Fla. court rules on spousal abuse TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - The Florida Supreme Court has ruled abused spouses may be justified in killing their mates, even if they fail to leave the home to avoid the violence. "We join the majority of jurisdictions that do not impose a duty to retreat from the residence when a defendant uses deadly force in self-defense, if that force is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm from a co-occupant," Justice Barbara Pariente wrote for the court Thursday. The court said the same rule applies to all members of a household. "That is an important ruling for survivors of family violence," said Peter Margulies, a law professor at St. Thomas University in Miami. See full story <http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2558776014-7df> UNICEF criticizes Sudan on slavery GENEVA (AP) - The U.N. Children's Fund urged the Sudanese government on Friday to cooperate in stamping out slavery, and said that private aid groups who buy the freedom of captives are not helping the situation. The agency said efforts should instead focus on bringing an end to the 16-year-old civil war, which has killed more than 2 million people, displaced 4 million more, and led to an upsurge in slavery. "Certainly all efforts to end the slave trade must be pursued until the abhorrent practice is eradicated," UNICEF executive director Carol Bellamy said. See full story <http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2558779360-cf4> N.M. seeks nuclear shipments delay WASHINGTON (AP) - The state of New Mexico and environmentalists urged a federal judge Friday to block the Energy Department from shipping, perhaps within weeks, the first truck loads of nuclear waste to a permanent underground storage site in the state. The state, asking for a federal injunction, argued that such shipments would violate state law and disrupt New Mexico's consideration of a permit for disposal of hazardous waste at the federal site. The Energy Department has agreed to hold off shipments for 11 days and U.S. District Judge John Harrington Penn indicated he would decide on whether to issue an injunction within that time. See full story <http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2558780673-1c6> 46 Mexico whale deaths reported MEXICO CITY (AP) - Forty-six gray whales have been found dead near Mexico's Baja California Peninsula - an all-time high for a migratory season, an environmental group said Friday. The Group of 100 said the cause of the deaths has not been determined, but it suspects environmental contamination. "This is the worst case ever recorded in Mexico," said Homero Aridjis who heads the organization. Aridjis said there are no reliable statistics on deaths for past years but that the total rarely reached 20. The giant sea mammals migrate each year from the Arctic waters of the Bering Straits down through the Pacific, typically staying in Mexican waters between December and March. See full story <http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2558781228-64d> Norway court stops wolf hunt OSLO, Norway (AP) - A Norwegian court granted a temporary injunction Friday halting a controversial hunt for two wolves to give conservationists time to fight the government's order to kill the animals. On March 5, the government ordered the male-female pair hunted down because they had entered an area of southeastern Norway reserved for sheep and reindeer. Two conservation groups brought the case to court, arguing that it was illegal to kill the animals because they were a threatened species. Wolves in southern Norway and Sweden were hunted to the brink of extinction until they were ordered protected in 1981. The population has slowly recovered, but there are still fewer than 70 in the region. See full story <http://www.infobeat.com/stories/cgi/story.cgi?id=2558779491-f20>
