About 1,000 protesters gathered in Albany, New York on Wednesday ahead of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's (D) annual state of the state address, in hopes of pressuring the governor to end the practice of hydraulic fracturing by natural gas drillers.

Despite the rowdy, vocal display, an aide to the governor confirmed on local talk radio Wednesday morning that Cuomo would not address fracking during his speech.

Activists arrived mid-morning in seven chartered buses, according to The Times Union. They lined up across the Empire State Plaza concourse, protesting along the sole path lawmakers and audience members would have to walk to attend Cuomo's speech.

The demonstration was organized by an array of progressive groups like Greenpeace, 350.org, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, Democracy for America and Environment America, among others. They also sent an open letter to Cuomo on Monday, noting the dangers of fracking-related methane emissions.

Four sisters who claimed in a lawsuit their breast cancer was caused by synthetic estrogen their mother took during pregnancy in the 1950s have reached a settlement with the drug company Eli Lilly and Co., a lawyer for the sisters said Wednesday.

Attorney Julie Oliver-Zhang said the settlement, for an undisclosed amount, was reached on the second day of a trial in U.S. District Court in Boston. They had not specified damages sought in the lawsuit.

Indianapolis-based Eli Lilly did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

The sisters' case was the first to go to trial out of scores of similar claims filed in Boston and around the country. A total of 51 women have lawsuits pending in U.S. District Court in Boston against more than a dozen companies that made or marketed the drug.

Municipal Court Judge Michael Cicconetti wanted to make sure Jonathan Tarase learned a lesson about drunken driving he would never forget.

Cicconetti, who is known for his unusual sentencings, gave Tarase, 27, of Kirtland, a choice Tuesday. Serve five days in jail or perform two tasks: view the bodies of two victims of fatal accidents and take a three-day alcohol treatment course.

Tarase chose to avoid jail.

He pleaded no contest to a charge of drunken driving that was filed after an Oct. 13 accident on Orchard Drive in Concord Township. A husband and wife were injured when Tarase's car went through a stop sign and struck their vehicle. It was the victims' testimony that prompted the unique sentence.

In a murder his accusers say was fueled by infidelity and deceit, a northern Minnesota artist admitted in court Wednesday that he fatally crushed his wife with a 17-foot-tall totem pole they were carving.

Carl Muggli, 51, pleaded guilty in Koochiching County District Court to killing 61-year-old Linda Muggli in November 2010 at the couple's home south of International Falls. The husband had tried to convince authorities that the 700-pound pole accidentally fell out of a cradle and onto his wife of 24 years.

The couple's business website, which is still active, has read since Linda Muggli's death, "She passed while doing what she loved."

Muggli is pleading guilty to second-degree unintentional murder. He had been charged with first-degree premeditated murder and second-degree intentional murder. His trial was to begin Monday and be held in Bemidji because of pretrial publicity in and around International Falls.

The lawyer representing three of the men charged with the gang rape and murder of a medical student aboard a moving bus in New Delhi has blamed the victims for the assault, saying he has never heard of a "respected lady" being raped in India.

Manohar Lal Sharma said his clients will plead not guilty to all charges tomorrow when they make their next court appearance. His comments come as Indians have reacted with outrage to the opinions of politicians and a religious preacher who have accused westernized women of inviting sexual assaults. Sharma said the male companion of the murdered 23-year-old was "wholly responsible" for the incident as the unmarried couple should not have been on the streets at night.

"Until today I have not seen a single incident or example of rape with a respected lady," Sharma said in an interview at a cafe outside the Supreme Court in India's capital. "Even an underworld don would not like to touch a girl with respect."

A 300-foot crane crashed onto a building under construction in Long Island City, Queens, around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, while lifting a load, the authorities said.

There were seven people injured, three of them seriously, according to fire officials. None of the injuries was life-threatening, they said. There was no immediate explanation for why the crane collapsed. The mangled red crane could be seen stretching hundreds of feet, having smashed into plywood and concrete on the site.

35 story crane just collapsed outside my window in Long Island City! The sound was horrific!!! http://t.co/0yENgsF1

- UnSweetTee (@UnSweetTee) 9 Jan 13

The building under construction where the crane fell is 46-10 Vernon Boulevard, just behind the famous Pepsi-Cola sign on the East River.

A mother of two has been hailed a hero by her husband after she shot an intruder in their Loganville, Ga., home last Friday afternoon.

"She protected the kids. She did what she was supposed to do as a responsible, prepared gun owner," said her husband, Donnie Herman, in an interview with ABC's Atlanta affiliate WSB-TV.

According to Herman and the Walton County Sheriff's Office incident report, Melinda Herman was working at home when a man began to ring the doorbell. She called her husband at work, who told her to gather their 9-year-old twins, a boy and a girl, and go hide. All three of them went to an upstairs crawl space, and Melinda brought along a .38 caliber handgun to the hiding place.

Her husband, meanwhile, called the police. In the 911 recording, Herman can be heard saying, "She shot him. She's shooting him, she's shooting him. Shoot him again."

A 15-year-old Saudi girl who was forced to marry an octogenarian has been granted a divorce after a local human rights group intervened, the watchdog said on Wednesday.

The Saudi Human Rights Commission (SHRC) raised the case "after learning of the marriage of a minor girl to an 86-year-old man in Jizan" in southeast Saudi Arabia, the group's head Bandar al-Ayban said in a statement.

Al-Hayat daily had reported that the teenager locked herself inside the bedroom on her wedding night before fleeing the man's home and returning to her parents.

She had been married off to the man in exchange for a dowry worth around $17,300, the daily reported.

A Q&A with Chris Hedges on his latest book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt.

Emanuele: In Chapter One of your new book, Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, you describe the horrendous conditions endured by the Native American population living in Pine Ridge, South Dakota. This population earns, on average, anywhere from $2,600-$3,500 a year, with 49% of the total population living in official poverty status. However in a broad sense, and to inject a historical context, you describe the systematic destruction of Native culture and society; namely, through the practices of physical termination and cultural genocide. Can you talk about why you began this journey in South Dakota and the importance of recognizing previous national injustices?

Hedges: Well, it's important because that's where the project of limitless expansion and exploitation, especially the plundering of natural resources, began. There you had the timber merchants and the railroad magnates, mine speculators, and land speculators seizing territory on the western plains and exterminated the native populations who resisted. Many of which did not even resist. Then, herding the remnants into what were originally prisoner of war camps, which then finally became tribal residencies and eventually reservations - breaking the natives capacity for self-sufficiency, while creating a culture of dependency. Remember, all of this is for profit. This became the template for which the American Empire expanded: the Philippines, Cuba and all throughout Latin America. And today, places like Iraq and Afghanistan. So that's why we wanted to examine where this ideology first took root; where it was first formed; and what happened to these peoples, because in an age of corporate capitalism, where there are no impediments left, what happened to them, is going to happen to us. In the end, we're all going to be herded on some form of a reservation.

This book is about these "sacrifice zones." Whether its in Pine Ridge, or southern West Virginia in the coal mines, or whether that be urban decay such as Camden, New Jersey, which is per capita the poorest city in the country, and on target this year to be the most dangerous, per capita in the country. As we've reconfigured American society, there's no longer any mechanisms to restrain these forces. And I think the other reason Pine Ridge is important, is because the native communities were structured very differently. People who hoarded and kept everything for themselves were disposed; everything was communal; there was an understanding that all forms of life, including the natural world, were sacred. This is unacceptable in a capitalist society where human and natural life are commodities that you exploit for money until exhaustion or collapse. We see the devastation visited on the western plains now being visited in places like the Arctic, where 40% of the summer sea-ice now melts, and the response is that it's a business opportunity, where people go and slam down half a billion dollar drill bits. It's insanity of course, because in the end, these forces will not only kill us off, but they'll kill themselves off as well. That is the awful logic behind it. I think Pine Ridge provides a window into how this ideology took root, and how it works.

A spike in gun and ammunition sales has caused a nationwide shortage that has delayed police training exercises and is putting a substantial amount of weaponry in civilian hands.

Police in Atlanta, Georgia have been forced to delay training exercises due to a shortage of ammunition. The police department has put orders for more bullets on back-order, while officers are being deprived of the training that makes them capable of handling weapons.

"When you can't get ammunition, it is very concerning," Sandy Springs Police Chief Terry Sult tells WSBTV. "It affects our ability to be prepared. It affects the potential safety of the officers, because they're not as proficient as they should be."

The Sandy Springs Police Department is facing a shortage of tens of thousands of bullets and is scrambling to restock. The neighboring counties are facing an equally dire situation, with both practice ammunition and duty ammunition in short supply. Douglas County Chief Deputy Stan Copeland predicts it could be 6-8 months before the back-orders come in.

"We're going to get very concerned at the six-month level if that's all we have in stock, because then we have to start planning and rationing," Sult says.