INTERNATIONAL
 
North Korea leader Kim Jong-il and heir appear at lavish parade
 
PYONGYANG, North Korea (AP) — The next leader of North Korea from the only ruling family the isolated nation has ever known made his public debut Sunday, clapping and smiling as tanks and rocket launchers rolled past in what was said to be the largest military parade staged by the communist state.
 
Two weeks after he was made a four-star general and set on the path to succession, Kim Jong Un sat next to his father, current North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, and waved from an observation platform to a raucous crowd cheering below.
 
The celebration marked the 65th anniversary of the Workers’ Party, which rules the impoverished, authoritarian nation. It was designed, outside experts on North Korea said, to introduce the younger Kim to his people and burnish his image as the next leader.
 
“The parade served as a sign that the military has loyalty to the successor,” said Kim Yong-hyun, an expert on North Korea at Seoul’s Dongguk University.
 
The question of who would lead the nuclear-armed nation of 24 million had arisen after Kim Jong Il reportedly suffered a stroke in 2008. His third son, the Swiss-educated Kim Jong Un, emerged as the heir apparent despite his youth and inexperience.
 
Dressed in a dark blue civilian suit, the younger Kim watched over a plaza named for his grandfather, North Korea’s founder Kim Il Sung, who led his nation during the 1950-53 Korean War.
 
Thousands of troops from every branch of the 1.2 million-member military goose-stepped to the accompaniment of a military brass band while citizens waved plastic bouquets.
 
Trucks loaded with katyusha rocket launchers rolled by, but they were dwarfed by a series of missiles, each larger than the last.
 
 
NATIONAL
 
Anti-gay torture allegations stun neighbors in New York City
 
NEW YORK (AP) — Allegations that gang members attacked two teens and a man last week because they were gay don’t square with the reputation of their Bronx neighborhood, where gay men and women live openly and neighbors are tolerant of homosexuality, residents and city leaders said.
 
One teen even called the suspects themselves “chill,” though she and other neighbors said the gang members often partied and were violent when drinking.
 
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he was sickened by the accusations of violence, which police said included sodomizing one man with a plunger handle and hourslong torture of others, “and saddened by the anti-gay bias.”
 
The attacks came following a string of teen suicides around the country last month that were attributed to anti-gay bullying.
 
 
STATE/LOCAL
 
Former police officer’s trial in stun gun death to start Monday
 
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Jury selection in the trial of a former Winnfield police officer accused of killing a handcuffed prisoner by repeatedly shocking him with a stun gun is set to begin on Monday.
 
Scott Nugent faces manslaughter and malfeasance in office charges in the death of 21-year-old Baron Pikes.
 
Pikes was shocked nine times with a 50,000-volt stun gun as he was arrested on a drug possession warrant in January 2008.
 
The parish’s coroner, Dr. Randolph Williams, ruled that Pikes’ death was a homicide. Williams said he consulted with two other coroners, and both agreed that Pikes died of cardiac arrest caused by the Taser shocks. He said Pikes was already dead during the final two shocks to his body.
 
Anger over Pikes’ death has threatened to inflame racial tensions in Winnfield, where the      population of roughly 5,800 is evenly divided between black and white residents. Pikes was black; Nugent is white.
 
Meanwhile, the mother of Pikes’ 4-year-old son has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court against officials and Nugent.
 
Nugent faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted of manslaughter.
 
University of New Orleans to dedicate Katrina Memorial
 
 
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The University of New Orleans will dedicate a Hurricane Katrina memorial on Monday, nearly five years after the university resumed classes after the August 2005 storm.
 
The memorial is near Milneburg Hall on the university’s Lakefront campus. It is set near a cluster of trees permanently bent by Katrina’s winds.
 
UNO was the only New Orleans university to reopen for the fall 2005 semester.