The Seattle Times

Update

• Peter Odighizuwa, a former law student charged with capital murder in the shooting deaths of three people at Appalachian School of Law, told a court in Grundy, Va., yesterday that he is sick and needs help. Prosecutor Sheila Tolliver said she will seek the death penalty.

• Carolyn Murphy, a Lennox, Calif., woman who raised puppies related to a mastiff that fatally mauled a San Francisco woman, has averted a trial by pleading no contest to breeding dogs without a license and other violations.

Upcoming

• East Timor will conduct its first presidential elections April 14, the territory’s U.N. administrator announced. Independence leader Jose “Xanana” Gusmao is widely expected to become the nation’s first head of state when it gains full independence May 20.

• Pope John Paul II’s July schedule will include visits to Toronto for the Roman Catholic Church’s World Youth Day and to Mexico for the canonization of a Mexican Indian. The pope also will visit Bulgaria in May, a week after he turns 82.

Critters

A hibernating bear named Saga and her cubs are spending the long Scandinavian winter isolated in their den, blissfully unaware that the whole world could be watching. A bear park in Orsa, 170 miles northwest of the Swedish capital, Stockholm, has installed a Web cam (www.orsa-gronklitt.se/ index.php?page) in the artificial den.

By the numbers

The largest glacier in Europe, Iceland’s Vatnajokull, is melting away and thinning by an average of 3 feet a year because of a warmer climate, an expert said.

Upbeat

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has declared war on street prostitution, met two former sex workers and was so moved by their horror story that he gave them 5 million lire ($2,286). A priest introduced the east European women to Berlusconi so he could hear how they had been forced into the trade.

People

• Actress Lani O’Grady, found dead in her Valencia, Calif., mobile home in September, died of a drug overdose involving high levels of anti-depressant Prozac and painkiller Vicodin, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said. O’Grady, 46, played the eldest daughter on television’s “Eight is Enough” from 1977 to 1981.

• After two days of treatment for exhaustion and stomach pain, the Dalai Lama left Patna, India, and flew to a 10,000-person gathering at Bodhgaya, where Buddhists believe the founder of their religion gained enlightenment.

Today in history

• In 1912, English explorer Robert F. Scott and his expedition reached the South Pole, only to discover that Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it. (Scott and his party perished during the return trip.)

• In 1788, the first English settlers arrived in Australia’s Botany Bay to establish a penal colony.

• In 1943, the Soviets announced they had broken the long Nazi siege of Leningrad.

P.S.

A plaque prepared to honor actor James Earl Jones at celebration of civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. tomorrow in Lauderhill, Fla., instead has this inscription: “Thank you James Earl Ray for keeping the dream alive.” Ray was convicted of assassinating King in Memphis in 1968. Georgetown, Texas-based Merit Industries prepared the plaque at the request of Adpro, a Lauderhill business. Adpro refused Merit’s offer to fix the plaque and is having the damage repaired locally.

Passages

Paul Fannin, 94, a Republican who served in the U.S. Senate from 1964-77 and as Arizona governor from 1959-64, died Sunday in Phoenix.

Camilo Jose Cela, 85, a flamboyant novelist from Spain who won the 1989 Nobel Prize in literature with his crude, straightforward writing style, died of chronic heart disease yesterday in Madrid.

Appalachian School of Law Shootings

The Seattle Times