Nation in brief: Teen in custody in school shooting
A 15-year-old boy was shot and wounded in a junior high school computer lab Tuesday and another eighth-grader was taken into custody, authorities said.
Worried parents gathered outside the 1,150-student E.O. Green Junior High School, which was locked down. Students were released classroom by classroom.
The wounded boy had improved since arriving at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in extremely serious condition, police spokesman David Keith said. “We are guardedly optimistic he will make a recovery,” he said.
The 14-year-old suspect was being booked for investigation of attempted murder, Oxnard Police Chief John Crombach said.
LOS ANGELES
Writers’ vote ends months-long strike
Striking Hollywood writers are going back to work.
The Writers Guild of America said its members voted Tuesday to end their devastating, three-month strike that brought the entertainment industry to a standstill.
Writers will go back to work today after voting in Beverly Hills and New York.
“At the end of the day, everybody won. It was a fair deal and one that the companies can live with, and it recognizes the large contribution that writers have made to the industry,” said Leslie Moonves, chief executive officer of CBS Corp.
The combined New York-Beverly Hills count was overwhelmingly in favor of ending the strike: 3,492 voted yes, with only 283 voting to stay off the job.
SAN ANTONIO
Couple stole, sold airline tickets
A former Southwest Airlines employee and her husband pleaded guilty Tuesday to wire fraud, acknowledging they stole more than 5,000 plane tickets and sold them to friends, co-workers and other acquaintances.
Althea Jackson acknowledged acquiring about 5,600 courtesy airline tickets when she worked at Southwest from 2001 to 2005, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton said.
Jackson and her husband, former Bexar County court bailiff James Jackson, then sold the tickets below market value, with many going to “friends, relatives, acquaintances and James Jackson’s co-workers at the Bexar County Justice Center,” Sutton said.
Prosecutors said the defendants sold them for cash from 2000 to 2003. Prosecutors estimate the scam was worth as much as about $1.8 million, a figure the couple’s attorney, Jay Norton, disputes.
The two each face as many as 20 years in prison and $250,000 in fines but will likely get two to 2 1/2 years in prison and a reduced fine under the plea agreement, Norton said.