The nation in brief

Grandparents win teen custody case

CINCINNATI — A trans-gender Ohio teen’s grandparents have been granted custody and will be allowed to decide whether the 17-year-old can pursue hormone therapy at a hospital after he’s evaluated by a psychologist not affiliated with the hospital, a judge in Cincinnati ruled Friday.

Judge Sylvia Hendon’s ruling appears to have ended a legal battle that pitted the teen and his maternal grandparents against his parents, who denied he was transgender and sought Christian-based therapy for him. The teen, with his grandparents’ support, wants treatment at the transgender program run by Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

Hendon’s ruling also gives the grandparents the right to allow him to change his name.

The four-page decision notes that the teen’s parents agree he should continue living with his grandparents and attending high school, where he excels academically and musically.

“Parents are granted reasonable visitation and encouraged to work toward a reintegration of the child into the extended family,” Hendon wrote.

Ohio girl, 4, shot in back seat of car

AKRON, Ohio — Authorities say a suspect in the fatal shooting of a 4-year-old girl sitting in a car with young siblings and her grandmother in northeastern Ohio has been arrested.

Police say 31-year-old Darnell Bitting was arrested around 4 p.m. Saturday in Akron

Akron police spokesman Lt. Rick Edwards said the shooting happened around 10:30 p.m. Friday after the children’s mother pulled in front of a house to retrieve belongings and broke out windows when no one answered the door.

Edwards said a man stepped outside with a rifle and fired one shot at the car, striking the 4-year-old, who was sitting in the back seat. She was pronounced dead at an Akron hospital. The other children are girls ages 3, 6 and 7.

Police have not identified the girl or her mother.

In Chicago, slain officer is recalled

CHICAGO — Mourners remembered a slain Chicago police commander Saturday as a model officer and “one of the good guys” who was uninterested in self-promotion, even as he moved up the department’s ranks.

Of all of Commander Paul Bauer’s responsibilities, the ones that mattered the most to him were being a good husband to his wife, Erin, and good father to his daughter, Grace, several speakers said during his funeral at the Nativity of Our Lord Church.

Bauer, 53, was gunned down Tuesday near a government building in downtown Chicago.

Authorities say he was in a patrol car nearby when he heard a call that a man had run away from tactical officers who had approached to question him about recent drug dealing and a shooting in the area. They say Bauer spotted the man and chased him to an outer stairwell, where they struggled. Bauer was shot six times and was pronounced dead later that day at a hospital.

A Section on 02/18/2018

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