Fla. pupil is found dead in middle school bathroom

Fla. pupil is found deadin middle school bathroom
MIAMI -- A 14-year-old boy was apparently stabbed to death in a school bathroom Tuesday, and a schoolmate was charged with first-degree murder.
Jaime Rodrigo Gough was cut with a sharp object and bled to death, said Miami-Dade School spokesman Mayco Villafana. Other pupils at Southwood Middle School found Gough's body around 8:30 a.m., officials said.
Michael Hernandez, 14, was charged after he was interviewed for several hours, police said. It was not immediately known if Hernandez's parents, who were with him during the interview, had hired an attorney.
Chief Pete Cuccaro of the Miami-Dade Schools Police Department said the suspect and victim "knew each other very well," but refused to elaborate.
Gough died of a neck wound, police said. A weapon was found.
Juveniles charged with first-degree murder in Florida are charged as adults.
Prosecutors: Foster childforced to 'wait' on corpse
CLARK, N.J. -- A couple has been charged with forcing their 13-year-old foster daughter to take meals to an elderly relative's room for several weeks even though they knew the man had died, prosecutors said.
Police were called to the house in August and an autopsy determined that the 82-year-old man had been dead for several weeks in the room where the girl was sent every day with food.
Kenneth and Donna Keaveney were charged Tuesday with child cruelty and elder neglect following a five-month investigation, Union County Prosecutor Theodore J. Romankow said.
"They both knew the grandfather had passed away and was rotting to the point where the house reeked of death," Romankow said.
The decaying remains of Donna Keaveney's father, Nicola Lombardi, were found Aug. 28.
The 13-year-old and two other foster children, ages 11 and 4, were immediately removed from the house by the state Division of Youth and Family Services.
Former priest convicted
SAN FRANCISCO -- A former priest was sentenced to four years in prison, ending a near decade-long case that involved embezzlement of church funds and allegations of sexual abuse from former altar boys.
Patrick O'Shea, the former pastor of St. Cecilia's parish and an adviser to former Archbishop John Quinn, pleaded guilty Tuesday to grand theft and tax evasion charges. He agreed to pay the San Francisco Roman Catholic Archdiocese $187,000 as part of a plea agreement.
O'Shea, 71, was charged in 1995 with molesting nine altar boys between 1969 and 1980. A year later, he was charged with embezzling $260,000 in church funds from the Archdiocese of San Francisco.
He was jailed in April 2000 while awaiting trial on the molestation and embezzlement charges. But he was released in March 2002 after a judge threw out 224 felony molestation charges, saying prosecutors had waited too long to file the claims.
Bird flu death toll rises
BANGKOK, Thailand -- Asia's human death toll from bird flu rose to 15 today while China addressed its broadening zone of infected poultry with a new bird flu headquarters and Singaporeans turned in pet chickens for slaughter.
Health experts say the wide range of the bird flu striking Asia's poultry boosts chances that the virus could mutate into a global menace for people, but say the disease is "nowhere close" to being declared a pandemic.
Most human cases have been traced directly to contact with sick birds, and although human-to-human transmission has not been ruled out in the case of one Vietnamese family, the experts say there is no sign of a new strain that can easily infect many people.
However, a WHO official acknowledged that the race against the disease's spread was tough.
Election turmoil in Iran
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's supreme leader has ordered a review of the disqualifications of thousands of candidates from legislative elections, a government spokesman said today, in a bid to defuse a standoff with reformers threatening a boycott.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's move came a day after he sided with hard-liners and rejected a request by reformist President Mohammad Khatami for the Feb. 20 elections to be postponed.
Khatami's government has said it would not stage voting unless the disqualifications are overturned. However, the powerful, hard-line Guardian Council has refused to withdraw its disqualification of about 30 percent of the 8,200 people who applied to run in the polls.
Government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh said Khamenei decided on the review -- the second in less than a month -- in a meeting with Khatami on Tuesday.
Associated Press