NATIONAL BRIEFS
PENNSYLVANIA: 2 dead in campus gunfire
A man with two semiautomatic handguns entered the lobby of a psychiatric clinic at the University of Pittsburgh on Thursday and opened fire, killing one person and wounding several others before he was shot dead, apparently by campus police. Six people were wounded. Gregory Brant said he was in a waiting room on the first floor when pandemonium broke out. "We heard some shooting, people yelling, 'Hide! Hide!' " he said. Brant, 53, and six other people, including a young girl and her parents, barricaded themselves in the waiting room. "We were kind of sitting ducks," Brant said. "Luckily, he didn't see us in there."
ALABAMA
Court blocks migrant laws
A federal appeals court blocked two more sections of Alabama's tough new law targeting illegal immigration Thursday, pending the outcome of lawsuits that seek to overturn the law entirely. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta issued an order temporarily halting a section that says courts can't enforce contracts involving illegal immigrants and another that makes it a felony for an illegal immigrant to do business with the state. The law adopted last year was challenged by both the federal government and a coalition of activist groups. A three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit said it won't rule on the overall case until the U.S. Supreme Court decides a federal challenge to a similar law in Arizona.
VIRGINIA: Legalize pot, Robertson says
Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says marijuana should be legalized and treated like alcohol because the war on drugs has failed. The evangelical Christian host of "The 700 Club" on the Virginia Beach-based Christian Broadcasting Network he founded said people should not be sent to prison for marijuana possession. He first became a self-proclaimed "hero of the hippie culture" in 2010, calling for ending mandatory prison sentences for marijuana possession. Robertson, 81, said on his show March 1: "We've said, 'Well, we're conservatives, we're tough on crime.' That's baloney."
