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Texas teacher impregnated by student, 13, turns self in

Alexandria Vera
Alexandria Vera

HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston-area teacher accused of having a sexual relationship with a 13-year-old boy who impregnated her has surrendered at a suburban jail.

Harris County authorities had issued an arrest warrant for 24-year-old Alexandria Vera, an English teacher in the Aldine School District. The boy was an eighth-grader she met last summer.

She appeared Wednesday at the jail in adjacent Montgomery County. Sheriff’s spokesman Brady Fitzgerald says Vera posted a $100,000 bond and was released.

Court documents show the boy’s parents didn’t object to their relationship. She told a school district investigator they were “very supportive and excited” when she disclosed her pregnancy. The probable cause document said she aborted the pregnancy after a child welfare investigator questioned her.

School officials say she’s been removed from her job.

Police chief: UCLA shooting was murder-suicide

crime-scene-police-shootLOS ANGELES (AP)–The Los Angeles police chief says the shooting of two men at UCLA was a murder-suicide.

Chief Charlie Beck said Wednesday there was no continuing threat and the campus is safe.

The shooting occurred in a small office in an engineering building. The chief says a gun was found along with what might be a suicide note.

No identifications have been released.

2 dead, 57 hospitalized after Tampa music festival

police-lights-redTAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Authorities say two people are dead and 57 others were hospitalized after attending a Tampa music festival.

The Sunset Music Festival was held at Raymond James Stadium on Saturday and Sunday.

Tampa police reported in a news release that a 22-year-old Melbourne man and a 21-year-old Kissimmee woman were hospitalized Saturday. The man died Sunday, and the woman died Monday. The medical examiner’s office wasn’t immediately reporting a cause of death.

Police didn’t say why the 57 other people were hospitalized.

Police also reported 25 felony arrests, eight misdemeanor arrests and 16 marijuana civil citations at the festival.

Missouri woman sentenced for posting teen’s nude photos on Facebook

facebook-logoSPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri woman who posted nude photos of a 15-year-old girl on Facebook has been sentenced to a year in federal prison.

49-year-old Michelle Renee McCoy, of Carl Junction, was sentenced Tuesday for possession of child pornography.

Prosecutors say McCoy, an acquaintance of the girl, found the pictures on the girl’s phone. McCoy sent them to her own phone then posted them on the girl’s Facebook page. She also changed the password so the victim couldn’t remove the pictures.

McCoy’s attorney said his client posted the pictures to shame the victim and teach her a lesson. He asked that she receive probation because she was not a typical child pornographer.

Prosecutors asked for a three-year prison sentence, saying the victim was humiliated.

Prosecutor to jury: DEA workers lied about owning strip club

dea-badgeNEW YORK (AP) — A New York prosecutor has told jurors at a criminal trial that a Drug Enforcement Administration supervisory agent and another employee lied by not disclosing their ownership in a New Jersey strip club.

Prosecutor Paul Monteleoni says the men did so because the ownership could prevent them from maintaining DEA top-secret security clearance.

The prosecutor made the accusation Tuesday during opening statements in the trial of Glen Glover, of Lyndhurst, New Jersey, and David Polos, of West Nyack (NY’-ak), New York. Glover is a suspended DEA telecommunications specialist. Polos is a retired former assistant special agent in charge of the New York office.

Defense attorney Marc Mukasey says prosecutors wrongly took an investment and hobby and insisted it should have been described as a job on a government document.

Teenage rodeo performer trampled to death by horse

ambulance-lightsWOODSTOWN, N.J. (AP) — State police say a rider taking part in a rodeo in New Jersey has died from injuries he received in an accident.

Nineteen-year-old bareback rider Coy Lutz was trampled during his performance Saturday night at the Cowtown Rodeo in Woodstown, about 35 miles southwest of Philadelphia. The Howard, Pennsylvania, resident died a short time later at a hospital.

Further details on the accident were not immediately available Sunday.

Cowtown touts itself as the oldest weekly running rodeo in the U.S. It opened in 1929.

No other injuries were reported.

Arizona man upset with daughter’s T-shirt kills family dog

police-lights-redGOODYEAR, Ariz. (AP) — Authorities say a Goodyear man is facing charges after killing the family dog in a barbecue smoker because he was upset with his teenage daughter’s T-shirt.

Goodyear police say 42-year-old Patrick Zane Thompson is jailed on suspicion of animal cruelty, assault, threats against his family and tampering with evidence.

Thompson didn’t have a lawyer at his initial court appearance Monday. His bond was set at $20,000.

Officers were called to Thompson’s family home on Saturday.

Detectives say Thompson became upset with a shirt that his 17-year-old daughter had because he believed it had to do with the devil.

Thompson reportedly burned the shirt in a barbecue smoker parked in a side yard and then did the same to the family’s poodle.

Police say Thompson told officers that he had smoked marijuana earlier in the day.

List of world’s oldest people with confirmed ages

odd-newsThe Gerontology Research Group has confirmed the ages of dozens of living supercentenarians, those who are 110 and older. Nearly all are women, and most are located in North America, Europe and Japan, where proof-of-age records are more readily available.

Here are the 10 oldest people in the world whose ages have been validated by the group:

1. Emma Morano-Martinuzzi, 116, Italy

2. Violet Brown, 116, Jamaica

3. Nabi Tajima, 115, Japan

4. Chiyo Miyako, 115, Japan

5. Eudoxie Baboul, 114, France

6. Ana Vela-Rubio, 114, Spain

7. Mitsue Toyoda, 114, Japan

8. Marie-Josephine Gaudette, 114, Italy

9. Yukie Hino, 114, Japan

10. Giuseppina Projetto-Frau, 113, Italy

White House to honor 13 law enforcement officers for valor

omaha-policeThe White House said Friday that it will honor 13 law enforcement officers for acts of valor under fire.

Among those to be honored are three Santa Monica, California, police officers for their response to a 2013 rampage on a community college campus that left five people dead and a suburban Dallas officer who killed two armed men in a gunfight outside a provocative contest for caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

President Barack Obama will present the officers with Medals of Valor for exhibiting “exceptional courage, regardless of personal safety, in the attempt to save or protect others from harm.”

Those to be decorated are:

— Santa Monica police Officers Jason Salas and Robert Sparks and Capt. Raymond Bottenfield, who confronted gunman John Zawahri in the campus library at Santa Monica City College in June 2013, shooting and killing the 23-year-old when he pointed his assault weapon at them.

— Garland, Texas, police Officer Gregory Stevens, who exchanged gunfire with Nadir Soofi and Elton Simpson in May 2015. Stevens killed both gunmen outside an exhibit hall in the Dallas suburb where the provocative cartoon contest was being held, heading off what investigators suspected was a planned mass shooting.

— Miami-Dade police Officer Mario Gutierrez, who was stabbed multiple times while subduing a knife-wielding man who tried to set off a massive gas explosion that could have caused massive casualties.

— Johnson City, New York, Patrolman Louis Cioci, who chased and captured at a crowded hospital a gunman who had just killed a fellow officer. Investigators believe Cioci saved the lives of hospital staff, patients and visitors.

— Midwest City, Oklahoma, police Maj. David Huff, who saved a 2-year-old girl after negotiations deteriorated with a man holding the child captive at knifepoint.

— Los Angeles police Officer Donald Thompson for, while off duty, crossing two freeway dividers and braving first- and second-degree burns while pulling an unconscious man from a burning car to safety.

— Omaha, Nebraska, police Officer Coral Walker, who shot and killed a man who had killed and injured multiple people during a shooting rampage.

— Philadelphia police Sgt. Robert Wilson III, who was killed when he drew fire from assailants during an armed robbery, saving store employees and customers.

— North Miami, Florida, police Officer Niel Johnson, who endured gunfire from an assault weapon in pursuing and capturing a man who had shot a Miami police officer and two bystanders.

— FBI Special Agent Tyler Call, who while off duty with his family helped rescue a woman whose ex-husband was holding her at gunpoint.

— Niagara County, New York, sheriff’s Deputy Joey Tortorella, who confronted and subdued a gunman who had shot and wounded his parents inside their home, preventing the gunman from threatening the safety of students at a nearby elementary school.

Police: Woman Arrested After Child Eats Meth

METHPRAIRIEVILLE, La. (AP) — A Louisiana woman has been arrested after police say her 2-year-old child ate methamphetamine.

The Gonzales Police Department said in a news release that authorities arrested 21-year-old Tyler Dauzat on counts of negligent injuring and cruelty to juveniles Sunday.

Sgt. Steven Nethken says Dauzat took her 2-year-old to a hospital after the child was exhibiting erratic behavior. A blood screening of the child showed a significant presence of meth and doctors concluded that the child had eaten the drug.

Dauzat admitted to police that she had a powder form of crystal meth in her purse and her child had been left alone with a purse nearby.

Dauzat was arrested at the Ascension Parish jail. It’s unclear if she has an attorney.

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