N.M. teenager to plead guilty to murder in school shooting

DEMING, N.M. (Reuters) -- A 13-year-old New Mexico boy has agreed to plead guilty to murder for fatally shooting a classmate in the head on the playground of their small town middle school, a district attorney said Friday.Victor Cordova will spend at least two years in a juvenile detention center after agreeing to plead guilty to one count of second degree murder and 11 counts of aggravated assault with a firearm, District Attorney Daniel Viramontes told reporters.

Cordova will likely enter his plea May 23 and will then be sentenced by a judge, Viramontes said.

Texas A&M bonfire victim is released from hospital

DALLAS (AP) -- The last Texas A&M University student to be rescued from last year's fatal bonfire collapse has been released from the hospital.

John Comstock, 19, was upbeat as he left Zale Lipshy University Hospital after five months.

"I want to try to get back to A&M by next spring," he said.

Comstock, a freshman, was wiring logs together on the fourth tier of the 59-foot stack of logs when it fell on Nov. 18. He was pinned under timbers for almost seven hours in the collapse that killed 12 students and injured 26 others.

2 seventh-graders charged in grisly plot to kill 3 rivals

MIAMI (AP) -- Two seventh-grade girls were charged with scheming to bludgeon three rivals with a bag of batteries and slash their throats in the latest in a recent string of schoolyard murder plots around the country.

The alleged plot was thwarted when officials found the bag and pencil boxes full of knives and razor blades.

"Nowadays you have to take every threat seriously," said North Lauderdale police spokesman Roy Liddichott. "They certainly had the means by which to carry out their threat. Would they have? Luckily we never found out."

Boy burning trash may have started 15,000-acre wildfire

NAPLES, Fla. (AP) -- A 17-year-old burning trash on his family's property a fire that burned more than 15,000 acres this week.

Florida agriculture investigators have determined the cause of the fire was a trash fire that got out of control when an aerosol can in the trash exploded.

The giant fire was nearly contained Friday morning. Firefighters were celebrating a heavy drenching of rain that began Thursday afternoon and was expected to continue throughout the weekend.

Ringleader of girls' gang is sentenced for robberies

DALLAS (Reuters) -- The ringleader of a suburban teenage girls' gang that dubbed itself the "Queens of Armed Robbery" was sentenced Friday to three concurrent 7 1/2-year prison terms for a series of convenience store holdups.

Krystal Maddox, 16, cried as Texas District Judge Mark Kent Ellis read the jury's decision.

Maddox and three high school friends from an affluent Houston suburb, Kingwood, were linked to five robberies committed in 1999 during their summer vacation from school. Maddox was tried and convicted of three of the robberies.

FDA issues a warning about dialysis product

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Food and Drug Administration issued an urgent warning Friday that an unapproved product being used to keep lines open in some dialysis units can be deadly if infused into patients.

The FDA said it had one report of a death in which a patient suffered cardiac arrest shortly after triCitrasol was injected full strength into a permanent blood access catheter.

The agency said rapid and excessive infusion of citrate solutions can cause fatal heart rhythm disruptions, seizures and bleeding due to loss of blood calcium.

German shepherd is killed in Oregon; reward offered

BEND, Ore. (AP) -- A German shepherd belonging to one of Oregon's top animal-protection agents was found shot and hanged from a tree.

The dog, named Donner, belonged to Kimball Lewis, director of the Humane Society of Central Oregon. The dog was killed Tuesday night or early Wednesday. Lewis found the dog hanging by its neck from a juniper at his home.

The reward offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who killed the 7-year-old pet has reached $20,000, including an anonymous $10,000 donation and $5,000 from the Humane Society of the United States, based in Washington.

Money manager sentenced for defrauding schools

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- A money manager behind a municipal fraud scheme prosecutors called the largest in Pennsylvania history was sentenced Friday to more than three years in prison and ordered to pay $61.3 million.

U.S. District Judge Donetta Ambrose ordered John Gardner Black, 55, to serve 26 concurrent sentences of three years, five months.

Black was accused of persuading 50 school districts across Pennsylvania and one in Maryland to invest school construction money in risky securities. Prosecutors said he then tried to conceal up to $71 million in losses.

View Comments

NAACP president's son gets more than 4 years in prison

WASHINGTON -- A son of NAACP president Kweisi Mfume was sentenced Friday to four years and nine months in prison for federal drug and weapons convictions.

Ronald T. Gray, 29, pleaded guilty last October, admitting he sold cocaine in Washington for more than two years. At his arrest last May, federal Drug Enforcement Administration officers found cocaine, a scale, packaging materials and $8,500 cash at his District of Columbia home.

"Mr. Gray was a calculated drug dealer," said U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy.

Join the Conversation
Looking for comments?
Find comments in their new home! Click the buttons at the top or within the article to view them — or use the button below for quick access.