Prep-school grad guilty of sex crimes

Prep-school grad guilty of sex crimes

CONCORD, N.H.

A graduate of an exclusive New England prep school was cleared of rape but convicted Friday of lesser sex offenses against a 15-year-old freshman girl in a case that exposed a tradition in which seniors competed to see how many younger students they could have sex with.

A jury of nine men and three women took eight hours to reach its verdict in the case against Owen Labrie, who was accused of forcing himself on the girl in a dark and noisy mechanical room at St. Paul’s School in Concord two days before he graduated last year.

Labrie, who was bound for Harvard and planned to take divinity classes before his arrest put everything on hold, could get as much as 11 years in prison at sentencing Oct. 29. The 19-year-old from Tunbridge, Vt., also will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Erika leaves trail of destruction

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic

Tropical Storm Erika began to lose steam Friday over Haiti and the Dominican Republic, but it caused a trail of destruction that killed at least 20 people and left an additional 31 missing on the small eastern Caribbean island of Dominica, authorities said.

Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit said in a televised address late Friday that the island has been set back 20 years in the damage inflicted by the storm.

Tropical Storm Erika dumped 15 inches of rain on the mountainous island before it cut Friday into Haiti and the Dominican Republic, where it toppled trees and power lines.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the system was expected to move north across the island of Hispaniola, where the high mountains would weaken it to a tropical depression torday and possibly cause it to dissipate entirely.

Migrant crisis brings more deaths

VIENNA

Death and desperation mounted in Europe’s migrant crisis Friday as Austrian police said 71 people appeared to have suffocated in the back of an abandoned truck, while an estimated 200 people were feared drowned off Libya when two overloaded boats capsized.

More than 300,000 people have sought to cross the Mediterranean Sea so far in 2015, up from 219,000 in all of last year, as European authorities grapple with the largest influx since World War II.

Obama promotes Iran deal to Jews

WASHINGTON

President Barack Obama on Friday compared tensions between the U.S. and Israel over the Iranian nuclear deal to a family feud and said he expects quick improvements in ties between the longtime allies once the accord is implemented.

“Like all families, sometimes there are going to be disagreements,” Obama said in a webcast with Jewish Americans. “And sometimes people get angrier about disagreements in families than with folks that aren’t family.”

The president’s comments came as momentum for the nuclear accord grew on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers will vote next month on a resolution to disapprove of the deal. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., became the 30th senator to publicly back the agreement, saying Friday that it was a good deal for America and for allies such as Israel.

Associated Press