NATIONAL BRIEFS

WYOMING

2 face triple slaying counts

Two teens charged in a triple homicide told investigators they stole handguns from a store and planned to flee the state by stealing an SUV, leading to the slayings of its owner and her elderly parents. Stephen Hammer, 19, and Tanner Vanpelt, 18, both of Cody, appeared in court Tuesday in a case that has rattled residents of the town of Clark near the Montana border. Friends of the suspects said the pair in recent months had become increasingly involved with drugs, including methamphetamine. Each is charged with 11 felony counts, some of which could carry the death penalty.

NEVADA: Gangster gets life for slaying

Wen Jun Li crossed the wrong people while racking up a $10,000 gambling debt in Las Vegas. It cost him his life. Li was slashed and stabbed 32 times while trying to escape a ruthless hit man for an Asian gang who had tracked him to a karaoke bar several blocks west of the Vegas Strip. Xiao Ye Bai, 26, a man prosecutors called an enforcer for a Taiwan-based gang, United Bamboo, was sentenced Tuesday to life without parole for Li's bloody killing -- plus what could amount to another lifetime for slashing two other people in the July 2009 attack at the Forbes KTV bar and restaurant. With his tears falling on his written apology, Bai told a Clark County district judge through a Mandarin interpreter that he knew his sorrow couldn't atone for his crimes.

ARKANSAS: Abortion veto overturned

The State Senate voted Tuesday to override Gov. Mike Beebe's veto of legislation that would ban most abortions from the 12th week of pregnancy onward and would give the state the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. The Republican-led Senate voted 20-14 to override the veto.