NATIONAL BRIEFS

IOWA: Egg manager guilty in bribery

A manager at the egg farms linked to a nationwide salmonella outbreak in 2010 pleaded guilty Wednesday to a role in a conspiracy to bribe a federal inspector to allow the sale of unapproved eggs. Former DeCoster Farms manager Tony Wasmund, 61, acknowledged during a plea hearing in Sioux City he conspired to bribe a public official in order to sell restricted eggs and misbranded food, federal prosecutors said. Wasmund, of Wilmar, Minn., is a former manager in the egg firms.

OREGON: Portland to get fluoride

The Portland City Council approved a plan Wednesday to add fluoride to city water by March 2014, meaning Oregon's biggest city is no longer the largest holdout in the United States. "Reasonable people can disagree, but the science is on the side of fluoridation," Mayor Sam Adams said after the unanimous vote. Opponents say they plan to collect almost 20,000 signatures in the next 30 days to force a referendum early next year, before the mineral is added to a water supply that serves about 900,000 people in Portland and a few suburbs.

OHIO: Religious beliefs blamed

Each one of the hair- and-beard-cutting attacks against Amish men and women last fall was connected to one person, an Amish bishop who thought he was above the law and free to hand out punishment based on his religious beliefs, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristy Parker on Wednesday in closing arguments in the government's hate crimes case. The bishop, Sam Mullet Sr., believed the government should stay out of the dispute because this was a religious matter, she said. "That is where he's absolutely wrong," Parker said.