Tennessee voting on 3 justices' futures
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Tennessee voters were deciding Thursday whether to oust three members of the state Supreme Court whose work has been criticized as incongruent with the state's rightward tilt.
Participants in Tennessee's Republican primary also were choosing a nominee for U.S. Senate from a field that includes Sen. Lamar Alexander and state Rep. Joe Carr, who has won Tea Party support.
The races have energized Tennessee's August primary, which is typically a relaxed round of balloting. Voters saw and heard a torrent of television and radio advertisements, and many received direct mail.
But turnout appeared light in Nashville, the state capital, although officials said more than 564,000 people statewide submitted their ballots during Tennessee's early-voting period, which ended Saturday.
The judicial races have seized much of the local political spotlight in the weeks leading to Election Day. Voters are being asked whether they want to retain or replace three justices: Cornelia Clark, Sharon Lee and Gary Wade, the state's chief justice. Phil Bredesen, a Democrat, named all three to the Supreme Court when he was governor, from 2003 to 2011.
Plagiarism accusation ends Senate run
WASHINGTON -- Democratic Sen. John Walsh of Montana ended his election bid after plagiarism allegations, leaving his party fewer than two weeks to choose a replacement candidate.
In an email to supporters, Walsh on Thursday said he was pulling out of the race because controversy over the plagiarism allegation "has become a distraction from the debate you expect and deserve."
"I am ending my campaign so that I can focus on fulfilling the responsibility entrusted to me as your U.S. senator," Walsh wrote. "You deserve someone who will always fight for Montana, and I will."
Walsh already was in an uphill campaign against Republican Rep. Steve Daines, in a state President Barack Obama lost twice, when The New York Times reported July 23 that Walsh's 2007 Army War College master's thesis contained significant sections that appeared to be copied from other sources without attribution.
Republicans need a net gain of six seats in November to take control of the 100-member Senate.
Walsh was appointed to the Senate in February to replace Democrat Max Baucus, a 35-year Senate veteran who became ambassador to China. Walsh's Senate term ends in early January.
Man shot by police said to wield air rifle
CINCINNATI -- A man who was fatally shot by police in a Wal-Mart store in a Dayton suburb after officers say he waved a weapon at customers was carrying an air rifle, Ohio's attorney general said Thursday.
Attorney General Mike DeWine released a brief statement after the state's crime bureau said it had taken over the investigation of the shooting at the request of Beavercreek police. Police had said John Crawford, 22, waved a rifle at customers Tuesday night and was fatally shot when he wouldn't drop the weapon. DeWine said the man had a "variable pump air rifle" made by Crosman Corp.
Bureau of Criminal Investigation spokesman Jill Del Greco declined to elaborate on DeWine's statement. Authorities didn't say whether the man grabbed the air rifle in the store or had carried it in.
A 37-year-old customer, Angela Williams of Fairborn, died after suffering a medical problem during evacuation of the store, authorities said. It could be weeks before final autopsy results are known, they said.
1st body from reform school identified
TAMPA, Fla. -- A boy buried in an unmarked grave at a reform school with a history of unsanitary and decrepit conditions was the first of 55 sets of remains found there to be positively identified, researchers said Thursday.
Researchers from the University of South Florida said they used DNA and other tests to identify the remains of George Owen Smith, who was 14 when he disappeared in 1940 from the now-closed school. They couldn't say how he died.
Official records indicated 31 burials at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, but researchers found the remains of 55 people during a four-month excavation last year.
Researchers said the body was found in a hastily buried grave wrapped only in a burial shroud. His DNA matched a sample taken from his sister.
Some former students from the 1950s and 1960s have accused employees and guards at the Panhandle school of physical and sexual abuse, but the Florida Department of Law Enforcement concluded after an investigation that it couldn't substantiate or dispute the claims. Many former Dozier inmates from that era call themselves "The White House Boys" after the white building where they say the worst abuse took place.
-- COMPILED BY DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE STAFF FROM WIRE REPORTS
A Section on 08/08/2014