PARIS – French prosecutors opened a murder inquiry into the death of Yasser Arafat on Tuesday, his widow’s lawyer said, after she and a TV investigation raised new questions about whether the Palestinian leader was poisoned.

Many in the Arab world have long suspected that Arafat was poisoned, and a Swiss lab’s recent finding of elevated levels of highly lethal polonium-210 on Arafat’s clothing has fed those claims.

But the Institute of Radiation Physics said its findings were inconclusive and that only exhuming Arafat’s remains could bring possible clarity. Palestinian officials initially approved the exhumation and then said more study was needed – further fueling suspicions.

College student says attack a hate crime

A Michigan State University student said he was attacked at an off-campus party by two men who asked whether he was Jewish, and when he said he was, punched him and stapled his mouth.

“It’s shameful that in 21st-century America, such religious hatred exists in our country,” Zach Tennen, a 19-year-old sophomore, said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press. “No one should ever be subjected to the horror I experienced.”

Police in East Lansing said Tuesday the attack probably isn’t a hate crime, and neither police nor Tennen’s statement provided details.

Mail carrier admits shipping cocaine

A mail carrier used her daily route to move cocaine shipments in falsely addressed packages on behalf of a drug trafficking organization based in Puerto Rico, federal authorities said Tuesday.

The U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey said Christina Nunez admitted receiving packages of cocaine from Puerto Rico and passing them to a co-conspirator in Camden.

Nunez didn’t enter a plea at her initial appearance in a Newark federal courtroom Tuesday.