Student: Teen stayed after school

Student: Teen stayed after school

DANVERS, Mass.

A teacher who purportedly was killed by one of her students had asked him to stay after school the day she was killed, a classmate said Thursday, as students met with grief counselors and tried to come to grips with the slaying of the popular teacher.

Philip Chism, 14, was charged with murder Wednesday in the death of Colleen Ritzer, a 24-year-old math teacher at Danvers High School.

Rania Rhaddaoui sat two seats away from Chism in Ritzer’s Algebra I class, the final class of the school day. She said Chism was drawing in a notebook rather than taking notes Tuesday.

“She came over and said, ‘I didn’t know you draw,’ and he said, ‘yes,’ then later on, she said, ‘Can you stay after with me?”’ Rhaddaoui said. “Obviously, he stayed after because when I was leaving, he was still at his desk.”

Ritzer never returned home that day. Blood in a second-floor bathroom helped lead investigators to her body, which was dumped in the woods behind the school in a close-knit community about 20 miles north of Boston.

Woman challenges fetal-protection law

MILWAUKEE

A pregnant Wisconsin woman is challenging the state’s fetal-protection law after she was confined in a drug-treatment center, despite what she says is no evidence that she was still using drugs.

The lawsuit filed Sept. 30 in federal court in Milwaukee says 28-year-old Alicia Beltran was sent to a private drug-treatment facility in Appleton after telling medical and social workers that she had overcome a painkiller addiction. She rejected suggestions that she continue taking a drug for painkiller dependency.

Days later, Beltran was arrested and eventually taken to a drug-treatment center where she was held for more than two months despite passing a drug test.

The New York Times reports she was released earlier this month after the lawsuit was filed on her behalf.

Authorities reopen missing-girl case

LISBON, Portugal

More than six years after British girl Madeleine McCann vanished from her bedroom during a family vacation in Portugal and five years after Portuguese police gave up trying to find her, authorities reopened the case Thursday, citing new evidence.

Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, had long campaigned from their home in central England for the Portuguese investigation to resume. In a statement Thursday, they said they were “very pleased” at the development.

Madeleine went missing shortly before her fourth birthday.

Associated Press