A weak verdict in a controversial murder trial – Venezuela has dueling street protests – I went to a MMA Fight and a Turkish parliament session broke out – And a Danish Zoo backtracks on plans to kill a perfectly good giraffe – All that and more in your CareerSpot World News Briefs.

A Florida jury found a 47-year old white man guilty of attempted murder and shooting into a car full of black teenagers in a dispute over loud music.  But the panel on Saturday night failed to reach a verdict on the most serious charge of first-degree murder in the death of one of the teenaged boys.  Michael David Dunn did not dispute he shot and killed the teen in the petrol station parking lot, but claimed shelter under Florida’s controversial “Stand Your Ground” law which critics say gives gun-toting idiots license to murder at will.  That might have been enough to cloud the jury’s decision on the most serious count in the racially-charged case.  But Dunn still faces as much as 20-years in prison, and the judge could make it even tougher by mandating the sentences be carried out consecutively – and prosecutors will push for a retrial on the deadlocked count.

By the way, the victim Jordan Davis – he would have been 19 years old on Sunday.  And he didn’t deserve to die.

Thousands of supporters of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro filled several downtown Caracas plazas, to counter days of protests by anti-government hardliners and students decrying high unemployment.  Maduro told the crowd he suspected the anti-government demonstrators were funded by Colombia’s rightwing President Alvaro Uribe.  The US expressed concerns over the arrest warrant issued for conservative opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who is in hiding.  As night fell, the anti-government protesters grew violent, cops responded with tear gas and water cannons.

Last week, the “have nots” of Rio de Janeiro took to the streets to protest a public transportation fare hike.  This weekend, the “haves” took to the streets.. to wait in queue to buy wonderful, wonderful products at Latin America’s first Apple Store. 

Indonesian rescuers are resuming the search for six of seven missing female divers from Japan.  One body has reportedly been recovered.  The women were all experienced divers and two of them were instructors, but apparently disappeared in bad weather on Friday while exploring some mangroves near the island of Nusa Penida, a small island some 20 kilometers off the coast of Bali.  The area is known for treacherous currents.

A cruise ship passenger is dead after strong wind gusts created freakishly huge waves, one of which crashed through five windows on the MS Marco Polo as it went through the English Channel.  An 85-year-old man and a woman in her 70s were injured and airlifted off the ship, but the man later died.  The Marco Polo was returning from a cruise in the Azores and has docked back at Tilbury.

One Turkish legislator suffered a broken finger and another a bloody nose in a brawl in Parliament.  The debate got heated over a controversial bill which gives the government more control of the judiciary.  Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been firing cops and prosecutors over a corruption investigation that snared some members of his inner circle.

Gay rights in Africa suffered another setback when President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda told members of his party on Friday that he would sign a bill imposing harsh sentences for homosexual acts, including life imprisonment in some cases. According to Amnesty International, homosexuality is illegal in 38 of 54 African countries, with most of these anti-LGBT laws pushed by US and other western evangelicals.

Jyllands Park Zoo in Denmark now says it will not kill its 7-year old male giraffe named Marius.  Last weekend, the Copenhagen Zoo set off an international firestorm by killing an 18-month old male also named Marius and feeding it to the lions (in front of little kids, no less), and then Jyllands Park said it was ready to do the same with its animal.  The zoo claims the initial report was overblown, or maybe international pressure prompted them to back the heck down?

The United Nations chief negotiator Lakhdar Brahimi apologized to the people of Syria for the failure of the second round of talks to end the country’s three-year-old civil war.  The talks broke down without any major agreements, and without even setting a date for a third round.  The conflict has killed more than 135,000 people and driven 9.5 million from their homes

Heavy snowfall on Northern Japan’s Mount Zao coats trees to create “Snow Monsters”. 

Hey!!  Someone catch that bus!!!