Washington: A woman slapped a sheriff’s deputy in the US state of California so that she could get arrested and be put in jail, where she would not be allowed to smoke cigarettes. Deputy Matt Campoy said the 31-year-old woman, Etta Mae Lopez, blocked his way as he left his shift at the Sacramento County Jail, CBS 13 reported. “All of a sudden, she stepped into me and slapped me in the face,” he said. Lopez was detained at once. She apparently wanted to use California’s ban on tobacco in prisons to kick the habit. “She told us that she needed to quit smoking,” Campoy said. Lopez reportedly admitted having waited in front of the jail for hours to hit an officer, get arrested and be put in jail, where she would not be allowed to smoke. Lopez was sentenced to 63 days in jail.
Astronauts to fix ammonia leak
MOSCOW: Nasa astronauts performed an emergency spacewalk to try to stop ammonia from leaking from the International Space Station’s power system, Nasa television showed. During the spacewalk, expected to last six-and-a-half hours, flight engineers Tom Marshburn and Chris Cassidy will inspect and repair the ammonia leak that affected the US segment of the orbiting laboratory. Ammonia is used to cool the station’s power system.
Ex-Guatemalan ruler found guilty
GUATEMALA CITY: Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt was found guilty of genocide and war crimes on Friday in a landmark ruling stemming from massacres of indigenous people in his country’s long civil war. Rios Montt thus became the first Latin American ex-dictator convicted of trying to exterminate an entire group of people, in a brief but particularly gruesome stretch of a war that started in 1960, dragged on for 36 years and left around 200,000 people dead or missing. The 86-year-old was sentenced to 80 years in prison, although he vowed to appeal. He got 50 years for genocide and 30 years for war crimes.
Italy’s PD picks interim leader
ROME: Italy’s centre-left Democratic Party (PD), reeling from infighting that forced the resignation of Pier Luigi Bersani last month, chose former trade union boss Guglielmo Epifani as party secretary yesterday. The party’s two most prominent leaders, Prime Minister Enrico Letta and the young mayor of Florence, Matteo Renzi, both sat out the internal party contest, with the real battle to lead the centre-left likely to be delayed until after the summer. Agencies
