US teens plead not guilty in Australian’s death

Two Oklahoma teenagers charged in the shooting death of an Australian baseball player in Oklahoma pleaded not guilty and waived their right to a speedy trial during a brief court appearance on Thursday.

Michael Dewayne Jones, 18, and Chancey Allen Luna, 16, wore orange jail jumpsuits and their hands were cuffed as they appeared before Judge Joe Enos for their arraignment on first-degree murder charges in the killing last summer of 22year-old Chris Lane.

Enos set a trial docket date of Aug. 18 for both teens.

Prosecutors say Lane, from Melbourne, Australia, was gunned down as he jogged near his girlfriend’s parents’ house in Duncan, about 80 miles south of Oklahoma City. He was preparing to enter his senior season as a catcher at East Central University in Ada.

Another teenage defendant, James Francis Edwards Jr., 16, agreed to testify against Jones and Luna if prosecutors reduce

With the government’s only permanent nuclear waste dump shuttered indefinitely by back-to-back accidents, officials are making plans to ship radioactive waste from Los Alamos National Laboratory to rural West Texas.

The Department of Energy and the operator of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad in southeastern New Mexico say they have signed an agreement with Waste Control Specialists to truck the waste to its site in Andrews County.

The agreement will help Los Alamos meet a June deadline for getting the last of thousands of barrels of plutonium-contaminated clothing, tools, rags and other debris off its northern New Mexico campus before wildfire season hits its peak. The waste would come back to New Mexico for final disposal once the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant reopens.