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Forest elephants in central Africa are being slaughtered in record numbers for their ivory tusks, a decade-long study finds. The U.S. government and wildlife advocacy groups are struggling to slow the killings as poaching is overcoming laws and treaties intended to protect the species.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who died Tuesday at age 58, was an ally of dictators like Cuba's Fidel Castro and loudly opposed the United States. Chavez claimed capitalism was destroying the world and tried to transform Venezuela into a socialist state.

The Wells Street drawbridge carries cars, buses, bikes, pedestrians and elevated trains across the Chicago River. Half of the 91-year-old bridge will be replaced in just nine days. The project is so complex that one Chicago transportation official compares it to open heart surgery.

The world is speculating furiously about who will be the next Pope. The wait was too much for one German man, who tried to sneak into a closed-door meeting of cardinals. He was thrown out by the Swiss Guard after someone noticed his crucifix was too short and his sash was just a purple scarf.

Also: The influence of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables on Hugo Chavez; Jeb Bush's new book on immigration; and a 9-year-old saves himself and friends from quicksand after reading a survival guide.

The U.S. secretary of state announced last week that Washington will provide $60 million in nonlethal aid to the Syrian opposition.

Now 73, the actress tells People magazine that she doesn't think about dying. She thinks about "being here now." Doctors have told her she has about three months to live, Harper says.

Alleging that the cardinals either ignored or covered up cases of sexual abuse involving priests, the groups are pushing to keep those cardinals from being part of the deliberations. The cardinals have either not commented or denied wrongdoing.

Few of us own the music we listen or the movies we watch in exactly the same way we did a decade ago. And today if you buy a smartphone from a cellphone company, what you can legally do with it — how and where you can use it — may be proscribed even if that phone is fully bought and paid for.

Hugo Chavez was a controversial but charismatic leader of Venezuela. Host Michel Martin speaks with Dan Hellinger, a professor of political science at Webster University, about Chavez's legacy.