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Pistorius pleads not guilty at start of murder trial, says killing of girlfriend was accident
• PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) -- Oscar Pistorius pleaded not guilty Monday to murdering his girlfriend on Valentine's Day last year, marking the start of the Olympian's murder trial that was being broadcast live on TV.
• The first witness, a neighbor of Pistorius, was called before even an hour had passed. The trial itself started 90 minutes late with Pistorius pleading not guilty to murder, two charges relating to discharge of firearm in a public place and one charge of illegal possession of ammunition.
• The double-amputee athlete is charged with murdering his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp in the pre-dawn hours of Feb. 14, 2013. Pistorius says he shot Steenkamp by accident, thinking she was an intruder inside his bathroom.
• Before the trial started, Pistorius walked past the victim's mother who says she came to court so she can "really look him in the eyes."
• Defense lawyer Kenny Oldwadge laid out Pistorius' legal strategy, reading a statement from the runner in which he says the killing was an accident and that there were inconsistencies in the state's case, as well as an attempt to introduce inadmissible character evidence to discredit him.
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Big or small, government spending cuts falter, belying promises to reduce deficits
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- The budget gurus in Congress have failed for years to find a grand bargain to reduce the government's long-term debt, so this year they decided to go small. Just 1 percentage point would be shaved from the annual cost-of-living increase in military pensions for veterans under age 62.
• That strategy failed, too. Congress promptly caved in to pressure from the powerful veterans lobby and voted last month to restore the bigger pension increases it had cut just two months earlier. It didn't matter that the Pentagon itself called the reduction fair and necessary.
• Advocates of deficit reduction are discouraged. They say they fear Congress' reversal on military pensions will lead to unraveling other recent spending cuts.
• "It's tough to overstate how devastating that was," said Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., one of just three senators who voted to keep the pension reduction in place. "It's (Continued on page 24)
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