Spartan Echo

  SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Many of the relatives of Californians killed in the Sept. 11 attacks never knew that millions of dollars were raised in their name for college scholarships, and now lawmakers want to give them another chance to apply for money that an Associated Press investigation and subsequent audit found was poorly [...]

  SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) — The attorney for the family of a 15-year-old Northern California girl who hanged herself after she was allegedly sexually abused by three boys disputed an explanation by the school superintendent of why the boys were not kicked out of school. Saratoga schools Superintendent Bob Mistele said Wednesday the teens [...]

GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado community sent into a panic over the kidnapping, killing and dismembering of a 10-year-old girl last fall may learn whether the teenager charged with the crime asks for a trial Friday despite his alleged confession. Austin Sigg, 18, is to enter a plea in the Oct. 5 disappearance and [...]

  NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — Norfolk school officials say two middle school students will face criminal charges and disciplinary action after a loaded gun was found in a locker. The school district tells media outlets that security officers at Lafayette-Winona Middle School searched lockers after they saw the students acting suspiciously Monday, April 8, morning. School [...]

  SANTA CLARA, Calif. (AP) — The city of Santa Clara flipped on a big Internet switch this week, becoming what it says is the first in the country to use wireless, digital “smart meters” on homes as channels for free citywide outdoor Wi-Fi. “This is just one of the major benefits our community will [...]

  CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — The University of Virginia has stopped using live cats to train medical students to insert breathing tubes in newborns. U.Va. spokesman McGregor McCance told The Daily Progress (http://bit.ly/14gFqit ) that the university’s three USDA Category A felines — Alley, Kiki and Fiddle— have been adopted out to local residents. “We’ve [...]

  ST. LOUIS (AP) — A former Southern Illinois University student convicted in 2011 of attempting to threaten a murderous rampage has been released from prison, days after an appeals court overturned the aspiring rapper’s conviction and the ensuing five-year sentence. Olutosin Oduwole, 27, was released Monday from a state lockup in Jacksonville. Last week, [...]

  AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Iconoclastic director Harmony Korine unveiled what may be one of the most twisted spring break movies in recent memory with a screening heralded by a roving motorcade of scooter drivers in bikinis and ski masks and lasting into the wee hours Monday at the South by Southwest film festival. “Spring [...]

  OBERLIN, Ohio (AP) — Scrawls of racially offensive graffiti and, more recently, a report of someone wearing what looked like a Ku Klux Klan-type hooded robe on campus have shaken students at historically liberal Oberlin College, one of the nation’s first universities to admit blacks. Two students are being investigated for possible involvement in [...]

  COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio school board lawyer says a now-fired public school science teacher waved a Bible at his students, handed out religious pamphlets and espoused creationism in his evolution lessons. The attorney for ex-teacher John Freshwater says such accounts are exaggerated and that Freshwater was simply exercising his academic freedom to [...]

JACKSON, Ga. (AP) — Georgia has executed a 38-year-old inmate convicted of killing two college students in 1995. Andrew Allen Cook was pronounced dead at 11:22 p.m. Thursday. The two Mercer University students were shot several times as they sat in a car at Lake Juliette. Cook apologized to both his family and the victims’ families. [...]