Nation Briefs: Smart set to testify

COURTS

SALT LAKE CITY — Elizabeth Smart can testify in competency proceedings for the man charged with her 2002 abduction. U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball said Smart’s testimony is relevant to the issue of Brian David Mitchell’s competency for trial.

BUTNER, N.C. — James von Brunn, an 89-year-old white supremacist charged with killing a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, has arrived at a prison for an evaluation of whether he’s competent to stand trial.

POLITICS

NEW YORK — Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and vice presidential candidate, has finished her memoir just four months after the book deal was announced, and the release date has been moved up from the spring to Nov. 17, her publisher said.

Animals

GLOUCESTER, Va. — Biologists are trying to figure out what killed a humpback whale found floating in a Virginia river. Officials say the 25-foot whale was first sighted Saturday.

Associated Press

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