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The Justice Department does not intend to seek the death penalty against a New Orleans man charged with having a role in five 2007 killings, including an off-duty police officer's fatal shooting.

A two-page court filing Monday by U.S. Attorney Jim Letten's office didn't explain its decision in the case against Steven Earl Hardrick.

A March 15 indictment claims Hardrick and others demanded money and cocaine when they broke into the home of New Orleans Police Detective Thelonius Dukes and shot him in October 2007. Dukes died the following month.

The violence in Syria is increasingly being called a civil war, and it can also be called a sectarian war, because much of the fighting pits the majority Sunni Muslims against the minority Alawites who make up much of the country's leadership.

Yet not everyone fits neatly into a category. There are some Alawites who have joined the uprising.

One 30-year-old Alawite man, who doesn't want his name revealed, is nervous as he lights another cigarette and tells the story of how he came to side with the opposition and turned his back on the Alawite rulers.

The case of George Zimmerman has taken a surprising turn today: In an audio tape released by prosecutors today, a woman accuses Zimmerman of molesting her for about a decade.

Zimmerman has been charged with second-degree murder in the killing of Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman has claimed he killed the unarmed 17-year-old in self-defense. But Martin's family and supporters allege Zimmerman racially profiled the African-American teenager and followed him despite a police dispatcher's advice not to do that.

With the Mississippi River running at low levels, salt water is moving up from the Gulf of Mexico.

The Times-Picayune reports that denser, heavier saltwater flows upriver beneath fresh water flowing downstream when the river's flow drops below normal. The Army Corps of Engineers says salt water is not yet considered a threat to water supplies in the New Orleans area.

The U.S. Naval Forces Central Command said its Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain had opened fire on a speeding vessel off the coast of Dubai today.

In a press release, the Fifth Fleet said a small motor vessel disregarded warnings and approached the USNS Rappahannock. A security team about the Navy vessel "used a series of non-lethal, preplanned responses to warn the vessel before resorting to lethal force."

The team aboard the vessel fired using a .50-caliber machine gun.

The AP reports: