In brief: 14 arrested in deadly meningitis outbreak

Fourteen people connected to a Massachusetts compounding pharmacy have been arrested on charges stemming from the 2012 meningitis outbreak that killed 64 people who received tainted drugs, officials said Wednesday.

Barry Cadden, a co-founder of the New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Mass., and Glenn Adam Chin, a pharmacist who was in charge of the sterile room, face the most serious charges, according to the 131-count indictment released Wednesday morning. All defendants were arrested in early-morning raids at their homes, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Boston.

Both men are accused in the current federal racketeering indictment of causing the deaths of patients in several states by “acting in wanton and willful disregard of the likelihood” that their actions would cause death or great bodily harm. The indictment alleges that they were responsible for the second-degree murders of 25 patients in states including Florida, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.

If convicted, they could face up to life in prison.

In the fall of 2012, 751 people were sickened from a fungal meningitis outbreak. They had received injections of preservative-free methylprednisolone acetate compounded at the NECC. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that of those 751 patients treated with the drug, 64 died.

Immigrants can get licenses in Arizona

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court decided Wednesday that Arizona must offer driver’s licenses to young immigrants who entered the country illegally as children but were later shielded from deportation by President Barack Obama.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices turned down an emergency appeal from outgoing Gov. Jan Brewer, who argued that the state had the right to decide who gets a driver’s license.

The court let stand an order from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said that Arizona may not deny driver’s licenses to the young immigrants, who have been authorized to stay in the U.S. and work under Obama’s deferred-deportation program.

Though the justices did not explain their decision, the conservative-leaning high court has maintained the view that matters of immigration are entrusted to the federal government, not the states.

Pakistan lifts ban on executing terrorists

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Pakistan’s government lifted a moratorium on executing convicted terrorists Wednesday and sought Afghanistan’s help to find the mastermind of Tuesday’s murderous attack on an army-run school in the northern city of Peshawar, as the death toll rose to 144.

There was a national outpouring of grief, shame and anger at the attack, in which 132 schoolchildren, many of them the sons of military officers, were killed.

Three more school staff members succumbed to their wounds at Peshawar’s Lady Reading Hospital, as staff there and at a military hospital in Rawalpindi fought to save the lives of dozens of critically injured victims, repeatedly issuing calls to the public to donate blood.

Rebels in Colombia declare cease-fire

BOGOTA – Leftist rebels negotiating a peace agreement with the Colombian government on Wednesday declared a unilateral and indefinite cease-fire in hope of drawing a reciprocal halt by the armed forces, something President Juan Manuel Santos has so far resisted.

In a communique from Havana, where talks have been underway since November 2012, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish initials FARC, said the cease-fire would take effect early Saturday and would end only if soldiers or police attacked rebel units.

There was no immediate government reaction.

Paintings stolen in L.A. recovered

LOS ANGELES – Nine works of art that were stolen six years ago in one of the largest art heists in Los Angeles history have been recovered by investigators from the Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI, according to court documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

After an undercover operation at a West Los Angeles hotel in October, federal authorities detained Raul Espinoza, 45, who tried to sell the paintings – which are valued at $10 million – for $700,000 cash.

The nine works recovered were among the dozen stolen from a home in the San Fernando Valley on the morning of Aug. 24, 2008. A thief or thieves entered through the unlocked kitchen door of a wealthy real estate investor’s home in Encino and made off with works including Marc Chagall’s “Les Paysans” and Diego Rivera’s “Mexican Peasant.”