KSU student found dead in dorm room

KSU student found dead in dorm room

KENT

An investigator says a student from Pennsylvania found dead in an Ohio college dorm room may have died up to six days earlier.

Coroner’s investigator Tom Decker says there was a slight odor coming from the room at Kent State University where the body of 26-year-old James Barnes of Midland, Pa., was found Sunday.

University police had gone to the Leebrick Hall room after a relative reported the family had not heard from Barnes in a while.

Decker says there was no evidence of foul play. He says a ruling on the cause of death will have to await tests on what was in Barnes’ system.

Israel-Hamas swap moves forward

JERUSALEM

The elaborate machinery of a prisoner-swap deal between two bitter enemies swung into motion early today, as hundreds of Palestinians and one Israeli soldier prepared to return home in one of the most dramatic recent developments in the otherwise deadlocked Israel-Palestinian conflict. Before dawn today, the first 96 inmates were moved from a prison in the south to another in the West Bank, where they were later to be released, a spokesman for Israel’s Prisons Service said. The Israel-Hamas deal is going ahead despite criticism and court appeals in Israel against the release of 1,027 Palestinians for a single captured Armored Corps sergeant, Gilad Schalit, held by militants in Gaza since 2006.

Panetta hopeful of Iraqi deal on troops

WASHINGTON

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta expressed hope Monday that the United States and Iraq soon can reach agreement on a possible U.S. military training role in Iraq beyond Dec. 31, when all American troops are scheduled to depart. Panetta’s remarks contrasted with indications from a senior Obama administration official and a senior U.S. military official Saturday that the U.S. is abandoning plans to keep any troops in Iraq past the year-end withdrawal deadline — other than about 160 troops who would be attached to the U.S. Embassy.

Fighting in Yemen kills at least 18

SAN‘A, Yemen

Fighting between troops loyal to Yemen’s embattled leader and rival forces Monday killed at least 18 people, including eight supporters of a powerful tribal chief who defected to the opposition in March.

The pre-dawn fighting, the worst in the capital San‘a in weeks, has revived fears of civil war in the strategically located nation on the southern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. Mortars, rockets and heavy machine-guns were used in the hours-long battle in the northern sector of the city close to the international airport.

A series of blasts shook the city for hours, forcing residents in many parts to take shelter in basements. The fighting continued throughout the night, briefly stopped for the dawn prayers and then resumed. It ceased by sunrise.

Police: Man had girl, 9, drive him to store

BROWNSTOWN TOWNSHIP, Mich.

A Detroit-area man had his 9-year-old daughter drive him to the store because he apparently had been drinking, police said Monday, and surveillance video from a gas station shows him telling a clerk that his daughter was his “designated driver.” Brownstown Township Detective Lt. Robert Grant said the girl was sitting behind the wheel in a child’s booster seat before 3 a.m. Oct. 8, when an officer opened the driver’s-side door of the full-sized panel van her father uses for work. He said she was surprised when police pulled her over.

Associated Press