Nation in brief: Wet snow batters central Wisconsin
A winter storm dumped 7 inches of wet, heavy snow on central Wisconsin, leaving thousands of people without electricity and disrupting holiday preparations.
Wisconsin Public Service Corp. reported more than 19,000 customers without electricity Saturday evening. About half of the outages were in the towns of Wasau and Stevens Point.
The snow began falling Friday night and did not let up until Saturday morning. The weight of the snow snapped power lines and tree limbs, causing the outages, she said.
More than 100 crews were working to restore power, a job that would likely continue through Sunday, utility company spokeswoman Kelly Zagrzebski said.
Temperatures in the region were expected to drop to the teens and 20s overnight and partly cloudy skies were forecast for today.
MIAMI
Lawmaker admits Castro comment
A Florida congresswoman acknowledged Saturday calling for Fidel Castro’s assassination after earlier claiming a video clip of her making the comments was fake.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami, said she has not seen the unedited footage of her interview, which appears in a 28-second clip on the Internet by the makers of a new British documentary, “638 Ways to Kill Castro.”
In it, Ros-Lehtinen says: “I welcome the opportunity of having anyone assassinate Fidel Castro and any leader who is oppressing the people.”
Earlier this month, the Havana-born lawmaker said filmmakers spliced clips together to make the sound bite. On Saturday, she backed away from that statement.
“If those words were said by me in the raw unedited version, then I said them,” she said in a telephone interview Saturday. “I don’t recall those exact words, but I do a lot of interviews and a lot of documentaries on Fidel Castro. It’s an everyday situation for me.”
Despite the controversy, the lawmaker said Saturday she “would welcome (Castro’s) passing.”
BAKERSFIELD, Calif.
Man sets himself afire in protest
A man doused himself with flammable liquid and set himself afire, apparently to protest a school district’s decision to change the names of winter and spring breaks to Christmas and Easter vacation.
The man suffered first degree burns on his shoulders and arms on Friday, Fire Department Capt. Garth Milam said.
The man, whose name was not released, also set fire to a Christmas tree and flags in a public area, Milam said.
KNIGHTSTOWN, Ind.
Young filmmakers win court case
Making a movie in which evil teddy bears attack a teacher got two budding filmmakers expelled from their high school, but a federal judge says it was the school that was wrong.
However, the judge said the boys should apologize.
Cody Overbay and Isaac Imel, both sophomores, must be allowed to return to Knightstown High School for the second semester, U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker said Friday in Indianapolis in granting a preliminary injunction. She also ordered the school to allow the students to make up any work they had missed since their expulsions in October.
The boys worked on the movie “The Teddy Bear Master” from fall 2005 through summer 2006. It depicts a “teddy bear master” ordering stuffed animals to kill a teacher who had embarrassed him, but students battle the toy beasts, according to documents filed in court.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana sued on behalf of the two teenagers last month arguing that school officials overreacted to a film parody and violated their First Amendment rights.