Ohio opposes killer’s appeal to high court

Ohio opposes killer’s appeal to high court

COLUMBUS

Ohio is opposing a condemned killer’s request that the U.S. Supreme Court spare him because a jury never heard the full extent of his chaotic and abusive childhood.

The Ohio Attorney General’s Office says death-row inmate Dennis McGuire’s challenges to his sentence have spanned decades and failed. They say numerous courts have upheld his sentence and point out that the trial jury heard many details about McGuire’s rough boyhood.

The 53-year-old McGuire argues his original lawyers didn’t investigate his background thoroughly and make the proper case to the jury.

McGuire is scheduled to die Thursday for the 1989 rape and fatal stabbing of Joy Stewart in Preble County in western Ohio.

Judge OKs end of desegregation pay

LITTLE ROCK, Ark.

A federal judge said Monday that Arkansas can stop making payments in one of the nation’s most historic desegregation efforts but cautioned that work remains to ensure Little Rock-area students receive a proper education.

The state has made more than $1 billion in payments to three Little Rock-area school districts since 1989 to aid desegregation efforts. Under the deal approved by U.S. District Judge Price Marshall on Monday, those payments will end in four years, even though one of the districts still hasn’t been declared desegregated.

Hunger, death in besieged camp

BEIRUT

Children, the elderly and others displaced by Syria’s civil war are starving to death in a besieged camp where women brave sniper fire to forage for food just minutes from the relative prosperity of Damascus.

The dire conditions at the Yarmouk camp are a striking example of the catastrophe unfolding in rebel-held areas blockaded by the Syrian government. U.S. and Russian diplomats said Monday the warring sides are considering opening humanitarian corridors to let in aid and build confidence ahead of an international peace conference on Syria.

Forty-six people have died since October of starvation, illnesses exacerbated by hunger or because they couldn’t obtain medical aid, residents said.

Huge bipartisan budget bill unveiled

WASHINGTON

Top congressional negotiators Monday night released a bipartisan $1.1 trillion spending bill that would pay for the operations of government through October and finally put to rest the bitter budget battles of last year.

The massive measure fleshes out the details of the budget deal that Congress passed last month. That pact gave relatively modest, but much-sought relief to the Pentagon and domestic agencies after deep budget cuts last year.

The bill would avert spending cuts that threatened construction of new aircraft carriers and next-generation Joint Strike Fighters. It maintains rent subsidies for the poor, awards federal civilian and military workers a 1 percent raise and beefs up security at U.S. embassies.

Texting in theater leads to shooting

WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla.

An argument over texting in a Florida movie theater Monday triggered a retired Tampa police captain to fatally shoot a man sitting in front of him, as about 25 horrified moviegoers looked on, sheriff’s officials said.

Curtis Reeves, 71, has been charged with second-degree murder.

Pasco County Sheriff’s officials said the shooting happened after Reeves asked 43-year-old Chad Oulson to stop texting at the theater in Wesley Chapel, a suburb about a half hour north of downtown Tampa.

Associated Press