The court in L'Aquila also sentenced the defendants to six years in prison. Each one is a member of the national Great Risks Commission.

In Italy, convictions aren't definitive until after at least one level of appeals, so it is unlikely any of the defendants would face jail immediately.

Scientists worldwide had decried the trial as ridiculous, contending that science has no reliable way of predicting earthquakes.

Among those convicted were some of Italy's most prominent and internationally respected seismologists and geological experts, including Enzo Boschi, former head of the national Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology.

"I am dejected, desperate," Boschi said after the verdict. "I thought I would have been acquitted. I still don't understand what I was convicted of."

The trial began in September 2011 in this Apennine town, whose devastated historic center is still largely a ghost town.

Continue Reading...

The soldiers were drinking and watching football on Sunday night at their Fort Hood base when Isaac Lawrence Young got the hiccups, according to the police report. Patrick Edward Myers pulled out the gun to scare Young, thinking he had dummy rounds in the weapon, he told police.

Myers now faces mansluaghter charges and is being held on $1 million bail.

Fort Hood was also the site of a deadly 2009 shooting rampage, during which army psychiatrist Nidal Hissan shot dead 13 people.

Data from the U.S. Army Combat Readiness/Safety Center found that the third quarter of the 2012 fiscal year (April 1 to June 30) was the worst of the year when it came to accidental military deaths, but that fatal accidents are on the decline compared to 2011. More than 100 soldiers have died so far this year in on- or off-duty accidents.

Continue Reading...