Cops: Suspect in Santa massacre had planned to flee

The man who, dressed as Santa Claus, killed nine people at a Christmas Eve party planned to flee to Canada the next day, but California police believe he decided to kill himself instead because of severe burn injuries. During a news conference on Friday, Covina Police Chief Kim Raney said Bruce Jeffrey Pardo had purchased a ticket for an early Christmas Day flight from Los Angeles to Canada

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Group urges Burundi to drop new law against homosexuality

A human rights group urged Burundi to reverse a law that makes homosexuality illegal, saying it risks worsening the harsh treatment of gays in the eastern Africa nation. The new law makes “sexual relations with persons of the same sex” illegal and punishable by up to two years in prison, Human Rights Watch said in a recently released report. It was enacted just as the gay, lesbian and transgender community had started to mobilize and call for equal treatment, according to the organization.

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War message found inside Lincoln’s watch

A long-hidden message has been discovered inside Abraham Lincoln’s pocket watch, the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History announced Tuesday. Watchmaker Jonathan Dillon was repairing Lincoln’s watch in April 1861 when he heard about the attack on Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and wrote a short message on the metal inside the watch, the Smithsonian said. There it remained, unseen for almost 150 years, it said

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