NATIONAL BRIEFS

CALIFORNIA: Fatal rig lacked equipment

A fire rig that ran over and killed an Asiana Airlines crash survivor was not equipped with heat-sensing equipment that might have detected her in its path, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday. Fire officials have acknowledged that the older-model engine that ran over Ye Meng Yuan, 16, did not have the infrared technology, the newspaper said. The technology measures heat given off by objects on the ground and is now required by the Federal Aviation Administration on all new aircraft rescue trucks. Yuan was covered in fire retardant foam when the rig, racing to extinguish flames on the plane, hit her, authorities have said. "The foam has a cooling action, but the body would still have given off some ambient heat that could have been visible," Ben Castellano, former acting manager of airport safety for the FAA said.

MASSACHUSETTS: Killing of stepdaughter

Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, the former partner of James "Whitey" Bulger, testified Monday that he watched as Bulger strangled Flemmi's stepdaughter, a woman who had called him "Daddy" since she was a toddler. Flemmi, testifying during Bulger's racketeering trial, said Bulger killed Deborah Hussey because she was using drugs, getting arrested and dropping their names when she got into trouble. Flemmi denied a suggestion from Bulger's lawyer that he, not Bulger, killed Hussey. Bulger, 83, is accused of participating in 19 killings during the 1970s and '80s while leading the notorious Winter Hill Gang.

FLORIDA: Zimmerman's role in rescue

George Zimmerman helped rescue four people from an overturned vehicle in central Florida last week, just days after he was cleared of all charges in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, officials said Monday. Seminole County Sheriff's spokeswoman Kim Cannaday said deputies responding to the wreck in Sanford, the Orlando suburb where Martin was shot, found Zimmerman and another man had already helped a couple and their two children out of a flipped SUV off the road near Interstate 4. They were not hurt.