The nation in brief

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“That’s not a prescription for a better future. It’s an echo of a disastrous decade we can’t afford to relive.”

President Barack Obama,

on the package of proposals that Republicans called the “Pledge to America” plan Article, 5AShooting at N.J. party kills 1, hurts 4

EAST ORANGE, N.J. - A man who was denied access to a private party at an apartment near Seton Hall University left and returned with a handgun, fatally shooting a university student and wounding four people, sending screaming partygoers rushing out the door and climbing out windows.

Seton Hall student Jessica Moore, 19, died from her injuries at 3:20 p.m. Saturday, said Katherine Carter, a spokesman for the Essex County prosecutor’s office. Moore had been hospitalized in critical condition after the shooting just before 12:20 a.m.

The other four victims were hospitalized with injuries that were not considered life-threatening, and one has since been released, said East Orange Police Sgt. Andrew Di Elmo.

Di Elmo says the victims did not know the gunman, who fled from the apartment on foot. Police are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the man’s capture.

Police said that in addition to Moore, two of the other victims are both 19-year-old female students at Seton Hall, and one is a 25-year-old male student at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. The fifth victim is a 20-year-old man from New York City who is not a student.

A student who said she attended the party and had classes with Moore told The Associated Press that there was a fight after a man was kicked out because he didn’t want to pay the cover charge. The woman did not give her name, citing fears for her safety because the gunman was still at large.

She said the man then returned and began firing his gun.

8 shot, 3 stabbed at LA party; 1 dies

LOS ANGELES - Eight people were shot, including one fatally, and three others were stabbed after a fight broke out at a house party in east Los Angeles.

Police Sgt. Kristin Hagerty said Saturday that at least one person was being sought in the shootings that began just after 2 a.m. in the suburban Boyle Heights neighborhood.

Two of the gunshot victims suffered critical injuries and the others who were injured were in stable condition, Hagerty said.

One person died at the scene.

The shootings did not appear to be gang-related, Hagerty said.

10 states file anti-gay-marriage brief

CHEYENNE, Wyo. - Wyoming and nine other states have filed a same-sex-marriage opposition brief to a federal appeals court in California.

The amicus brief sent Friday to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that the Constitution does not require marriage to include same-sex couples. The 39-page brief also said that states, not federal courts, have final say in whether to allow same-sex marriages.

A federal judge ruled last month that California’s Proposition 8, a voter-passed ban on same-sex marriage, was unconstitutional. Judge Vaughn Walker ruled there was no legitimate state interest in preventing same-sex marriages and that “moral disapproval” alone wasn’t sufficient reason to justify banning it.

The case is being appealed.

The Casper Star-Tribune reported that other states that joined the brief against same-sex marriage are Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia. They argued that same-sex marriage is not a fundamental right.

Official vows bigger, faster oil-spill aid

NEW ORLEANS - Victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill should start getting bigger payments faster, the administrator of the fund set up to help them said Saturday.

Kenneth Feinberg said he was responding to criticism from residents and businesses.

“Over the past few weeks, I have heard from the people of the Gulf, elected officials, and others that payments remain too slow and not generous enough,” Feinberg said in a news release. “I am implementing new procedures that will make this program more efficient, more accelerated and more generous.”

Claims from now on also will be sorted by industry to allow those reviewing the claims to apply a more specific, uniform set of standards when deciding how much a person or business will be paid, he said.

Front Section, Pages 4 on 09/26/2010

Upcoming Events