NEWS FROM ACROSS THE NATION
POLICE: FATHER SHOOTS SON AFTER ORANGE JUICE RUNS OUT
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, say a man is facing a charge of attempted manslaughter after he confessed to shooting his 18-year-old son during an argument over orange juice.
Police tell The Advocate 58-year-old Eldridge Dukes and his son were fighting Sunday morning about the lack of orange juice.
Investigators say the squabble escalated when the victim broke a vase, and Dukes grabbed his handgun.
They say Dukes chased the victim out of the house and down the street, firing at least three times. Police say the son was hit in the buttocks and suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Dukes was booked into the parish prison on counts of attempted manslaughter and illegal use of a dangerous weapon.
CANADIAN MAN PLEADS GUILTY IN FLORIDA SEX TOURISM CASE: MIAMI (AP) — Authorities say a Canadian man has pleaded guilty to charges that he traveled to Florida to have sex with someone he believed was an underage boy.
Rene Roberge of Sherbrooke, Quebec, pleaded guilty to four counts Monday during a federal court hearing in Miami. Two of the counts include mandatory minimum sentences of 10 years. The 47-year-old man is scheduled to be sentenced June 4.
Authorities say Roberge flew to Fort Lauderdale after making online contact with undercover investigators posing as a 14-year-old boy and his father to arrange a sexual encounter.
Agents also allegedly found child pornography on Roberge’s tablet computer, according to officials. They said Roberge also was accused of planning to travel to San Antonio, Texas, to have sex with a teenage boy.
HERMIT WHO LIVED IN WOODS FOR DECADES FINISHES COURT PROGRAM: AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — A man who lived as a hermit in the Maine woods for nearly three decades before being arrested on theft and burglary charges has finished a special court program.
Christopher Knight stole food, clothing and camping gear from homes while living as the North Pond Hermit for 27 years. He was arrested in April 2013.
He pleaded guilty to 13 counts of burglary and theft and served about seven months in jail before entering the court program in October 2013.
Knight attended a hearing Monday in Kennebec County Superior Court and will begin three years’ probation.
Attorney Walt McKee says Knight has been working for his brother in exchange for room and board. He says Knight is participating in a vocational rehabilitation program to develop skills for a regular job.
Ex-BOB JONES PRESIDENT APOLOGIZES FOR 1980 ANTI-GAY REMARKS: COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — The former president and current chancellor of fundamentalist Christian Bob Jones University apologized for saying in 1980 that gay people should be stoned, calling his comments reckless and inflammatory.
In a statement issued by the university on Saturday, Bob Jones III called his comments “reckless” and “inflammatory rhetoric” made during the heat of a political controversy. At the time, ministers were at the White House to oppose extending Civil Rights Act protections to homosexuals.
“I’m sure this will be greatly misquoted,” Jones told The Associated Press in Washington in March 1980, “but it would not be a bad idea to bring the swift justice today that was brought in Israel’s day against murder and rape and homosexuality. I guarantee it would solve the problem post-haste if homosexuals were stoned, if murderers were immediately killed as the Bible commands.”
Jones said in his new statement that is not how he feels in his heart, but that he takes “personal ownership of this inflammatory rhetoric.”
“Upon now reading these long-forgotten words, they seem to me as words belonging to a total stranger — were my name not attached,” Jones said in the statement.
COW IN NORTHEAST TEXAS DEFIES ODDS, GIVES BIRTH TO 4 CALVES: LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — A cow in Northeast Texas has apparently defied great odds and given birth to four calves that have been named Eeny, Meeny, Miny and Moo.
Jimmy Barling said Monday that DNA tests will be done on tissue samples from the three bull calves and the one heifer calf to satisfy those who may question the births from one mother.
“We knew she was pregnant, but we didn’t know she was going to do this,” the 76-year-old Barling said. “This was a shock. This blew our minds.”
Barling’s wife, Dora Rumsey-Barling, owns the couple’s 20 or so cattle outside of DeKalb, near the Arkansas and Oklahoma borders. Rumsey-Barling’s granddaughter named the four black calves Eeny, Meeny, Miny and Moo, Barling said.
Local veterinarian Mike Baird called the March 16 births “extremely rare.” He said the odds of four live births from one cow are 1 in 11.2 million. Baird knows the couple well and is nearly certain the four came from one mother, rather than a nearby cow perhaps birthing one or two and then moving along so that it appeared the four came from the Barling’s cow.
“In the interest of science and the animal world, it’s one of those things that need to be verified beyond a shadow of a doubt,” he said.
The couple watched the birth of the fourth calf after going to check on her when they saw buzzards circling above a field.
Because the mother cow is unable to nurse all four calves, the couple are relying on neighbors to help. Moo has stayed with her mother, while Eeny, Meeny and Miny are with two different caretakers. Meeny is the smallest of the calves, weighing in at about 25 pounds.
A typical healthy birth weight for a calf is 75 pounds. Standing has also been difficult for some of the quadruplets.
