8TH-GRADER WITH PELLET GUN SHOT BY DEPUTY AT SCHOOL

8th-grader with pellet gunshot by deputy at school
LONGWOOD, Fla. -- An eighth-grader was shot and wounded by a SWAT team officer in a school bathroom Friday after he pulled out a pellet gun that resembled a real weapon and later raised it at a deputy, authorities said. Sheriff Don Eslinger said the 15-year-old boy brought the gun to Milwee Middle School in his backpack. Eslinger said two pupils saw it and one persuaded the other to report it, causing a scuffle. The suspect ordered one of the pupils into a closet, dimmed the lights and ran from the classroom. He then went around the campus carrying the weapon, Eslinger said. Deputies eventually isolated him in a restroom, and the school was evacuated. Eslinger said negotiators tried unsuccessfully to start a dialogue with the boy, identified as Christopher David Penley. "He did not respond," Eslinger said. When the boy raised the gun at a deputy, he shot the youth, the sheriff said. Penley was taken to a hospital, where he was on "advanced life support," the sheriff said. No one else was injured. The sheriff's office confirmed later that the weapon was a pellet gun fashioned to look like a 9 mm handgun.
Doctors worry becauseSharon is still in coma
JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's failure to wake up from a coma nine days after suffering a massive stroke does not bode well for his recovery, some doctors said Friday. With extensive brain damage looking likely, Israelis have begun to look ahead to life without Sharon. Sharon, 77, remained in "critical but stable" condition Friday, showing no change from the previous day, said Hadassah Hospital spokesman Ron Krumer. Israel's Channel 10 TV and Army Radio cited Hadassah officials as saying they were worried Sharon has shown no signs of awakening, even though doctors have begun weaning him off heavy sedatives used to keep his blood pressure in check and give his brain time to heal. However, Krumer and outside experts cautioned it's too early to make conclusions about Sharon's long-term prospects. He's still receiving minimal amounts of sedatives, Krumer said, adding, "The period of time it takes a patient to wake up from such a condition after undergoing such an event differs from one patient to another." Sharon's two sons have been playing classical music by his bedside in an effort to rouse him.
Woman, 88, is savedafter being trapped in car
VANCOUVER, Wash. -- An 88-year-old woman, trapped for five days after her car went down an embankment and into a blackberry bramble, survived by wiping condensation off the windshield with a towel and sucking the moisture, her son said. Mary Lillian Anderson was treated at Southwest Washington Medical Center and sent home Thursday. She was rescued Wednesday by a delivery truck driver who spotted her car in the bramble just off Interstate 5. When he peered inside, he said, he was braced for the sight of a body. Instead, "she was sitting right there, staring back at me," said Andrew Thompson, who delivers propane in rural Clark County. "She looked very happy." Anderson was heading home from a grocery store last Friday when she misjudged a corner, went off the road and tipped her 1997 Cadillac Seville into a steep drop-off. She kept herself distracted by harvesting the water, praying, talking to her guardian angel and repeatedly counting to 500 and back, said one of her sons, Rob Johnson of Pendleton, Ore. Thompson, he said, is "definitely sort of an angel."
Bush rejects suggestionto close Guantanamo
WASHINGTON -- President Bush rejected a suggestion by Germany's new leader that the United States close its prison at Guantanamo Bay, saying after a first meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday that the facility is "a necessary part of protecting the American people." Guantanamo has become a symbol in Europe for what many people see as Bush administration excesses in hunting down and interrogating potential terrorists. At least one German is among about 500 foreign-born men held indefinitely at the prison camp on Cuba's eastern tip.
Associated Press