Backpack Index

Backpack Index

COLUMBUS

Parents with three children in elementary, middle and high school can expect to pay as much as $3,000 for school supplies and extracurricular activities for the 2015-16 school year, according to the Huntington Bank Backpack Index.

Since Huntington Bank first introduced its Backpack Index in 2007, the cost of supplies and extracurricular activities has increased 85 percent for elementary school students, 78 percent for middle-school students and 57 percent for high-school students.

Parents can expect to pay $649 for elementary schoolchildren, a 1 percent increase compared with 2014; $941 for middle-school children, a 2.5 percent jump compared with 2014; and $1,402 for high-school students, a 9 percent increase compared with 2014.

Gator caught after biting woman’s arm

ORLANDO, FLA.

A woman is recovering after being attacked by an alligator that bit off her arm while she swam in central Florida.

Rachael D. Lilienthal, 37, was swimming in Wekiva River on Saturday afternoon when the gator attacked her, biting her twice, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission spokeswoman Karen Parker. The 8-foot, 9-inch male gator bit off her arm just above the elbow.

Parker said doctors were not able to reattach the arm.Wildlife officers captured the 300- to 350-pound gator early Sunday and euthanized it.

6 purported tiger poachers are killed

DHAKA, Bangladesh

Police on Sunday killed six suspected tiger poachers in the world’s largest mangrove forest in southwestern Bangladesh, home to critically endangered Royal Bengal tigers.

Police official Harendranath Sarker said authorities recovered six bodies after a gunfight with a gang of suspected poachers in the Sundarbans mangrove forest. The 3,860-square-mile forest straddles Bangladesh and India, and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Sarker said authorities found the skins of three adult tigers and seized firearms from the suspects.

Hundreds remember slain social worker

barre, vt.

About 300 people packed into Barre’s Old Labor Hall on Sunday to pay tribute to a Vermont social worker who was gunned down by a woman who police say was upset at losing custody of her 9-year-old daughter.

Police said Jody Herring shot Lara Sobel, 48, twice Friday with a hunting rifle, killing her outside an office of the state Department for Children and Families in Barre as Sobel, a 14-year DCF veteran, was leaving work.

Herring, 40, was tackled by bystanders. She was then arrested and charged with first-degree murder.

On Saturday, police were called to a home in the town of Berlin, where they found the bodies of two of Herring’s cousins and an aunt. Authorities believe Herring killed her relatives before going to Barre and shooting Sobel, but no charges have been filed in those deaths.

Argentines vote in open primaries

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina

Millions of voters in Argentina braved heavy rains Sunday to weigh in on what the South American nation should look like after the departure of President Cristina Fernandez, who along with her late husband guided the country for 12 years with social welfare policies aimed at the poor while often employing combative rhetoric and protectionist policies with other nations.

Voters were casting ballots in open primaries for presidential candidates who have all but sealed the nominations in their parties, making the exercise essentially a giant national poll ahead of the Oct. 25 elections.

Staff/wire reports