In brief: Top 10 percent were only group to see income rise from 2010-13

WASHINGTON – The richest 10 percent of Americans were the only group whose median incomes rose in the past three years, the Federal Reserve said Thursday in a report on consumer finances.

The Fed said that incomes declined for every other group from 2010 to 2013, widening the gap between the richest Americans and everyone else.

The report found that median incomes, adjusted for inflation, for the top 10 percent rose 2 percent, to $223,200 from $217,900. Median income fell 4 percent for the bottom 20 percent, to $15,200 from $15,800.

For the middle 20 percent, incomes dropped 6 percent, to $48,700 from $51,800.

The information, from the Fed’s latest “Survey of Consumer Finances,” echoed findings of other studies of the impact of the Great Recession on American households. The very wealthy have benefited the most from gains in the stock market and housing values after the recession. But poor and middle-income people, who depend more on wages, have been hurt by sluggish growth in pay even after the downturn officially ended in June 2009.

Officials say dad was sexting while son died in hot car

MARIETTA, Ga. – A Georgia man who prosecutors say sat in his office exchanging nude photos with women while his son languished for hours in a hot car was charged with murder on Thursday, more than two months after the child’s death.

A Cobb County grand jury indicted Justin Ross Harris on multiple charges, including malice murder, felony murder and cruelty to children. The malice murder charge indicates that prosecutors intend to prove Harris intentionally left his son Cooper in the hot car to die.

The eight-count indictment also includes charges related to sexually explicit exchanges prosecutors say Harris had with an underage girl.

“Today was another step in a long process,” Cobb County District Attorney Vic Reynolds said. “We look forward to the case running its course and, ultimately, justice being served in this matter.”

Harris will be arraigned in the next few weeks, and Reynolds said he will decide before then whether to seek the death penalty.

Court will reconsider ruling against health care subsidies

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s lawyers have won a second chance to stop a lawsuit that has the potential to unravel the national health care law and its system of insurance subsidies.

The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said Thursday it will reconsider a 2-1 decision by a panel of the court in July that struck down the subsidies for health insurance provided under the Affordable Care Act in 36 states.

These states rely on insurance exchanges run by the federal government. In July, the two judges in the majority, both Republican appointees, said the law as written authorized subsidies only for state-run exchanges. The decision, if allowed to stand, could void insurance subsidies for about 5 million low-income and middle-income Americans.

Thursday’s brief announcement may be crucial in preventing the Supreme Court from taking up the issue this fall. Conservative activists who launched the lawsuit hoped to get it before the Supreme Court as soon as possible.

Animal control officers catch on-the-loose albino cobra

Thousand Oaks, Calif. – A deadly albino cobra that ran loose for days in a Southern California neighborhood was captured Thursday.

“We are overjoyed. We are glad that the public was not harmed,” Los Angeles County spokesman Brandon Dowling said after county animal control officers nabbed the monocled cobra shortly after 3 p.m.

Television reports showed officers using a long-handled tonglike grabber to haul the snake from a pile of scrap lumber in a backyard and put it in a long wooden box. It was taken to an animal shelter.

The venom of the cobra is a neurotoxin that can kill within an hour. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the albino snake – which apparently escaped from captivity – still had its venom glands, authorities said.

The snake, which is several feet long, had been on the loose since at least Monday evening, when it reportedly bit a dog. However, the veterinarian who treated the animal said it appeared that the dog wasn’t bitten but was hurt while trying to escape the snake.