Nonsense in Amuricka

Excerpts from today's WaPo's "Nation In Brief:"

• BENTON, Tenn. -- Authorities put out traps baited with honey buns and doughnuts Friday in hopes of capturing a potentially crazed black bear that killed Elora Petrasek, 6, and mauled her mother, Susan Cenkus, 45, and 2-year-old brother, Luke Cenkus.
• WILKES-BARRE, Pa. -- WNEP-TV declined to broadcast an opening-day baseball game between the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons and Norfolk because it was being played on Good Friday. Instead, the station said it would air local news, followed by the tabloid show "Inside Edition," an episode of "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" and then "Primetime."
• RENO, Nev. -- A casino company's requirement for female bartenders to wear makeup does not amount to sexual discrimination, a federal appeals court ruled. Lawyers for Harrah's Entertainment Inc. said the 7 to 4 ruling against Darlene Jespersen -- who was fired in 2000 for refusing to wear makeup after 21 years as a bartender at Harrah's in Reno -- affirms the right of employers to adopt reasonable dress and grooming standards.
• GIBSONIA, Pa. -- A wood chipper being hauled by a dump truck broke free and bounded across a highway, striking a minivan and killing Spencer Morrison, 37, and two of his 4-year-old triplets, police said. The third triplet was in critical condition.
• ORLANDO -- DEA agent Lee Paige, who accidentally shot himself while demonstrating gun safety to schoolchildren, sued the agency, saying its alleged release of a video of the incident has made him the joke of the Internet and late-night comics. Paige was making a presentation to children at the Orlando Youth Minority Golf Association on April 9, 2004, when he shot himself.
• UNIONTOWN, Pa. -- A man threw a microwave at his girlfriend, then fatally beat her after she refused to heat up sandwiches, police said. Walter S. Fordyce, 58, was charged with criminal homicide in the death of Mary McCann, 58.
• MIAMI -- An woman who fled 30 years ago before she could be sentenced for killing a 13-year-old boy was arrested at her apartment, authorities said. Maria Josefa Otero, 87, was found guilty of second-degree murder in 1976 for the shooting death of Johnny Perez, who had jumped into the pool of a building Otero owned. Perez was shot after Otero ordered the youths to leave.

So that's our country, the short version.