HOLMES PROSECUTION LISTS 3,500 POTENTIAL WITNESSES: CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — Court documents say prosecutors in the Colorado theater shootings have listed about 3,500 potential witnesses they could call during the trial of defendant James Holmes.
The estimate was in a motion filed Tuesday. None of the witnesses have been publicly identified.
Lawyers also say nearly 40,000 pages of documents about evidence have been filed.
Holmes is accused of killing 12 and injuring 70 in the July 20 shooting at an Aurora movie theater. He's charged with multiple counts of murder and first-degree murder. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
Holmes has asked to change his plea to not guilty by reason of insanity, but the judge hasn't decided whether to accept it.
MD. CITY LOWERS VOTING AGE FOR ITS ELECTIONS TO 16: TAKOMA PARK, Md. (AP) — A small Maryland city
The Takoma Park City Council voted 6-1 on Monday to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in city elections starting in just outside the Washington, D.C., city limits has voted to lower the voting age for city elections to 16.November.
The council also voted to allow convicted felons who have served their time to vote.
Councilman Tim Male, who voted for the measure, said that elected officials are trying to make it possible for more people to be part of the city government.
The lone councilmember to vote against the measure wanted the issue put to referendum.
Takoma Park, known as a liberal-leaning community, has a population of about 17,000. The law takes effect in 50 days.
FATHER OF NJ BOY WHO SHOT PLAYMATE IS CHARGED: TOMS RIVER, N.J. (AP) — A New Jersey man whose 4-year-old son shot and killed a 6-year-old playmate has been criminally charged and is due in court later this week.
Prosecutors say Anthony Senatore had multiple unsecured weapons accessible to children in his Toms River home.
Authorities say Senatore's son took a loaded .22-caliber rifle from a bedroom on April 8 and fired a shot, fatally wounding neighbor Brandon Holt while they were playing outdoors.
Officials say four shotguns were found close to ammunition and accessible to Senatore's three children. Senatore's other children are 12 and 8.
Senatore was arrested late Monday. He's charged with child endangerment and enabling access by minors to a loaded firearm.
JUDGE: FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NEGLIGENT IN BOY'S DEATH: SACRAMENTO (AP) — The U.S. government was negligent in the death of a boy killed when a retaining wall crushed him at a national park in Northern California, a federal judge has ruled.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Troy L. Nunley of Sacramento upheld the earlier findings of a magistrate, who had determined that officials at Lassen Volcanic National Park intentionally demolished the remaining portions of the retaining wall before investigators could examine it.
As punishment, the magistrate recommended that Nunley formally find the park service negligent, which he did in an order issued on Monday.
The ruling came in a lawsuit filed by the family of 9-year-old Tommy Botell. He and his sister were hiking a trail ascending 2,000-foot Lassen Peak on July 29, 2009, and sat down to take photographs atop a rock and mortar retaining wall.
The family says the wall crumbled, and a boulder weighing at least 400 pounds crushed the boy and others injured his sister.
NYC MAYORAL CANDIDATE REVEALS BULIMIA STRUGGLES: NEW YORK (AP) — New Yorkers might have felt they knew about the personal life of Christine Quinn, the veteran politician seeking to become the city's first gay and first female mayor.
But on Tuesday, Quinn disclosed a difficult piece of her past that she had kept private: She was bulimic for a decade in her teens and 20s, went to rehab for it at 26 and considers herself a recovering alcoholic to this day.
"I've always held the belief that the more honest we are, and the more we kind of take things that are our own personal secrets and make them public, it's really transformative for us but also for society," the Democratic City Council speaker told an audience of students at Barnard College, where she described an eating disorder that began as a quest for self-perfection and a sense of power as she cared for her dying mother. A drinking problem developed in tandem as she struggled to contend with the pain and upheaval of her family's loss, Quinn said.
KERN COUNTY SHERIFF ASKS FBI TO PROBE MAN'S DEATH: BAKERSFIELD (AP) — Kern County's sheriff says he has asked the FBI to investigate the death of a man beaten by police while witnesses shot video with cellphones.
Sheriff Donny Youngblood said in a statement Tuesday that he has asked the FBI to conduct a parallel investigation into the death of 33-year-old David Sal Silva.
Silva says his department took two cellphones seized from witnesses to the FBI's Sacramento office earlier Tuesday.
The department has come under scrutiny for seizing the phones, but Youngblood defends the move, saying they were taken with warrants as part of the investigation.
Deputies said Silva fought them May 8 after they approached him about complaints of drunk people in the area. Six deputies, a sergeant and two California Highway Patrol officers were at the scene. Silva was beaten, stopped breathing and was pronounced dead at a hospital.
LAW STUDENT PLEADS NOT GUILTY IN VEGAS BIRD DEATH: LAS VEGAS (AP) — A University of California, Berkeley, law student accused in the beheading of an exotic bird at a Las Vegas Strip resort has pleaded not guilty to animal killing and torture charges.
Court officials say 25-year-old Justin Alexander Teixeira appeared Monday on two felony and one gross misdemeanor charge in the Oct. 12 death of a helmeted guineafowl at the Flamingo resort.
A jury trial is set for Oct. 14.
Security video footage allegedly shows Teixeira and two others chasing the gray bird to a walkway where the bird's body was found. The head was found amid nearby rocks.
