Washoe County Sheriff via AP

Joseph Naso, seen in an undated booking photo, insists he is "not the monster" who responsible for the so-called "alphabet murders."

SAN RAFAEL, Calif. -- An elderly California photographer charged with the slayings of four prostitutes dating back to the 1970s opened his own defense at his serial-murder trial on Monday, declaring to jurors, "I'm not the monster that killed these women."

Joseph Naso, 79, who has admitted a penchant for taking erotic pictures of women and displayed dozens of such photos in court on Monday, stood stoop-shouldered in a blue suit and tie, his hands crossed behind his back, as he politely greeted the 12 men and women who will decide his fate.

"Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen of the jury. You're a welcome sight. I've been waiting two years and two months for this day to tell my side," Naso said.

He went on to discount the government's case as little more than "theories and opinions," saying, "They don't even have circumstantial evidence."

Naso is charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of four northern California women, all of them prostitutes, whose slayings were dubbed the "alphabet murders" because the first and last name of each victim starts with the same letter in the alphabet.

Two victims, Roxene Roggasch, 18, and Carmen Colon, 22, were killed in the 1970s. Two others, Pamela Parson, 38, and Tracy Tafoya, 31, were slain in the 1990s.

Prosecutors contend that Naso drugged his victims before raping or trying to rape them, then killed the women and discarded their naked or scantily clad bodies in remote locations.

During prosecutors' opening statement on Monday morning, jurors were shown graphic photos of the victims as they appeared when their remains were found.

"The defendant is a serial rapist and murderer," said Marin County Deputy District Attorney Rosemary Slote told the jury.

Although he has no legal training, the defendant has insisted upon representing himself in the proceedings against him, for which he could face the death penalty if convicted of more than one more murder.

'I dated, I dance, I took pictures'
"I'm not the monster that killed these women. I don't do that," he said at one point during a rambling, two-hour, 10-minute opening statement. "I dated, I danced, I took pictures, but I don't kill people, and there's no evidence of that."

He acknowledged knowing one of his alleged victims, Parson, who by his account he picked up as a hitchhiker and brought to his house. There, he said, she offered to have sex with him. But he said he declined and took photos of her instead.

Naso was arrested in 2010 after authorities searching his home in Nevada found what prosecutors have described as diaries of sexual assaults and a list of victim dumping grounds, along with hundreds of photographs of naked women, many of whom appeared to be dead or unconscious.

It was only then that investigators began to put a serial murder case together against Naso, who was at the time on probation for shoplifting.

Naso insisted on Monday that "not one picture of a deceased person" was found at his home. Naso showed the jury a collection of roughly 50 photographs he had taken over the years, mostly of female subjects, many of them topless or in various stages of undress, interspersed with photos from weddings, a college sorority gathering, a nursing school graduation and a church group.

Of prosecutors' assertions that Naso's DNA was found on nylons from his ex-wife that he allegedly used to strangle one of his victims, he said such evidence was inconclusive.

As to journal notations attributed to him by prosecutors that refer to him having "raped" a woman, he told jurors, "That's the way I talk. It's just loose talk that I used. 'I pick up a nice broad and I raped her.' It's got nothing to do with forcible rape in the way we usually think."

He concluded by saying, "When this trial is over, I'd like you to find me not guilty so I can go home and see my children."

Related:

• Eerie similarites noted in NY, Calif. cold cases
• Serial killing suspect kept photos, list of women

Linda Davidson / The Washington Post via Getty Images, file

Tuesday's report highlights successful teacher training programs at a handful of universities, including Ohio State, which recently launched an undergraduate degree program that gives students hands-on experience in a classroom each year.

The teacher training system is badly broken, turning out rookie educators who have little hands-on experience running classrooms and are quickly overwhelmed by the job, according to a report released Tuesday by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

The review found "an industry of mediocrity," with the vast majority of programs earning fewer than three stars on a four-star rating scale - and many earning no stars at all.

The council, a bipartisan research and advocacy group, spent eight years developing the methodology, fighting in court to gain access to data and analyzing the information before issuing the report. It contains detailed analysis of 608 colleges and universities with teacher training programs and partial data on 522 others.

Those 1,130 institutions collectively turn out more than 170,000 novice teachers annually, about 80 percent of the new teachers entering classrooms each year. Most of the rest come from non-traditional training programs that are not necessarily affiliated with colleges, such as Teach for America.

Freshly minted teachers "don't know how to teach reading, don't know how to master a classroom, don't know how to use data," said Kate Walsh, the council's president. "The results were dismal."

Attempts to improve teacher training have been under way.

The two big teachers unions have both called for aspiring educators to get better mentoring and more practical experience before they graduate. They have also urged tougher certification standards that would require candidates to prove their skills in a classroom - not just pass a paper-and-pencil test - before earning a license.

Yet the study is the first to attempt a comprehensive rating of teacher preparation programs.

The methodology drew immediate fire from some professors of education.

The council ratings lean heavily on a few factors: Whether a program is selective in its admissions; whether its students must take extensive courses in the subject areas they will be teaching; and how much hands-on experience students get in classroom management. Researchers also looked at syllabi, textbooks and the type of training offered in key fields, such as teaching reading.

But the study did not typically evaluate the quality of teaching within the training program or the success graduates may have had in the classroom.

"These rankings do not have a great deal to do with program quality," said Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor at the Stanford University School of Education, which received only mediocre ratings.

Several universities tried to block researchers from getting data about their programs; in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Missouri, the disputes escalated into court battles won by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

"Our members feel like they've been strong-armed," said Stephanie Giesecke, a director at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. "These are not valid ways of rating our programs."

For all its grim warnings, the new report does point to a few bright spots.

It highlights successful teacher training programs at a handful of universities, including Ohio State, which recently launched an undergraduate degree program that gives students hands-on experience in a classroom each year.

Furman University in Greenville, S.C., also won high marks for its academic rigor and intensive mentoring of aspiring teachers.

"When they leave our program, we're putting a stamp on them that says, 'This person can work with other peoples' children,'" said Scott Henderson, director of program development for the teacher education program. "That's a huge responsibility."

The National Council on Teacher Quality was founded in 2000 and often advocates for education reform policies opposed by teacher unions. It is funded by private foundations, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation.

Marcio Jose Sanchez / AP

From left, Black Forest resident Kristin Brown, whose family lost their home in the wildfire, is joined by Ashley Clipp, Kaitlyn Barlow and Ashley's son Jackson, 2, as they support first responders outside of a fire camp in Colorado Springs, Colo., on Sunday.

The most destructive wildfire in Colorado’s history is 75 percent contained and expected to be fully under control by Thursday, officials in Colorado Springs said Monday.

Since the Black Forest Fire started on Tuesday, 480 structures have been destroyed, but the mandatory evacuation zone was reduced Monday morning, according Jennifer Brown, an El Paso county public information officer.

Although Brown said more areas are being cleared for displaced residents to return, The Associated Press reported that people whose houses are in areas where the fire did the most damage may be delayed by fire investigators. 

The cause of the fire is still unknown and evidence in those areas could help officials determine what or who started the blaze.

Slideshow: Colorado wildfires

The Black Forest fire raging in Colorado is now the state's most destructive wildfire ever.

Launch slideshow

While officials said that three subsequent wildfires may have been caused by lightning strikes, at the time when the Black Forest Fire started, lightning hadn’t been an issue, so the fire is believed to be a result of a person or machine.

Meanwhile thunderstorms were bringing welcome rain as they helped firefighters contain the fire further on Sunday and Monday, and more showers were forecast into the week.

In the midst of firefighters extinguishing the remaining fires, the Sheriff’s office is focused on damage assessment of structures and cleanup, to prepare for more people to return to their homes. However, according to KUSA, an NBC affiliate in Colorado, even those who are allowed back into their homes, or allowed to retrieve what they can from the rubble, still “must be ready to go at a moment's notice.”

Two deaths were caused by the wildfire, officials said, but the Sheriff’s department has yet to release their names. The two who lost their lives were in the midst of packing up belongings from their garage when it collapsed on them, officials said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report

US Marshals Service via Reuters; AP

James 'Whitey' Bulger in a 2011 booking photo, left, and John Martorano in 2008.

James “Whitey” Bulger, already charged with killing 19 people, was accused Monday of emotionally wounding a Boston hitman.

John “The Executioner” Martorano –  a star witness at Bulger’s racketeering and murder trial – told the jury that it “sort of broke my heart” when he learned his pal was an FBI informant.

He said Bulger and Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi had been his “partners in crime,” his best friends and godfather to his children, the Associated Press reported.

But the news that Bulger and Flemmi were working with the feds “broke all the trust that we had, all loyalty,” Martorano said, according to the Boston Globe.

So he hit them where it hurt: He decided to become a government snitch, too.

As a result of his cooperation agreement, Martorano served just a dozen years in prison even though he admitted to 20 murders, some of which he matter-of-factly recounted in his first hours on the stand.

“I shot him … in the heart,” Martorano said of the 1973 slaying of Joseph Notarangeli. He said he dressed as a butcher for the rubout at a Medford, Mass., restaurant called the Pewter Pot.

Martorano also described a 1974 hit on Notarangeli’s brother, Alfred, and claimed Bulger watched from a second car – the first time in the week-old trial that a witness has directly tied the 83-year-old ex-fugitive to a killing.

The confessed hitman said he botched the initial attempt on Alfred Notarangeli’s life, mistakenly killing bartender Michael Milano who drove a similar car.

“Wrong guy,” he told the prosecutor, according to the Globe.

Milano wasn’t the only unintended victim of Martorano’s bloody membership in the Winter Hill Gang. Innocent bystanders Elizabeth Dickson, 19, and Douglas Barrett, 17, were caught in the crossfire and killed when Martorano opened fire on associate Herbert Smith in 1968.

Smith’s capital crime? He laughed at Flemmi, Martorano said.

The witness admitted he felt bad about Dickson and Barrett.

“I wanted to kill myself,” he said, according to the Globe.

Martorano – who has reportedly sold his life story to a movie producer for $250,000 – is one of three former Bulger cronies testifying for the prosecution. In opening statements, the defense argued the trio only squealed to save themselves and have no credibility.

Bulger, who spent 16 years on the lam before being nabbed with his girlfriend in Santa Monica, Calif., in 2011, is charged with taking part in 19 murders, extortion, money-laundering, drugs and weapons.

He has pleaded not guilty, and in opening statements, his lawyer described him as a small-time drug-dealer and loanshark – not the notorious gang kingpin who prosecutors say kept a stranglehold on South Boston for decades and inspired Jack Nicholson’s character in “The Departed.”

Bulger also has denied he was an informant for the FBI, even though he wanted to put on a defense that argued he had immunity from the feds to commit crimes.

This story was originally published on Mon Jun 17, 2013 5:33 PM EDT

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Ken Feinberg, administrator for "The One Fund, Boston", waits to begin a town hall style meeting about the fund in Boston on May 7.

The primary compensation fund for victims of the Boston Marathon bombings has garnered upwards of $50 million and received more than 200 applications for payments, according to the fund’s administrators. 

The One Fund Boston received 212 claims by the Saturday postmark deadline, with additional applications known to be en route to the fund’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. in courier mail, according to Camille Biros, the deputy fund administrator.

The June 15 deadline marked two months to the day since twin explosions went off at the marathon's finish line, killing three and injuring over 260 people.

“We are still receiving applications. Typically, many applications come near or on the deadline,” Biros said Monday. “We don’t know what the ultimate number will be.” 

Any requests postmarked past deadline will be reviewed and distributed on a "case-by-case" basis, Biros said. The fund hopes to have payments in claimants' hands by July 1, she said.

The distribution protocol, finalized in May, will prioritize deaths, double amputees, and victims who sustained brain damage, followed by single amputees and then people whose injuries required an overnight hospital stay.

Families of four people killed –  three by the April 15 explosions and one MIT campus police officer killed by the suspects days later — are eligible for payments, but Biros on Friday declined to say whether those four families had applied for compensation. 

Applicants were required to fill out a three-page form, available on the fund’s official website. The form asks claimants to specify the nature of any injuries and the duration of the hospital stay. It also requires a hospital statement confirming that the purported injuries were sustained during the attack.

Fund administrator Kenneth Feinberg has said that, despite the sum of money in the fund’s coffers, claimants should 'lower their expectations' about the impact of potential payouts.

“Whatever we do with this fund is inadequate,” Feinberg, 68, said at a town hall-style meeting in May. “Everyone, please lower your expectations about this fund. If you had a billion dollars, you would not have enough money to deal with the problems with these attacks.”

Feinberg has managed compensation for families damaged by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks; the Aurora, Colo., movie theater massacre; and the shootings on the campus of Virginia Tech.

LONDON -- British spies intercepted the phone calls of foreign politicians and delegates at the G-20 summit in 2009, according to documents provided to The Guardian by self-declared NSA leaker Edward Snowden, the newspaper reported Monday.

U.K. intelligence agency GCHQ also monitored the computers of delegates at the London conference and tried to capture their passwords, the newspaper said.

Among the foreign politicians targeted were then-President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, and Turkish finance minister, Mehmet Simsek, the newspaper said.

The report came hours before President Barack Obama and other world leaders from the G-8 countries - all of which are in the G-20 – were due to attend a two-day summit in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland.

Although espionage at international conferences has often been rumored, it is rare for evidence to be uncovered, The Guardian said.

It said the evidence was contained in classified documents shown to its reporters by Snowden, a U.S. citizen who worked for a private defense contractor and now faces a federal investigation into a string of embarrassing leaks about the National Security Agency and the PRISM surveillance program.

Snowden is reportedly in Hong Kong, where he told The Guardian that he was hoping to fight the U.S. government in the courts.

A spokesman for Britain’s foreign ministry declined to comment on the report. A spokesman for GCHQ said the agency never commented on intelligence matters.

Related:

• Edward Snowden, professed NSA leaker, may have few safe havens
• What we know about NSA leaker Edward Snowden
• Girlfriend of self-professed NSA leaker blogged that she felt 'lost at sea'

This story was originally published on Mon Jun 17, 2013 8:29 AM EDT

Eric Kayne

Boston Marathon survivor Rebekah Gregory, who has undergone 13 surgeries to save her left leg. She was medivaced to Houston, where she is from, two weeks ago.

RICHMOND, Texas – After 13 surgeries aimed at saving her lower left leg, including one that used live back muscle to cover an open and infected wound, a mother seriously hurt in the Boston Marathon bombings has managed to keep that injured limb – for now.

But the days are full of pain and exhaustion for Rebekah Gregory, 26, who is believed to have been the last patient connected to the Boston bombings released from hospital when she was discharged on June 10. She spent 56 days total in hospitals in Boston and Houston, near her home.

Though tales of triumph and comeback abound among the 275 injured in the April 15 bombings on the city's famed road race, some victims like Gregory have a long and uncertain path ahead -- one that does not guarantee full recovery.

“I am kind of just taking it one day at a time because we don't really know what's going to happen,” Gregory said Thursday as she sat in bed and an IV drip fed antibiotics into her body to keep at bay a bone infection – first detected around the fourth week of her recovery – that could force amputation of her limb. “I have a leg today, but I could not have it tomorrow.”

Gregory's case is rare even among the more seriously wounded: while amputees are moving ahead with prosthesis training and others are recovering in rehabilitation, she is stuck many steps back, wondering what will happen with her leg.

Doctors have told her at least ten times that they would need to amputate, but then would quickly walk back as her condition changed. One time, they asked her to make the call.

“How do you make that decision? Because I could say, 'Okay, yeah this hurts really bad,” she said, “ … and all these other people that didn't have the choice to have the amputation are out and they're being fitted for their prosthetics and going on about their lives.”

“But how do you make that decision to just say, 'Okay, just take it?'” she said. “At that point, I still didn't feel like that was the way to go. So at least now if I lose my leg tomorrow or next week, I can at least say I tried to keep it.”

A catalog of injuries

Gregory's injuries are primarily to her left side and include: losses of a lot of soft tissue to her foot and in what she calls a series of “craters” going down her leg, the destruction of about 30 percent of her fibula bone, fractures to her tibia and hand, and multiple fractures to her foot as well as the loss of part of her fourth and fifth metatarsals.

She was medically evacuated to Houston after nearly 40 days in Boston to continue her care near home.

When she got there, doctors at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center tended to a pressing matter: irrigating and cleaning the infected open wound on her foot that, if not remedied, could lead to amputation.

After doing that, they removed a small piece of muscle from her back, with a blood vessel attached, to connect to her foot and a corresponding artery and vein. They placed skin grafts from her thigh on top of it, said Dr. Emmanuel Melissinos, a microsurgeon who performed the procedure.

So far, Gregory has responded well to treatment and her recovery is in line with doctors' expectations, he said. He believes the chances of amputation are remote but possible, especially if the six weeks of antibiotics doesn't squelch the infection.

That recovery is now happening at the home of Gregory's parents, which they moved into the weekend of the bombing. Her mom, Tina, and dad, Tim, packed up her house in Houston and moved her and her son Noah, 5, in with them and her two younger sisters.

Back home

Though Gregory was anxious to get out of the hospital, the transition hasn't been easy.

Eric Kayne

Michael Umana, RN, performs wound care on Boston Marathon survivor Rebekah Gregory, who has undergone 13 surgeries to save her left leg.

Every move she makes must be calculated in advance. That's because she can't bear weight on her leg and she has to keep her left foot raised above her heart for at least 50 minutes of every hour to protect the transplanted muscle and skin graft.

“My leg hurts really bad every day, all day,” she said. “It's a constant pain.”

Going to the bathroom, steps away from her bedroom, is a workout. It entails her getting in the wheelchair, rolling to the door and then using a walker.

“That process alone, I mean, I could take a nap for three hours afterwards. ... It's very difficult right now,” she said as she laid in bed with her left foot propped up on three pillows: “What you see is what I do.”

But that's only part of the adjustment.

“It's not only the physical part of it but it's just the getting back to normal routine as best as I can,” she said, noting the humdrum sounds of everyday life made her anxious.

“Noises really bother me right now ... especially loud noises, I know that Noah's the same way,” she added, noting both her eardrums were ruptured in the blast. “It sends your body into freakout mode … because that day is very much relived. It's like it happened yesterday.”

That day for Gregory was the culmination of what up to then had been a perfect weekend. It began on Friday with her birthday celebration in Rochester, N.Y., at the home of her boyfriend, Pete DiMartino.

The couple, Noah, DiMartino's sister and his parents, and others then traveled to Boston to watch his mother compete in the marathon. They were at the finish line when the first bomb went off.

“All of a sudden, everything was gray,” she said. “I was on the pavement and I couldn't move my body.”

Her main concern was Noah. “Out of all the people screaming and crying, and all the commotion going on around us, I could hear his little voice saying, 'Momma, momma, momma.'”

DiMartino's aunt whisked Noah up and brought him to Gregory. Noah had been struck by shrapnel in the back of his head, where he now has a bald patch, and straight to the bone on his right leg, where he has a long scar that he has dubbed the “swordfish.” He was in the hospital for five days.

Bystanders wrapped Gregory in jackets and she was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance with another victim. She could hear the medics saying, “We have an amputee,” and thought they were speaking about her. When she gained consciousness, her parents had to show her a photo of her leg to convince her that she still had it.

“I'm just hoping that I'll be able to keep it,” she said. “But if not, my leg is not my life.”

The costs of recovery

Complicating matters for Gregory, who had been working as an account executive at a corporate housing relocation company, is that her health insurance expired on her birthday, just two days before the attacks.

She had been on her parents' plan and had planned quickly to apply for the one provided by her work, but instead is paying $400 a month for Cobra coverage on top of the costs that her insurance doesn't cover.

Doctors have told her a full recovery could take up to 16 months and she will likely have more surgeries. To help with the medical bills, she applied for the One Fund set up by authorities in Massachusetts to aid the marathon victims.

"It would make a huge difference," she said. "There's a lot. I mean right now, home health (care from a practitioner) and all of the medicines I am on. ... I have $1,000 at least worth of prescriptions a month, and a lot that insurance doesn't cover."

Taking it slow

Eric Kayne

Boston Marathon attack survivor Rebekah Gregory, with her son Noah. She has faced the possibility of amputation many times, and is resigned to the fact that may be a possibility. She says her life is not about her leg and is just happy to be alive.

Dr. Edward Ken Rodriguez, one of the doctors who treated Gregory in Boston at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said he believed Gregory was the most severely injured marathon patient at the hospital who had kept such a wounded limb.

He was very optimistic about her prospects going forward with her leg but cautioned: “When you salvage a limb like that, it's never a normal limb. What's hard to predict is the level of chronic pain she will have in the future, how functional the limb will be, how strong it will be.”

“We understand that you can go through many, many surgeries and end up with a very unsatisfying limb, a limb with chronic pain. So it's not unusual for patients who have even started down the course of salvage (to) have changed their minds after a few months,” he added.

At least 15 of the people wounded in the marathon had amputations. Gregory's case was an example of the debate and conflict between salvage and amputation that has been going on for many years, said Rodriguez, the hospital's chief of orthopedic trauma.

“Salvage is a very time intensive, slow first phase. It could be a good year before you get to the point where you have a bit of a picture of how it's going to turn out,” he said.

“She could do very well with an amputation, but she could also do very well with her own leg,”  he added. “This is the uncertainty and how long a road you want to ride before you find out.”

Gregory plans to ride that road out for the time being. She is also mindful that she and her son need also to recover from the emotional scars and lamented that Noah “remembers too much” from that day.

He doesn't want them to leave the house and brings his mom breakfast daily: one day it was soggy Froot Loops, another it was toast slathered with an inch thick of jelly.

“I take care of my momma and she takes care of me,” he said.

Gregory maintained a positive attitude and a constant smile while talking about some of their darkest days. She keeps up with her boyfriend, DiMartino, who was also injured and is recovering at home, by video chatting online.

The experience has made her “appreciate everything just a little bit more,” she said.

"I'm grateful for every single day that comes because it's just reinforced what I've known all along -- that we don't have as much time as we think we do.”

How to help: To donate to Gregory, her employer set up this fund: http://corporates.com/rebekah/

Related:

Full coverage of the Boston Marathon tragedy on NBCNews.com

A private jet carrying former President George W. Bush to Texas was diverted to Louisville, Kentucky late Saturday after the pilot reported possible smoke in the cockpit, according to his spokesman and Federal Aviation Administration officials.

The aircraft was traveling from Philadelphia International to Dallas Love Field airport when it made an unscheduled landing. President Bush later continued to Texas.

"President Bush's flight was briefly diverted to Louisville late this evening, but he is already safely home in Dallas,” spokesman Freddy Ford told NBCDFW.com in a statement.

A spokeswoman for the FAA confirmed that the flight was diverted because the captain reported possible smoke in the cockpit.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's two-term presidency will end officially in early August when the victor of Friday's election takes office, but many of his pronouncements over the last eight years will surely linger in memories of Iranians and world citizens alike.

Here's a look back at some of Ahmadinejad's most memorable statements and appearances.

Questioning the Holocaust.

Ahmadinejad has called the Holocaust a myth numerous times, but in 2009, representatives of several nations walked out of the United Nations' General Assembly because of his remarks: "They (the Western powers) launched the myth of the Holocaust. They lied, they put on a show and then they support the Jews."

Earlier, in October 2006, NBC's Brian Williams interviewed Ahmadinejad and asked about some of his statements. The Iranian president said he wanted to use a "scientific approach" when analyzing the logistics of the Holocaust.

There are no gay people in Iran.

After a speech at Columbia University in September 2007, Ahmadinejad took questions from the crowd. One audience member asked why Iran executes gay citizens. He responded: “In Iran, we don't have homosexuals, like in your country. We don't have that in our country. In Iran, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it."

Israel will be eliminated.

Ahmadinejad frequently talks about how Israel should be eliminated or "wiped off the map."

At a 2006 conference held in Iran in support of Palestinians he said: "The existence of the Zionist regime is tantamount to an imposition of an unending and unrestrained threat so that none of the nations and Islamic countries of the region and beyond can feel secure from its threat."

Iranian women should marry young.

In 2004, Iran’s parliament changed the legal age of "acceptable marriage" from nine to 14, Reuters reported. This was widely accepted as an improvement to the former policy, and President Ahmadinejad’s got even more specific on his own recommendations.

"The best age for marriage is between 16 to 18 for girls and 19 to 21 for boys," he said.

Americans created HIV to loot African nations.

Ahmadinejad questioned why African countries suffer from so many deadly diseases. His conclusion? "It is obvious that the African countries must be plundered of their wealth and resources. The major powers and despots are behind the development of these diseases so they could then sell their drugs and medical equipment to the poor countries."

The reasons for 9/11.

In 2011, at perhaps his most noted United Nations appearance, Ahmadinejad said “the mysterious September 11 incident” was used as a precursor to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"By using their imperialistic media network which is under the influence of colonialism they threaten anyone who questions the Holocaust and the September 11 event with sanctions and military actions," he said at the meeting.

About 30 U.N. members, including those from the U.S., European Union, New Zealand, Australia, and Somalia, walked out after his remarks.

He even earned a parody.

And, of course, who could forget Saturday Night Live’s tribute to Ahmadinejad in Andy Samberg’s digital short “Iran So Far” featuring Maroon 5's Adam Levine?

Related stories:

• Post-presidency, what's next for Iran's Ahmadinejad?
• Conservative pressure keeps Iran presidential campaign tame
• Iran election primer: After Ahmadinejad, who will lead?

WVLA-TV

The CF Industries plant in Donaldsonville, La., is just 30 miles south of Geismar, where a chemical plant explosion killed two people Thursday, June 13.

A container ruptured at a Louisiana nitrogen plant Friday night, killing one person and injuring at least seven others, the company said — just a day after an explosion at a chemical plant killed two people in the same parish.

Louisiana State Police told NBC News that three of the injured were in critical condition.

The plant's owner, CF Industries of Deerfield, Ill., said the incident occurred about 6 p.m. (7 p.m. ET) at its facility in Donaldsonville, roughly halfway between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. "There was no fire or chemical release nor is there any threat or hazard posed to the community," it said.

Ascension Parish Sheriff Jeff Wiley and plant manager Lou Frey said at a news conference Friday night that the rupture — which initially was reported as an explosion — was caused by workers who overpressurized a nitrogen vessel they were filling from a truck at CF Industries in Donaldsonville.

"There was no explosion, no fire," Frey said.

Wiley said it was "like a balloon popping."

Federal records show that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined CF Industries, one of the world's biggest nitrogen fertilizer producers, about $150,000 for safety and health violations after a fire and explosion killed three people at the Donaldsonville plant in 2000. It cited 12 violations posing "substantial probability" of serious injury or death. 

The blast Friday occurred just a day after an explosion and fire at the Williams Olefins chemical plant in Geismar, just 30 miles north of Donaldsonville, killed two people and injured more than 70 others. State Police confirmed the second death Friday.

"The irony of back-to-back incidents has not escaped us," Wiley, said. "We express our sincere condolences to the families of the deceased and injured."

Azhar Fateh of NBC News contributed to this report.

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This story was originally published on Fri Jun 14, 2013 10:06 PM EDT