>Jury convicts Mexican trafficker of agent’s murder

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A federal jury on Tuesday found a Mexican drug trafficker guilty of second degree murder for killing a U.S. Border Patrol agent by deliberately swerving a truck at him in a dash back to Mexico to escape arrest.

According to the evidence presented at trial Jesus Navarro Montes, 25, struck U.S. Border Patrol agent Luis Aguilar with a Hummer H2 truck on January 19, 2008, in southern California, as he attempted to flee to Mexico.

Earlier that day, Border Patrol agents at the Imperial Sand Dunes close to the Mexico border in southern California spotted a pickup truck they suspected of smuggling narcotics, which was followed by the Hummer.

Aguilar and another agent set out a spike strip across an access road to stop the vehicles. But the Hummer swerved to avoid it, striking Aguilar before speeding south into Mexico. Aguilar died of his injuries at the scene.

Navarro was arrested in Mexico and extradited last year to the United States to stand trial.

After two hours of deliberation, the jury also found Navarro guilty on federal charges of conspiring to distribute marijuana.

“Our Office is gratified by the jury’s verdict in this case and appreciates the service of each juror,” Laura E. Duffy, the U.S. Attorney for the southern district of California, said in a statement.

The prosecution team’s efforts “honored agent Aguilar and the devastating impact this senseless crime has had on his family and colleagues,” she said.

Navarro’s defense had argued during the two-week trial that there was no forensic evidence or eyewitness testimony placing him behind the wheel of the speeding sport utility vehicle that struck and killed Aguilar.

Navarro pleaded guilty last month to a charge dating from a previous drug smuggling attempt in September 2007, in which he was arrested by Border Patrol agents as he drove a pickup truck packed with 979 pounds of marijuana, accompanied by an unidentified woman passenger.

While under arrest in a Border Patrol vehicle, the woman passenger jumped into the driver’s seat and drove them both back to Mexico.

In an unusual legal defense in his murder trial, Navarro claimed that the loss of a large load of marijuana, together with his arrest and escape from federal custody, had caused him to dropped by his Mexican drug smuggling ring. That is why, he argued, other members of the drug ring testified against him.

U.S. District Judge Michael M. Anello scheduled a sentencing hearing for June 27, at 9:00 a.m.

Navarro faces a maximum prison sentence of 40 years on the drugs charges and a maximum sentence of life in prison on the murder charge.

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>Belarus detains suspect in subway blast

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Belarus says it has detained a possible suspect in the subway bombing that killed 12 people and wounded more than 200 others.

Deputy Prosecutor General Andrey Shved said Wednesday that CCTV footage showed the Belarusian man leaving a bag in the station in central Minsk.

Authorities earlier said that the bomb apparently was radio-controlled and had been placed under a bench at the Oktyabrskaya station. It exploded Monday as people were coming off trains during the evening rush hour.

There was no claim of responsibility for the blast. Belarus is observing a day of mourning for the victims.

>Sugar Ray knocked out of dance show(video)

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Sugar Ray Leonard was knocked out of the Dancing With the Stars ballroom one night after earning his highest scores on the hit ABC show.

Boxing legend Sugar Ray and his professional partner, Anna Trebunskaya, collected 21 points out of 30 for their Viennese waltz on Monday’s episode, but viewers failed to keep them as contenders in the competition.

Judges’ scores are combined with viewer votes to determine which celebrity is ousted each week.

“That’s life, and I put up a good fight,” Sugar Ray said. “I will cherish this moment: great friends, great people, great show.”

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Host Tom Bergeron called the 54-year-old Olympian “the heart of the show this season”.

Anna said she and Sugar Ray had fun together. “The boxer became a ballet dancer!” she said.

Tuesday’s episode also included a performance by Jennifer Hudson, who sang Don’t Look Down and Feeling Good from her latest album, I Remember Me.

Returning to dance on next week’s Patriots’ Day-themed show with songs about loving America will be actors Kirstie Alley, Ralph Macchio and Chelsea Kane; athletes Hines Ward and Chris Jericho; model Petra Nemcova; singer Romeo and reality star Kendra Wilkinson.

>Selena Gomez confirms Justin Bieber relationship

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According to reports, Disney star Selena Gomez has finally confirmed the reports that she’s dating Justin Bieber!

Selena openly spoke with Z100 yesterday and talked about her relationship with Justin, which has been the subject of rumors. Even though we already knew that they were dating, it’s about time someone came forward to say that the reports are true.

She talked about haters on the internet, saying, “It’s hard. It hurts, it really does. I don’t feel like I’m doing anything wrong.”

Of Justin, she said, “I’ve been best friends with him for a very long time. It does hurt my feelings a lot, but I try not to focus on it. I have a strong family and great fans.”

Try not to act surprised that they’re dating, okay?

>Body count now at 10 as police confirm more remains found on NY beach highway are human

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The latest two sets of remains found along a New York beach highway are human, authorities said, bringing to 10 the number of bodies found in a search for victims of a suspected serial killer.

Authorities have not definitively linked all the remains found in the past five months to the same suspect, but they have said four escorts who advertised on the website Craigslist who were found in December were likely victims of a serial killer.

Police happened upon the first set of four remains while searching for a missing New Jersey prostitute last seen in a nearby community nearly a year ago. That woman has yet to be found.

Police searching late last month along Ocean Parkway discovered a fifth body, which prompted authorities to commence a widespread search involving dozens of officers, dogs, helicopters, mounted units and volunteer firefighters. That effort led to the discovery April 4 of three more sets of remains and two more on Monday near Jones Beach State Park.

Police investigating the deaths have kept many details of the killings to themselves, but the revelations have shaken some veteran officers.

“It’s pretty startling,” Detective Lt. Kevin Smith, a Nassau County police spokesman, told reporters Tuesday. “We have eight sets in Suffolk County. We have two more now. It’s all been very startling. All of it has. It’s just amazing that we’re finding people. We have a lot of work to do.”

Among the more recent six sets of remains, none has been identified by gender, and police have not indicated a cause of death, nor have they tied them to the four bodies found in December.

State and Nassau County police wrapped up a search of several miles (kilometres) of Ocean Parkway on Tuesday; officials in neighbouring Suffolk County finished a four-day search last week. All the police agencies said they were open to returning to the barrier island to resume searches as developments warrant.

Detectives said it appears some victims had been dead for a long time. The first of the women found late last year went missing in 2007; a second in 2009 and the remaining two in June and September 2010.

>Bulls 103, Knicks 90

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Derrick Rose scored 26 points and Luol Deng added 23 and 10 rebounds as the Chicago Bulls used a big second half to defeat the host New York Knicks, 103-90, on Tuesday.

Carlos Boozer chipped in 14 points and a season-high 22 boards and Joakim Noah scored 13 points for the Bulls (61-20), who have already clinched the top seed in the Eastern Conference and still have a shot at the best record in the NBA.

Carmelo Anthony scored 21 points for the Knicks, who are locked into the No. 6 spot in the East and will open the playoffs this weekend at the Boston Celtics.

New York held a 55-52 edge at the half but watched that lead quickly disappear when Chicago ripped off a 26-2 run over the first seven minutes of the third quarter. The Knicks recovered by the end of the period, cutting it to 84-73 heading into the final period.

They got as close as 91-84 early in the fourth quarter before Rose drained a 3-pointer to help the Bulls pull away again.

Bill Walker added 18 points for New York, which played without All-Star forward Amar’e Stoudemire for the fourth straight game. Stoudemire is expected to be ready for the playoffs.

>Texas’ Hamilton breaks right arm, out 6-8 weeks

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Texas outfielder Josh Hamilton is expected to miss six to eight weeks after breaking his right arm on a headfirst dive into home plate Tuesday, a dash the AL MVP later called “stupid.”

Hamilton tried to score from third on a foul pop-up near the Detroit dugout in the first inning. Third baseman Brandon Inge and catcher Victor Martinez both chased the ball, leaving the plate unprotected.

Inge made the catch, then tossed the ball to Martinez, who got back in time to tag Hamilton.

“It was a stupid play,” Hamilton said. “The whole time the ball was in the air, the coach was yelling, ‘Go, there’s no one at home,’ and I was thinking, ‘I don’t want to do this, something is going to happen.’

“But I listened to my coach,” he said, referring to third-base coach Dave Anderson. “It was way too aggressive. Maybe if they had both been closer to me, but they had a perfect angle to cut me off, and the only way to avoid a tag in that situation is to go headfirst.”

Rangers general manager Jon Daniels defended Anderson’s decision to send Hamilton.

“We play an aggressive style of baseball,” he said. “The chances of getting hurt on that play are minimal.”

The Rangers said Hamilton has a non-displaced fracture of the humerus bone at the top of his arm, just below the shoulder. He isn’t expected to swing a bat for a month.

Furcal out: The Dodgers placed shortstop Rafael Furcal on the 15-day disabled list after he broke his left thumb while sliding into third base on a steal in the fifth inning of L.A.’s 6-1 win over the Giants on Monday night. Furcal is expected to miss four to six weeks. The Dodgers recalled rookie infielder Ivan De Jesus from Triple-A Albuquerque.

Briefly: The Nationals put third baseman Ryan Zimmerman on the 15-day disabled list, retroactive to Sunday, with a strained abdominal muscle and recalled catcher Jesus Flores from Triple-A Syracuse. … Houston manager Brad Mills had to sit out Tuesday’s game against the Cubs as MLB suspended him for his ejection from Sunday’s game against Florida. Reliever Aneury Rodriguez was suspended for three games, but is appealing his suspension and may play until there is a ruling on the appeal. Mills and Rodriguez also were fined undisclosed amounts. … Seattle catcher Adam Moore is expected to miss the rest of the season after knee surgery Tuesday.

>Bynum injured as Lakers snap 5-game losing streak(video)

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The Los Angeles Lakers snapped a five-game losing streak with a 102-93 victory over the San Antonio Spurs on Tuesday, but the win was marred by a knee injury to starting center Andrew Bynum.

The 23-year-old, who has undergone three knee surgeries in as many years and missed the first 24 games of the season, hyper-extended his right knee in the second quarter and sat on the court for a few minutes before limping to the locker room.

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Bynum will undergo an MRI scan on Wednesday but the team sounded confident he would be on the court for the playoffs. Bynum had been a key component in the Lakers’ 17-1 stretch before the recent losing stint.

“I went in at halftime to talk to him and he said: ‘I’m going to be alright,'” Los Angeles coach Phil Jackson told reporters during the game. “I think he has a good idea about it because he’s been through this before.”

Kobe Bryant scored 27 points against the Spurs, who rested Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, as the Lakers (56-25) pulled into a tie with Dallas for the second seed in the West.

With the game tied 83-83 midway through the fourth, Los Angeles went on a 19-5 run to finally put away San Antonio, who had long clinched the top seed in the conference.

The Lakers, the defending NBA champions, can secure the second seed with a season-finale win against the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday.

Lamar Odom, who will be starting in Bynum’s place against the Kings, finished with 23 points. Pau Gasol added 17 points and 17 rebounds but the Lakers are still searching for the form that took them to two consecutive NBA titles.

“The playoffs (are coming) at a perfect time for us,” Odom said. “We need a little break to recuperate, watch tape and get better.”

>Cisco Refocuses on Switch Business as It Scraps Flip Camera(video)

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Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO)’s shutdown of the Flip video division lets Chief Executive Officer John Chambers get started on a bigger challenge: shoring up the main business of routers and switches.

The largest maker of networking gear faces a threat from lower-priced rivals, such as Juniper Networks Inc. (JNPR) and Hewlett- Packard Co. Routers and switches, which help businesses and carriers handle Internet traffic, account for about half of the company’s revenue.

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Cisco, which said yesterday it will cut 550 jobs as part of the Flip closure, faces a trade-off between profit and market share. Its traditional networking gear has been its highest- margin source of revenue, propelling its dominance in the industry. As new competitors introduce cheaper alternatives, Cisco is struggling to maintain its lead without matching rivals’ price cuts, said Sean Conner, an analyst with Nuveen Asset Management in Minneapolis.

“If a customer only needed a Chevrolet, Cisco would sell them a Porsche even if they didn’t need the extra speed,” said Conner, whose firm sold its Cisco stake in January after holding the shares for more than five years. “Now they can’t because HP and Juniper came in and said to consumers, ‘Why are you paying for all that extra stuff?’”

Hewlett-Packard, the world’s largest computer maker, is selling more networking gear to capitalize on the growth of data centers — the vast server facilities that power the Internet. Juniper, meanwhile, entered the switching market in 2008, building on its routing business.

Karen Tillman, a spokeswoman for San Jose, California-based Cisco, declined to comment.

‘Tough Market’

Chambers said last week that Cisco is taking a hard look at the switching business, where it has more than 80 percent global market share. Cisco is seeking ways to bring new products to profitability more quickly, he said.

“Switching is our challenge,” Chambers said last week at an investor conference in San Francisco, singling out International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), Oracle Corp. (ORCL) and Hewlett- Packard as rivals. “It’s going to be a tough market for us.”

Sales of switches rose 12 percent to $13.6 billion in the fiscal year ended in July, accounting for about a third of total revenue. In the subsequent six months, year-over-year growth has slowed to 7.2 percent.

Some networking rivals are willing to accept 40 percent gross margins on switches, while Cisco has typically seen 70 percent to 80 percent margins, Chambers said at the investor conference. Gross margin measures the percentage of sales remaining after deducting product costs.

Time to Choose?

“Cisco needs to choose between protecting share or preserving margins,” John Slack, an analyst at Citigroup Inc. in San Francisco, said yesterday in a note to clients. “It simply can’t do both.”

Chambers said in an April 4 memo to staff that he would make several “targeted moves” to restore lost credibility and sharpen the company’s focus. Shutting Flip, which Cisco bought for $590 million in 2009, isn’t enough to compensate for the declining profitability of its broader consumer business, said Alex Henderson, an analyst at New York-based Miller Tabak & Co. The company should exit that area entirely, he said.

“They’ve got a lot of work to do, and this is just a drop in the bucket,” Henderson said of the Flip decision.

The job cuts yesterday represent less than 1 percent of total employees and will take place by the end of the fiscal year, the company said. Cisco’s consumer division also includes Linksys home networking, and audio and media-storage products.

Home Video

Cisco bought Flip to expand its expertise in home-video networking, a bid that never paid off. Flip posted about $325 million in revenue last year, less than 1 percent of total sales, Citigroup’s Slack said.

Cisco’s gross margin narrowed to 64 percent last fiscal year from 70 percent in 2003, in part a reflection of the push into consumer products and pressure from rivals on prices of its corporate products.

The slump has taken its toll on Cisco’s shares, which have declined 34 percent in the past year. That’s wiped out about $50 billion in market value. The stock fell 3 cents to $17.44 yesterday in Nasdaq Stock Market trading.

Competition continues to mount. As Cisco was pushing into new areas, smaller companies such as Riverbed Technology Inc., F5 Networks Inc. and Aruba Networks Inc. have been able to gain an edge, according to Mizuho Securities USA Inc.

While these competitive pressures may have caught Cisco by surprise, they’re unlikely to keep the company down for long, said Rohit Mehra, an analyst at IDC in Framingham, Massachusetts.

“I don’t see a lot of these challenges as Herculean,” Mehra said. “We can call these small missteps. You will lose some market share when you’re the 800-pound gorilla.”

>Evacuees slam Japan nuclear plant operator(Video)

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Angry residents forced from their homes near Japan’s tsunami-stricken nuclear power plant gathered in protest at the Tokyo headquarters of the plant’s operator Wednesday demanding compensation as the company’s president pledged to do more to help those affected by the crisis.

“I can’t work and that means I have no money,” said Shigeaki Konno, 73, an auto repair mechanic, who lived seven miles (11 kilometers) from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant before he was evacuated along with tens of thousands of others due to radiation fears. “The talk about compensation is not concrete. We need it quickly.”

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The protest by about 20 small business owners from communities near the plant reflects growing public frustration with Tokyo Electric Power Co.’s handling of the nuclear crisis that erupted when a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake on March 11 wrecked its cooling systems and backup generators.

TEPCO’s president, Masataka Shimizu, and other company executives bowed in apology, once again, on Wednesday, after Shimizu pledged to do more to help compensate residents unable to return home or work due to the accident.

Cash payments are being “readied as soon as possible,” Shimizu said.

He said the company “will do our utmost” to get the plant’s reactors under control and curb radiation leaks that prompted the government to revise its rating of the incident to the worst possible, on a par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

TEPCO manager Kensuke Takeuchi told Konno and the other protesters the company was not yet prepared to give any money, but he promised to convey their demands to higher level management.

“You are eating a warm meal every day,” said Konno, complaining that the two pieces of bread provided at the evacuation center where he is staying were not fit to be fed to dogs.

“I am not asking for anything more than I am entitled to. I just want my due,” said Ichijiro Ishikawa, 69, a construction worker who lived eight miles (13 kilometers) from the plant.

Japan’s leaders are urging a return to normality, with Prime Minister Naoto Kan exhorting the public Tuesday in a televised address to build an “even more marvelous country.”

Work on repairing damage at the plant and ending radiation leaks has been impeded by aftershocks, fires, explosions and other glitches in the improvised efforts to restore its cooling systems.

Nuclear safety officials and TEPCO reported no major changes Wednesday, a day after the government ranked the accident there at the highest possible severity, 7, on an international scale.

The higher rating was open recognition that the nuclear crisis has become the second-worst in history after the catastrophe in Chernobyl, but it did not signal a worsening of the plant’s status in recent days or any new health dangers.

Still, Kan warned that the situation remained unpredictable. Radioactive isotopes have been detected in tap water, fish and vegetables far from the facility.

Shipments of produce from 16 cities, towns and villages around Fukushima Dai-ichi have been banned. On Wednesday, the government added wood-grown shiitake mushrooms raised outdoors to a list of vegetables banned for shipping to markets after high levels of radiation were detected in tests over the weekend.

Still, work on recovery and reconstruction is underway, and the region took a step forward with the reopening of a coastal airport that had been swamped by the tsunami.

Staff at the Sendai airport stood on the tarmac waving as passengers emerged from a JAL Express flight emblazoned with the logo “Hang in there, Japan.” It was the first flight since the 32-foot (10-meter) wall of water raced across the airport’s runways and slammed cars and aircraft into its terminals.

The area around the airport, which sits about half a mile (a kilometer) from the shoreline, remains a twisted wasteland of mud, uprooted trees and the remnants of smashed buildings and cars. Soldiers were sifting through the debris looking for the bodies of some of the more than 15,000 people still missing after the twin disasters. The final death toll is expected to top 25,000.

The airport will handle only a few daytime flights for now and just one terminal is running, but its opening should help with relief efforts in regional communities virtually obliterated by the tsunami.

“We can only operate in a small area, but I think it’s a great step toward recovery,” said Naohito Nakano, an operations manager for Japan Airlines.

Hiroshi Abe, 41, whose parents are among the missing, was preparing to board a flight back to the western city of Osaka.

“There’s not really anything I can do there now, so I’m flying home,” Abe said. “Now that flights are open again I know it will be much easier for me to go back.”