Around the World

Texas death row inmate commits suicide with blade 15 hours before sceduled execution LIVINGSTON, Texas -- A death-row inmate slit his own throat with a makeshift knife early Thursday, committing suicide about 15 hours before he was scheduled to be executed, a prison official said. Michael Dewayne Johnson, 29, was on death row for the 1995 killing of a convenience store clerk near Waco, Texas. Early Thursday, he slashed his own throat and arm with a makeshift blade fashioned from a small piece of metal attached to a wooden stick, said Michelle Lyons, spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Huntsville. Prison guards had been checking on Johnson's welfare every 15 minutes, as is customary, when they found him unresponsive in a pool of blood in his cell, Lyons said. Johnson's execution had been scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday. His last-minute appeal was still pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. His was at least the seventh suicide on death row in Texas. Johnson would have been the 22nd Texas inmate executed this year. The state now has 390 people on death row. \nU.S. says Bagdad attacks 'dishearting' BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The two-month-old U.S.-Iraqi bid to crush violence in the Iraqi capital has not met "overall expectations," as attacks in Baghdad rose by 22 percent in the first three weeks of Ramadan, the U.S. military spokesman said Thursday. The spike in bloodshed during the Islamic holy month of fasting was "disheartening," and the Americans were working with Iraqi authorities to "refocus" security measures, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said.\nWal-Mart to expand generic drug program Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. will announce Thursday it is expanding a program offering $4 prescriptions for some generic drugs to 14 more states, two weeks after rolling out the low-cost program in Florida. Wal-Mart said Wednesday it would call news conferences in states from Vermont to Alaska but declined to say what they are about, except that they involved "a major new initiative" for consumers.\nChina envoy delivers message to North Korea SEOUL, South Korea -- A Chinese envoy met with North Korea's leader Thursday amid worries the country would test another nuclear device, and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited South Korea and said America wasn't trying to whip up tensions with the North. "We want to leave open the path of negotiation. We don't want the crisis to escalate," Rice told reporters, adding that she hoped the Chinese mission was successful in getting Pyongyang to scuttle its nuclear program.\nMan undergoes surgery after \nstingray attack LIGHTHOUSE POINT, Fla. -- An 81-year-old man was in critical condition Thursday after a stingray flopped onto his boat and stung him, leaving a foot-long barb in his chest similar to the accident that killed "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin. "It was a freak accident," said Lighthouse Point acting fire Chief David Donzella. "It's very odd that the thing jumped out of the water and stung him." Fatal stingray attacks like the one that killed Irwin last month at the Great Barrier Reef are rare, marine experts say. Rays reflexively deploy a sharp spine in their tails when frightened, but the venom coating the barb usually causes just a painful sting for humans. James Bertakis of Lighthouse Point was on the water with his granddaughter and a friend Wednesday when a stingray flopped onto the boat and stung Bertakis. Docsbarb during surgeries Wednesday and Thursday by eventually pulling it through his heart and closing the wound, said Dr. Eugene Costantini at Broward General Medical Center.