MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — A man who spent 30 years on Alabama’s death row will go free after a decades long fight to prove his innocence.

Fifty-eight-year-old Ray Hinton will be released Friday morning.

Hinton was convicted of the 1985 murders of two Birmingham fast food restaurant managers. However, prosecutors say modern forensic methods failed to show that fatal bullets came from Hinton’s revolver. The bullets were the only evidence linking Hinton to the killings.

Lawyer Bryan Stevenson said Hinton wept after learning he would finally be released.

The U.S. Supreme Court last year ruled that Hinton had inadequate counsel and sent the case back for a second trial. Prosecutors moved to dismiss the case following the testing on the bullets.

Hinton was one of the longest-serving inmates on Alabama’s death row.

NEW YORK (AP) — Health officials say a drug-resistant strain of a nasty stomach bug made its way into the U.S. and spread, causing more than 200 illnesses since last May.

Many cases were traced to people who had recently traveled to the Dominican Republic, India or other countries.

Outbreaks of the shigella (shih-GEHL’-uh) bacteria are not unusual, but this strain is resistant to the antibiotic most commonly prescribed for adults.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the report Thursday. The superbug sickened at least 243 people, in 32 states and Puerto Rico.

Shigella is a common cause of diarrhea. Sometimes antibiotics are prescribed, especially for more serious cases.

DUMONT, N.J. (AP) — Police say a fifth-grader who jumped to his death from a second-story window at his New Jersey school had lost a chess match and was upset because his opponent didn’t say “checkmate.”

The 10-year-old student at Grant Elementary School leaped to his death last month after playing chess at recess.

A Dumont police file released Wednesday says a lunch aide heard the boy tell his opponent: “Do you want me to do something drastic?”

The lunch aide told investigators that after the chess match, she saw the boy write a note, hand it to his opponent and ask him not to open it right away.

The aide told police she confiscated the note and turned around to see the boy jump. The note’s contents weren’t disclosed.

BRIDGEWATER, Mass. (AP) — A Bridgewater State University student accused of sexually abusing two preschool boys at a campus day care center where he worked has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors say Wrentham, Massachusetts, resident Kyle Patrick Loughlin was arraigned Wednesday on charges of rape of a child and aggravated indecent assault and battery on a child under 14. Prosecutors say the boys are between 4 and 5 years old.

The 21-year-old Loughlin was arrested Tuesday night. He’s held without bail until a dangerousness hearing next week and can’t be reached for comment. It’s unknown who represents him.

University spokeswoman Eva Gaffney says Loughlin was one of several students working at the licensed center and had passed a required background check. She says parents have been informed and will receive assistance.

The state’s child welfare agency is investigating.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A judge says a 17-year-old Connecticut girl forced to undergo chemotherapy must remain in the hospital until she finishes treatment later this month.

The judge’s decision Wednesday also says the teen’s mother cannot visit her at the hospital while she is in temporary state custody.

The teen, identified only as Cassandra C., testified by teleconference during a closed hearing last month, asking to finish her treatments from home or have visits with her mother.

Doctors say her Hodgkin lymphoma, diagnosed in September, is in remission but she needs the remaining treatments. She says she is no longer fighting them.

The state was awarded temporary custody after the teen missed several medical appointments last fall and ran away. Her lawyers unsuccessfully tried to stop the treatment she opposed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s decision to retire has sparked a feud between the No. 2 and No. 3 Senate Democrats.

Dick Durbin of Illinois — the No. 2 — and Chuck Schumer of New York — the No. 3 — are not vying over who replaces Reid. Schumer has already locked that up, with Durbin and Reid assenting.

Their disagreement centers on whether or not Schumer promised to back Durbin to hang onto his current job as whip. Durbin says Schumer did. Schumer denies it.

Democrats hoped to avoid a messy leadership struggle. Yet it’s also unsurprising, given that Reid’s retirement next year creates the first opening in the top ranks of Senate Democratic leadership in a decade.

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The deaths of a Philadelphia-area husband and wife found with gaping wounds that their son said were caused by a chain saw have been ruled a murder-suicide.

Montgomery County Coroner Walter Hofman said Wednesday that 41-year-old Nicole Peppelman was killed and 48-year-old Christopher Peppelman took his own life.

Police in Lower Moreland Township had said the couple’s son reported finding his parents unresponsive, “with lacerations from a chain saw,” when he got home Tuesday.

Dr. Walter Hofman said both bled to death due to “gaping sharp-force injuries” to the abdomen and in the husband’s case, also to the right thigh.

Nicole Peppelman also was choked and stabbed.

Hofman declined to say what caused the deep cutting wounds. But authorities said earlier that a chain saw was recovered from the house.

 

CHEEKTOWAGA, N.Y. (AP) — The number of people taking high school equivalency exams in the U.S. plummeted — and the percentage who passed fell, too — in the year after a revamped, Common Core-inspired GED was introduced along with two new competing tests.

Administrators say a rush by people to take the old exam in 2013 resulted in fewer test-takers in 2014. And harder questions led to lower scores.

But officials say testing and pass rates are up so far in 2015, suggesting the bumps are being smoothed out.

The GED was overhauled last year to reflect the Common Core standards that have been adopted by most states and emphasize critical thinking. Two new high school equivalency exams that also incorporate some of those standards were also rolled out last year.

DETROIT (AP) — The federal government is declaring one of North America’s most widely distributed bats a threatened species because of the spread of a deadly fungal disease.

White-nose syndrome first was first discovered among bats in a cave near Albany, New York, in 2006 and has since killed millions of the flying mammals in the eastern U.S. and Canada.

It spreads while they congregate in caves or abandoned mines, interrupting their hibernation and causing them to starve or dehydrate.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday that the northern long-eared bat meets the criteria for a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. It isn’t yet considered endangered.

White-nose syndrome is confirmed or suspected in 28 of the 37 states where northern long-eared bats live.

FORT MEADE, Md. (AP) — The FBI has identified a man fatally shot at a National Security Agency gate after disobeying orders from guards there.

Spokeswoman Amy Thoreson says the dead man was 27-year-old Ricky Shawatza Hall. His passenger and an NSA police officer were injured and hospitalized and have not been identified.

Thoreson says the two men were dressed as women but “not in an attempt to disguise themselves from authorities.”

Authorities say they had stolen a sport utility vehicle minutes before from a 60-year-old man who had picked them up in Baltimore and brought them to a Howard County motel to “party.”

NSA police officers opened fire on the SUV after the men failed to follow instructions for leaving a restricted area.