Teen pleads guilty in Slender Man attack

Teen pleads guilty in Slender Man attack

MILWAUKEE

One of two Wisconsin girls charged with repeatedly stabbing a classmate to impress the fictitious horror character Slender Man pleaded guilty Monday, but she still faces a trial in the case next month focused on her mental health.

Anissa Weier, 15, pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree homicide as a party to a crime, with use of a deadly weapon. She initially faced a charge of attempted first-degree intentional homicide in the 2014 attack on Payton Leutner in park in Waukesha, a city west of Milwaukee.

The plea means her trial next month will look only at whether she is legally responsible for the crime or not guilty because of mental illness. She could face 10 years in prison if she’s found guilty. If not, she’ll spend three years in a mental hospital.

Record $417M award in talc lawsuit

LOS ANGELES

A Los Angeles jury Monday ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay a record $417 million to a hospitalized woman who claimed in a lawsuit that the talc in the company’s iconic baby powder causes ovarian cancer when applied regularly for feminine hygiene.

The verdict in the lawsuit brought by the California woman, Eva Echeverria, marks the largest sum awarded in a series of talcum powder lawsuit verdicts against Johnson & Johnson in courts around the U.S.

Echeverria alleged Johnson & Johnson failed to adequately warn consumers about talcum powder’s potential cancer risks. She used the company’s baby powder on a daily basis beginning in the 1950s until 2016 and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007, according to court papers.

Echeverria developed ovarian cancer as a “proximate result of the unreasonably dangerous and defective nature of talcum powder,” she said in her lawsuit.

Johnson & Johnson spokeswoman Carol Goodrich said in a statement that the company will appeal the jury’s decision.

Police find torso after sub’s sinking

HELSINKI

The body of a woman has been found in the Baltic Sea near where a missing Swedish journalist is believed to have died on a privately built submarine, Danish police said late Monday.

A female torso without legs, arms or a head was found by a passer-by, said the head of the investigation, Jens Moller Jensen.

He said it was “too early” to say if the body was that of 30-year-old Swedish reporter Kim Wall, who went missing more than a week ago after a trip on the submarine owned by 46-year-old Peter Madsen, a Danish inventor.

Jensen said the body was found hours after Madsen told authorities that Wall had died onboard in an accident and that he buried her at sea at an unspecified location.

At least 1 dead after earthquake in Italy

ROMe

An earthquake rattled the Italian resort island of Ischia at the peak of tourist season Monday night, killing at least one person and trapping a half dozen others under collapsed homes.

Police said all but one of the people known to be trapped were responding to rescuers and were expected to be extracted alive, including three children. One person, however, wasn’t responding, raising worries the death toll could increase, said Giovanni Salerno of the financial police.

Italy’s national volcanology institute said the temblor struck a few minutes before 9 p.m.

Associated Press