World/Nation Briefs June 4, 2011

Edwards indicted in attempt to hide his mistress

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - John Edwards admitted he has "done wrong" and hurt others but strongly denied breaking the law after federal prosecutors charged him Friday with using $925,000 in under-the-table campaign contributions to hide his mistress and baby during his 2008 run for president.

The two-time Democratic presidential hopeful was indicted on six felony charges that he violated campaign finance laws in a desperate bid to protect both his White House hopes and his image as a devoted family man.

Edwards, 57, pleaded not guilty and was released without bail on the condition he surrender his passport and not leave the continental U.S.

A former trial lawyer who won multimillion-dollar verdicts with the same formidable powers of persuasion that propelled his political career, he now faces the prospect of a lurid trial and the possibility of both prison time and the loss of his license to practice law.

Yemen president injured in protest

SANAA, Yemen - President Ali Abdullah Saleh was wounded when rebellious tribesmen struck his palace with rockets Friday, targeting him for the first time in a dramatic escalation of fighting that has turned parts of the capital into a battleground and pushed Yemen toward civil war.

One of the rockets smashed into a mosque on the palace grounds where the president was praying along with his top leadership. It was a stunning hit on the regime's most senior figures: Among the nine wounded were the prime minister, Saleh's powerful top security adviser and the two heads of parliament, as well as the cleric leading prayers. Seven guards were killed.

Officials said Saleh had only slight injuries - Deputy Information Minister Abdu al-Janadi spoke only of "scratches to his face." But there were indications the injuries may have been more severe. Saleh, in his late 60s, was taken to a Defense Ministry hospital, while officials promised repeatedly that he would soon appear in public. But by late Friday, state TV had aired only an audio message from the president, with an old still photo.

Defiant Mladic rejects indictment

THE HAGUE, Netherlands - Last seen as a swaggering general in the Bosnia war, Ratko Mladic needed help rising from his chair for war-crimes judges Friday, his limp right hand too weak to put on earphones without assistance.

But as his arraignment proceeded, his old bluster returned as he called his indictment "obnoxious" and told judges he doesn't want help walking "as if I were a blind man."

The capture and trial of the Bosnian Serb wartime commander on charges of genocide and war crimes committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war closes the bloodiest chapter in European history since World War II and is nearly the final act of the Yugoslav tribunal, a court that launched a renewed era of international justice after the Nuremberg trials of Nazis war criminals.

Together with his former political boss Radovan Karadzic, Mladic is accused of orchestrating the four-year war for Serbian domination in Bosnia that cost 100,000 lives and climaxed with the July 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in the U.N.-declared safe zone of Srebrenica.

After 16 years on the run, the first clear glimpse the world got of the 69-year-old Mladic came after a curtain separating the public gallery and the courtroom was lifted Friday. Wearing a peaked cap, he saluted the gallery with his left hand through bulletproof glass. Observers stood and strained to see Mladic, clearly thinner and weaker than when he led the Bosnian Serb army.

Girl killed in fall from New Jersey Ferris wheel

WILDWOOD, N.J. - An 11-year-old girl on a school field trip died Friday after falling about 100 feet from a moving Ferris wheel at New Jersey's Wildwood boardwalk.

The girl fell about 12:30 p.m. from the amusement park ride on a day heavily attended by school children. She was taken by helicopter to a nearby hospital, where she died, Capt. Lynn Frane of the Cape May County Prosecutor's Office said.

The girl's name and hometown were not released. Authorities initially said she was 17.

The girl fell from the upper half of the ride while it was in motion, Wildwood Police Capt. Robert Regalbuto told The Press of Atlantic City. Regalbuto estimated she fell about 100 feet.

The 156-foot-tall Ferris wheel is among rides at Morey's Mariner's Landing Pier. The newspaper said the popular amusement park was heavily attended by children during the pier's annual Education Extravaganza - a day the park is open and marketed for school students and teachers.

- The Associated Press