Sunday,  June 3, 2012 • Vol. 12--No. 325 • 31 of 35 •  Other Editions

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• Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty to the second-degree murder charge. He maintains he shot Martin in self-defense under Florida's so-called "stand your ground" law because the teen was beating him up after confronting Zimmerman about following him in a gated community outside Orlando.
• Zimmerman's credibility could become an issue at trial, legal experts said, noting the case hinges on jurors believing Zimmerman's account of what happened the night in February that Martin was killed.
• Zimmerman wasn't charged in the case until more than a month after the shooting. Protests were held across the nation, and the case spurred debate about whether race was a factor in Zimmerman's actions and in the initial police handling of the case. Martin was black; Zimmerman's father is white and his mother is from Peru.
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Foresters see massive blaze in southwestern New Mexico as test for fire management

• ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- From the air, the smoke from a massive wildfire stretches as far as the eye can see, spreading across the rugged country in southwestern New Mexico where the nation's wilderness movement was born nearly a century ago.
• On the ground, firefighters talk about the steep canyons that keep them from directly attacking what has become the largest blaze in New Mexico's recorded history and the largest currently burning in the country.
• Things might look bad. But to land managers and scientists, the record-setting blaze represents a true test of decades of work aimed at returning fire to its natural role on the landscape -- a test that comes as many Western states grapple with overgrown forests, worsening drought and a growing prospect for more megafires.
• The Whitewater-Baldy fire has destroyed a dozen cabins while marching across more than 356 square miles of the Gila National Forest. A pair of lightning-sparked fires grew together to form the massive blaze.
• Unlike last year's megafires in New Mexico and Arizona, this blaze is burning in territory that has been frequently blackened under the watchful eye of the Gila's fire managers.
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