(Continued from page 33)

The fuel contains 15 percent ethanol, well above the current 10 percent norm sold at most U.S. gas stations.
• The higher ethanol blend is currently sold in just fewer than two dozen stations in the Midwest, but could spread to other regions as the Obama administration considers whether to require more ethanol in gasoline.
• As a result, there's a feverish lobbying campaign by both oil and ethanol interests that has spread from Congress to the White House and the Supreme Court.
• The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's chief lobbying group, has asked the Supreme Court to block sales of E15. The court could decide as soon as Monday whether to hear the ethanol case, which combines similar requests by groups representing refiners and car manufacturers.
• ___

• SANFORD, Fla. (AP) -- After almost two weeks of picking a jury, prosecutors and defense attorneys will make opening statements Monday in the trial of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer charged with second-degree murder for fatally shooting Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager.
• Zimmerman, who identifies himself as Hispanic, says he shot the 17-year-old Martin in self-defense. Prosecutors say Zimmerman racially profiled Martin as he walked through a gated community where Zimmerman lived and often patrolled. Martin was returning from a convenience store on a rainy night in February 2012, wearing a dark hooded shirt. The two eventually got into a fight and Zimmerman shot Martin.
• Circuit Judge Debra Nelson ruled last week prosecutors will be able to use the word "profiled" in their opening statements, as long as their description isn't limited to racial profiling. Prosecutors will be able to describe Zimmerman as a "wannabe cop" and "vigilante" and will be able to say Zimmerman confronted Martin.
• "We don't intend to say he was profiled solely because of race," prosecutor John Guy said last week.
• Defense attorneys Mark O'Mara and Don West will argue the case is simply self-defense, free of the racial overtones that have overshadowed it. The initial decision not to charge Zimmerman led to public outrage and demonstrations around the nation. Civil rights leaders and others accused the police in the central Florida city of Sanford of failing to thoroughly investigate the shooting because Martin was black teen from Miami. Martin was visiting his father in Sanford when he was shot.

(Continued on page 35)