NEWS OF THE DAY
From Across the Nation
1 Freeway shootings: Prosecutors announced formal charges Wednesday against a 21-year-old man suspected in some of the freeway shootings that have rattled the Phoenix area. Leslie Allen Merritt Jr. was charged with 16 counts, including aggravated assault, unlawful discharge of a weapon, disorderly conduct, endangerment and carrying out a drive-by shooting. Merritt said at his initial appearance Saturday that officers arrested the wrong person. He said that during the time the shootings occurred, he didn’t have the pistol police recovered from a pawn shop last week.
2 Referee blindsided: A San Antonio high school football coach has acknowledged he directed two of his players to hit a referee during a game earlier this month, according to the school’s principal. In an internal school district statement, John Jay High School principal Robert Harris said that assistant coach Mack Breed told him he directed the students to hit the referee because the ref had used racial slurs and had missed calls. Details from the statement were first reported on Wednesday by ESPN. The referee, Robert Watts, has denied using any slurs.
3 Foster care: For the first time in a decade, there was a notable increase last year in the number of U.S. children in foster care, according to new federal figures released Wednesday. The annual report from the Department of Health and Human Services tallied 415,129 children in the foster care system as of Sept. 30, 2014, up from about 401,000 a year earlier. The peak was 524,000 children in foster care in 2002, and the number had dropped steadily since 2005 before rising slightly in 2013. HHS offered no immediate explanation of why the numbers had risen.
4 American detainee: An American businesswoman arrested in China on claims she spied and stole state secrets is being held in solitary confinement and is interrogated at least once a day, her husband said Wednesday. Jeff Gillis said his wife, Phan Phan-Gillis, 55, met earlier Wednesday with an American consulate official. Her health has stabilized after suffering from ailments since she was taken into custody in March while traveling with a trade delegation from her hometown of Houston, he said. She has not been charged, and Chinese authorities have not specified the allegations against her.
5 Charges after suicide: An 18-year-old Massachusetts woman who encouraged her boyfriend to kill himself can face an involuntary manslaughter charge, a juvenile court judge ruled. Michelle Carter of Plainville, Mass., sent 18-year-old Conrad Roy III of Mattapoisett dozens of text messages in 2014 encouraging him to take his own life. Roy’s body was found in his pickup in Fairhaven on July 13, 2014. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning and police found a gasolineoperated water pump in the back seat. Carter’s lawyer, Joseph Cataldo, has said that earlier text messages show that Carter tried repeatedly to get Roy to seek help. Cataldo said he plans to appeal the decision.