1. Obama eulogizes Mandela at memorial service
President Obama joined 100 other world leaders at a memorial service for Nelson Mandela in a Johannesburg soccer stadium on Tuesday. Obama said the late South African leader was an inspiration to him, personally, and an example of the power of reconciliation. Former presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter also attended in a high-profile show of American respect for Mandela, South Africa's first black president. [Reuters, CBS News]
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2. Icy storm continues to batter the East
A winter storm is continuing to ravage the East Coast on Tuesday. Snow and icy conditions forced airlines to cancel 775 flights on Tuesday, down from 1,900 on Monday and 2,800 on Sunday. "I don't think it's going to warm up anytime soon," National Weather Service meteorologist Bruce Sullivan told Reuters. Authorities in Nevada are searching for two adults and four children who went out to play in the snow Sunday and didn't return. [Christian Science Monitor, CNN]
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3. Riot erupts in Singapore
Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong ordered an investigation on Monday into Singapore's first riot in four decades, which broke out in the Little India district after a foreign worker was struck and killed by a bus. Tensions had already been rising over the city-state's large population of foreign workers. Police commissioner Ng Joo Hee called the violence intolerable. "It is not the Singapore way," he said. [Bloomberg, BBC News]
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4. U.S. sells its last GM stock, ending the bailout
The federal government sold its last shares of General Motors stock on Monday, officially ending the bailout of the troubled automaker. Taxpayers wound up losing $10.5 billion of the $49.5 billion invested five years ago. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew said the money helped save a million jobs and keep the recession from becoming a depression. GM executives say losing the "Government Motors" label will be good for the company. [New York Times]
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5. Prosecutors charge Los Angeles deputies with abuse
Eighteen current and former Los Angeles sheriff's deputies were indicted Monday on charges of abusing inmates and jail visitors. All of the defendants worked in jails in downtown L.A., part of the largest jail system in the country. Federal authorities have been looking into the county's jails for more than two years following several lawsuits accusing deputies of misconduct and abuse. [New York Times]
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6. Zimmerman's girlfriend says he didn't point gun at her
George Zimmerman's girlfriend is now saying she wants to drop all charges in a domestic violence incident that led to his arrest. The woman, Samantha Scheibe, said in her 911 call last month that Zimmerman had pointed a gun "at [her] freaking face," but now she says he didn't, according to an affidavit signed Friday and filed in a Florida court. Zimmerman, acquitted last summer in Trayvon Martin's killing, faces assault and other charges. [Los Angeles Times]
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7. Former official from L.A. suburb convicted of corruption
Angela Spaccia, a former assistant city manager from a Los Angeles suburb, was convicted Monday on corruption charges including misappropriating public funds and falsifying government records. Prosecutors said Spaccia was involved in approving huge salaries for government officials — she made more than $340,000 — in a city afflicted with "corruption on steroids." The case nearly drove the city, Bell, to bankruptcy. [Associated Press]
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8. Founder of French company is jailed over faulty breast implants
A Marseille court sentenced Jean-Claude Mas, founder of a French breast-implant company, to four years in prison on Tuesday four fraud. He was also fined $137,000. Mas' company, Poly Implant Prothese, sold implants made with substandard silicone and prone to rupture to 300,000 women in 65 countries. The French government urged women to have the implants removed. Several other former PIP executives have also been jailed and fined. [France24]
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9. Men allegedly stole part of the car Paul Walker died in
California police have accused two men with stealing a roof panel of the mangled Porsche sports car in which actor Paul Walker of the Fast & Furious movie franchise died. Los Angeles County prosecutors on Monday filed grand theft charges against Jameson Witty, 18, and Anthony Janow, 25, for allegedly taking the part from a tow truck that was taking the wreckage of the Porsche Carrera GT away from the crash site. [Los Angeles Times]
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10. Curiosity rover finds traces of an ancient lake on Mars
NASA's Curiosity rover has found evidence of an ancient freshwater lake on Mars, according to findings published in the journal Science on Monday. Scientists believe the lake was there about 3.5 billion years ago — around the time life was springing up on Earth — and lasted hundreds of thousands of years. The water might have been drinkable, and could have sustained life. [Washington Post]
