Teen charged in school shooting CHARDON, Ohio (AP) — T.J. Lane, 17, was charged Thursday with killing three students, the first step in proceedings that could see him charged as an adult and facing the possibility of life without parole
Teen charged in school shooting
CHARDON, Ohio (AP) — T.J. Lane, 17, was charged Thursday with killing three students, the first step in proceedings that could see him charged as an adult and facing the possibility of life without parole if convicted.
The charges filed in Geauga County juvenile court accuse Lane of killing three students and wounding two others in the shooting Monday morning at Chardon High School, about 30 miles east of Cleveland.
He is charged with three counts of aggravated murder, two counts of attempted aggravated murder and one count of felonious assault.
No motive has been determined. Prosecutor David Joyce has said that victims were selected at random and that Lane is someone “who’s not well.”
Children convicted of juvenile crimes in Ohio are typically behind bars only until they turn 21 in the most serious cases.
But Joyce has already said he plans to charge Lane as an adult, meaning he could face life in prison without parole if convicted of similar adult charges.
Minors are not eligible for the death penalty in Ohio, whether they are convicted as juveniles or adults.
Foreclosures were a quarter of sales
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Bank-owned homes and short sales last year accounted for the smallest slice of overall sales in three years but still made up nearly a quarter of all U.S. homes sold in 2011.
Some 907,138 sales were made last year of foreclosed-upon homes and others that were in some stage of the process. They represented about 23 percent of all home sales in 2011, foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. said Thursday.
As a percentage of all homes sold, sales of bank-owned properties and other homes on the foreclosure track last year were back down to 2008 levels.
But they remained an outsize portion of total sales compared 2005, when sales of previously occupied homes peaked and foreclosure sales comprised less than 1 percent of all sales, the firm said.
Iowa bill angers animal activists
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Animal welfare groups reacted with outrage Wednesday after the Iowa Legislature made the state the first to approve a bill making it a crime to surreptitiously get into a farming operation to record video of animal abuse.
The groups have urged Gov. Terry Branstad to veto the measure that was overwhelmingly approved Tuesday by the Iowa House and Senate, arguing that the measure would prevent people from publicizing animal abuse.
“The intent behind the legislation is to put a chilling effect on whistleblowers on factory farms,” said Matthew Dominguez, a spokesman for the Humane Society of the United States. “It begs the question of, what exactly does animal agriculture have to hide?”
Legislatures in seven states have considered laws that would enhance penalties against those who secretly record video of livestock but they have stalled.
Government eyes ‘blackout in a can’
WASHINGTON (AP) — A carbonated brew guzzled on college campuses is the focus of an intense write-in campaign urging federal regulators to take some buzz out of a sweet alcoholic drink sometimes referred to as “blackout in a can.”
The Federal Trade Commission is looking at a wave of complaints about the popular fruit-flavored malt liquor Four Loko. Under review: the amount of alcohol in the brightly colored, supersized cans and how they are marketed.
The drink gained national attention in 2010 following the hospitalization of college students in New Jersey and Washington state.
Some states banned the drink, worried about the caffeine in Four Loko and its potential to mask how much alcohol one could safely consume.
