might want to read the statements he made in the wake of an 80-year-old Chicago man fatally shooting a career criminal who invaded his home.
The background story goes like this:
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Did you know the U.S. government is sharing its secrets?
In the sweltering heat of an Islamabad summer, two Americans visit the bustling Pakistani capital. One is National Security Adviser James L. Jones, the other CIA Director Leon E. Panetta.
They hand over a thick dossier on would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, detailing his links with the Tehrik-e-Taliban, the TTP. They also deliver a warning: Crack down on the Pakistani Taliban or else.
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The San Mateo County Board of Supervisors will consider a resolution at its board meeting Tuesday to support legislation opposing raves at the Cow Palace in Daly City.
Supervisor Adrienne Tissier, whose district includes the Cow Palace, said she will introduce the resolution because she believes the shows can be harmful to the San Mateo County community.
The resolution would urge the state Legislature to enact legislation limiting the ability of the Cow Palace to allow the use of its facility for raves.
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A second person has died after apparently overdosing on a drug taken at an electronic music festival at Daly City’s Cow Palace late last month.
Trung Nguyen, a 25-year-old San Jose man, died Sunday at Washington Hospital in Fremont, according to the Alameda County coroner’s bureau. He had been admitted to the hospital after falling unconscious from a suspected overdose of the drug ecstasy and had been on life support until Sunday.
An autopsy was conducted Monday and the official cause of his death is pending toxicology results.
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WHAT: Army investigators arrested intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, 22, on suspicion of releasing two controversial Iraq combat videos and 260,000 State Department diplomatic cables to an Internet whistle-blowing site, WikiLeaks.
TIP-OFF: Manning was caught after allegedly boasting about his exploits to online hacker Adrian Lamo, who told the FBI.
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The BART Police Department will start redistributing Tasers to its force this week, nearly two months after the use of stun guns was halted so that officers could be retrained and updated on new department policies.
“Beginning this week and hopefully completed by next Monday or Tuesday, we will redeploy Tasers to all police zones,” police Cmdr. Dan Hartwig said Monday, adding that officers will be able to choose whether or not to use them.
BART issued a memo in mid-April letting officers know of the temporary suspension of Taser use.
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‘Sundown at the Golden West Saloon’: The San Francisco Opera Guild hosted a themed gala May 27 at the Bently Reserve to honor music director Nicola Luisotti, along with celebrating the opening of the 2010 summer season and the 100th anniversary of Puccini’s “The Girl of the Golden West.” The Gold Rush-flavored event was hosted by honorary chairs John A. and Cynthia Fry Gunn and co-chairs Chandra Friese and Linda Elliott Zider.
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The rise of smartphones has presented Hewlett-Packard Co. with a problem.
For years, HP has relied on the sale of its printer ink to supply a big piece of the company's profits. Smartphones are a challenge because they're by design not connected to printers, and with people reading more of their Internet content on their phones, they're printing fewer pages.
HP, the world's No. printer maker, hopes changes it announced Monday will help reverse that trend.
The company is rolling out technology that will give all of its new $99-and-up printers Internet capabilities.
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Dozens of headless skeletons excavated from a northern English building site appear to be the remains of Roman gladiators, one of whom had bites from a lion, tiger, bear or other large animal, archaeologists said Monday.
Experts said new forensic evidence suggests the bones belong to the professional fighters, who were often killed while entertaining spectators.
Most of the skeletons were male and appeared stronger and taller than the average Roman, with signs of arm-muscle stress that suggest weapons training that began in the men's teenage years.
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