Nation Digest

WASHINGTON

Journalist Freed by Iran Returns to U.S.

An American journalist who spent more than three months in an Iranian prison was greeted Friday with cheers and hugs from friends as she returned to the United States.

Roxana Saberi, 32, told reporters upon her arrival at Washington Dulles International Airport that singing the national anthem had helped keep her going. "And it may sound corny, but I'm so happy to be home in the land of the free."

She spent a week in Vienna recuperating after her release from prison in Iran. Asked how she was feeling Friday, she said, "Very good."

Saberi was arrested in late January and convicted of spying for the United States in a closed-door trial that her Iranian-born father said lasted 15 minutes.

She was freed May 11 after an appeals court reduced her sentence to two years suspended.

-- Associated Press

MASSACHUSETTS

Man Pleads Not Guilty In Harvard Slaying

A New York City songwriter pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the shooting of a man at a Harvard dormitory.

Jabrai Jordan Copney, 20, whose girlfriend is a Harvard senior, had traveled to the Cambridge, Mass., campus with two other men with plans to rob Justin Cosby, 21, of money and drugs, prosecutors said. A pound of marijuana and $1,000 in cash were found near where Cosby was shot, in a common area of Kirkland House.

Cosby was a resident of Cambridge but was not a student at Harvard.

"The common denominator that led to the intent to rip off Justin Cosby of both money and drugs was that Justin and Jordan were known to each other through Harvard students," said Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone.

Prosecutors said the men were either let into the dorm by other students or had access to a building card.

-- Associated Press