NATIONAL BRIEFS

WASHINGTON: EPA limits new power plants

The Obama administration forged ahead on Tuesday with the first-ever limits on heat-trapping pollution from new power plants, ignoring protests from industry and Republicans who say the regulation will raise electricity prices and kill off coal, the dominant U.S. energy source. The proposal fell short of environmentalists' hopes, going easier than it could have on coal-fired power, one of the largest sources of gases blamed for global warming.

ARKANSAS: Two cousins guilty in wildfire

Two cousins charged with accidentally causing the largest wildfire in Arizona history pleaded guilty Tuesday to a pair of misdemeanor charges after reaching an agreement with prosecutors. Caleb and David Malboeuf each faces up to a year in jail and a $10,000 fine after admitting in federal magistrate court to leaving a campfire unattended and building a campfire without clearing flammable material to prevent it from escaping. They were camping in the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest last May when their fire spread outside its ring. High winds whipped the blaze, later dubbed the Wallow Fire, which burned more than 538,000 acres in Arizona and parts of western New Mexico before it was fully contained on July 8. In Colorado, meanwhile, investigators were trying to determine whether a controlled burn designed to minimize wildfire risk reignited and became a wildfire that forced residents to flee their homes and may have caused two deaths. The 7-square-mile fire damaged or destroyed 28 structures and led to evacuation of 900 homes south of Conifer, 8,200 feet up in the Rockies foothills.

PENNSYLVANIA: Documents in abuse trial

Prosecutors aired dozens of confidential church documents in court Tuesday to try to prove the Philadelphia archdiocese routinely buried complaints that priests were molesting children. Defrocked priest Edward Avery adopted six Hmong children and moonlighted as a disc jockey in a three-decade church career. The documents said a medical student told the archdiocese in 1992 that Avery had molested him after a DJ gig when he and the high school freshman were drinking at a West Philadelphia nightclub, and again in a motel on a Vermont ski trip.