Man arrested in 6 deaths at campsite

Man arrested in 6 deaths at campsite

PALESTINE, Texas

Six people were killed at a Texas campsite, authorities said Monday, and a suspect has been arrested and charged in the weekend homicides.

Anderson County Sheriff Greg Taylor said the bodies were found in a rural part of the county, southeast of Dallas. Authorities haven’t released the victims’ names and ages, but Taylor said “a lot of them are family.”

William Hudson, 33, is charged with one murder count and was being held Monday on $2.5 million bond. It was not immediately clear whether he had an attorney who could comment on the allegations.

Police treat mosque fire as hate crime

PETERBOROUGH, Ontario

Police said Monday they are treating a fire that was deliberately set at an Ontario mosque as a hate crime.

Police still are searching for suspects in the Saturday night fire and say it is unclear if it was connected to the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris the previous day. But Police Chief Murray Rodd said that an injury to one of the city’s ethnic communities is “an injury to us all.”

The president of the Kawartha Muslim Religious Association, Kenzu Abdella, said the mosque was set ablaze at 11 p.m. Saturday, about a half hour after association members were in the building celebrating the birth of a baby.

Abdella said no one was injured in the fire but the building has been rendered unusable.

New Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he was “deeply disturbed” by the fire and promised to protect the rights of worshippers at the mosque and catch those responsible for the fire.

Utah judge steps down from gay fostering case

SALT LAKE CITY

A Utah judge who had ordered a baby girl taken away from her lesbian foster mothers and placed in a heterosexual home removed himself from the case Monday as criticism turned into calls for his impeachment.

Though Judge Scott Johansen had reversed his decision and allowed the 9-month-old baby to stay with the married women recommended by state welfare authorities, there were concerns he could still have the baby removed from their home in Price later on.

April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce asked for the judge to be disqualified, saying that the decision revealed a potential bias that broke the rules of judicial conduct, their lawyer Jim Hunnicutt said.

Defense: Teen killed his math teacher but is mentally ill

SALEM, Mass.

A teenager killed his math teacher and did “unspeakable things” to her body, but he was driven by severe mental illness, his defense attorney told jurors at his murder trial Monday.

Philip Chism, 16, is charged with murder, rape and robbery in the October 2013 slaying of Colleen Ritzer. The body of the 24-year-old Danvers High School teacher was found near the school. She had been raped twice and her throat had been slit.

Chism, who was 14 at the time, has pleaded not guilty and is being tried as an adult in Salem.

Chism, who had moved to Massachusetts from Clarksville, Tenn., shortly before starting high school, should not be held criminally responsible, his attorney, Denise Regan, told the jury. The teenager was “severely mentally ill” and had suffered from a psychotic disorder since age 10, she said.

Associated Press