National Briefing

ILLINOIS

3.8 earthquake shakes northern part of state

A magnitude 3.8 earthquake shook northern Illinois, but no damage or injuries were reported, authorities said. The quake was centered about 3 miles underground in a farm field near Hampshire.

The temblor hit at 3:59 a.m. and was felt over a wide area -- from Wisconsin to Tennessee -- according to the Kane County and DeKalb County sheriff’s departments, which are closest to the epicenter. “We got hundreds of calls,” DeKalb County Sheriff Roger Scott said.

The nature of the fault activity was unclear, said Amy Vaughan, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo. Earthquakes have been more common in southern Illinois, and the fault systems in the north are not as well understood, she said, adding that more investigation will be needed to determine the cause of this quake.

NORTH CAROLINA

Judge gets video in Edwards case

A videotape purportedly showing two-time presidential candidate John Edwards and his former mistress in a sexual encounter is now in the hands of a North Carolina judge.

Superior Court Judge Abraham Penn Jones took possession of the tape a week after ordering former Edwards aide Andrew Young to hand over the recording.

Young has penned a tell-all book about how he helped hide an affair between the former Democratic presidential candidate and his mistress, Rielle Hunter.

Hunter has sued Young in an effort to obtain the video.

ILLINOIS

Blagojevich banks on tapes

As Rod R. Blagojevich pleaded not guilty to corruption charges in a revised indictment, his attorneys filed a motion seeking to play as many of the hundreds of secret recordings as they want at his trial.

The former Democratic governor and his lawyers have long suggested that their best defense lies in letting the public hear all of the conversations captured by the government so they can decide whether the talk constitutes public corruption or merely typical political wrangling.

Prosecutors allege that Blagojevich sought to enrich himself and others by leveraging the powers of his office and that he attempted to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama to the highest bidder.

FLORIDA

Artificial-reef cleanup halted

Military divers are being pulled off a project to clean up an artificial reef off Florida that turned into an environmental disaster.

The divers have spent the last three summers pulling up thousands of tires in the water a mile off Fort Lauderdale.

Hundreds of thousands of them were sunk there in 1972 in hopes that they would turn into a coral reef. But nothing grew and the tires drifted across the ocean floor, damaging real coral reefs.

The military began cleaning up the tires as a training exercise at no cost to the state. But now the Pentagon says the divers are being stretched too thin by two wars and the earthquake relief effort in Haiti.

ARIZONA

Parents abused teen, police say

A malnourished Phoenix girl was locked in a bathroom without running water for two months, beaten with metal rods and forced to exercise until exhaustion because her father said she had stolen food and cheated on a home-school test, police said.

Scott and Andrea Bass, the 14-year-old girl’s father and stepmother, were arrested Feb. 4 on suspicion of child abuse, kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment.

The girl escaped from the bathroom through the attic and rode her bike to a nearby movie theater, where a concerned couple gave her $50. She then rode about 13 miles to a Phoenix strip mall and bought water, food, a backpack and clothes because she hadn’t been allowed to change for weeks, police said.

The girl then rode to a coffee shop in Scottsdale, where she asked an employee to call police.

-- times wire reports