The Nation in Brief

Priscilla Samora (left) carries out a transaction Monday as Dawn Thomas of Glenwood Springs, Colo., does some last-minute shopping in Castle Rock, Colo. Retailers were offering discounts plus even more price cuts for shoppers who ventured out on Christmas Eve.
Priscilla Samora (left) carries out a transaction Monday as Dawn Thomas of Glenwood Springs, Colo., does some last-minute shopping in Castle Rock, Colo. Retailers were offering discounts plus even more price cuts for shoppers who ventured out on Christmas Eve.

Judge bars Honduran mom's deportation

HOUSTON -- A federal judge has ordered the U.S. government not to deport a Honduran woman without her 15-year-old daughter.

The two have been detained together for six months and fear being attacked if forced to return home.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss issued the order Monday.

The mother and daughter are detained together in Dilley, Texas. While the teenager has a case for asylum pending, an immigration judge on Friday denied the mother's request to reopen her immigration case.

The woman and teen both say they came to the U.S. two years ago after gang members in Honduras held them at gunpoint and demanded they pay protection money.

Shalyn Fluharty, a lawyer for the two, said the teen has tried to take her own life at least once in detention.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman declined comment.

School officials get $600,000 in pay suit

GRANITE CITY, Ill. -- Two assistant high school principals in southwestern Illinois will receive $600,000 in back pay to settle a federal lawsuit over sex-based pay discrimination.

Granite City School District 9 denies the discrimination charge but agreed to the payout to Nikki Petrillo and Stacie Miller, according to the Belleville News-Democrat.

Both alleged that for nine years they saw male colleagues start at higher salaries in comparable positions and receive higher pay raises when they got promoted.

Miller said she and a man were both named assistant principals in 2011. But the man had a higher salary despite Miller having five more years' experience and one more master's degree than her colleague.

Petrillo claimed she complained about the pay disparities in 2012 and was forced back to teaching with a pay cut.

St. Louis logs 5 deaths in violent weekend

ST. LOUIS -- Authorities said five people were fatally shot and several others wounded in St. Louis in a 24-hour span over the weekend, just days after the city's police chief announced a substantial drop in violent crime.

Police found the first victim dead around 7:40 p.m. Saturday in a vacant lot. Police responded around 4 a.m. Sunday to the fatal shootings of two other people -- a woman found in the driver's seat of a vehicle with an uninjured 3-year-old girl inside and a man whose body was in the street. The fourth victim was found around 12:30 p.m. Sunday near a sidewalk, and the fifth victim was found dead in a home just before 5 p.m. Sunday.

Weekend shootings also left several people wounded, including two men who survived chest wounds.

The violence came after Chief John Hayden presented figures Wednesday along with a strategic plan for 2019. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that Hayden cited figures showing that St. Louis had 174 homicides through mid-December, before this past weekend's killings, compared with 205 last year, a 20-year high.

Robberies were down 25 percent, with 469 fewer reported. Burglary was down 6.2 percent, and larceny was down 3.3 percent. Reported rapes rose 5 percent.

Hayden, who became chief in December 2017, implemented a strategy of increased policing in an area of north St. Louis where much of the violence has traditionally occurred.

Fiery crash injures 2 Houston officers

HOUSTON -- Two Houston police officers were hospitalized Monday, one in serious condition, after a drunken driver crashed into their patrol vehicle, authorities said.

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said the officers were responding to a call early Monday with their SUV's lights and sirens on when another vehicle turned in front of them, causing a near head-on collision. Acevedo said officer Alonzo Reid, who was the passenger in the SUV, pulled himself to safety as the vehicle burst into flames.

The chief said that Reid along with a passer-by rescued the driver, officer John Daily, from the burning SUV.

Daily suffered burns on roughly 50 percent of his body, Acevedo said. He had already undergone one surgery by Monday morning and faced another surgery later in the day, the chief said.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Reid was in "good spirits" Monday morning.

Police declined to identify the driver of the other vehicle. The driver wasn't hurt, and Acevedo said he was arrested for driving under the influence.

Acevedo said there were two other incidents overnight in which Houston drivers suspected of drinking crashed into police officers.

He said Daily and Reid were lucky to make it out of their vehicle, which was flipped over and almost unrecognizable after the fire.

"This is a Christmas miracle," Acevedo said.

-- Compiled by Democrat-Gazette staff from wire reports

photo

AP/The Tribune-Democrat/JOHN RUCOSKY

Maiya Yen of Potomac, Md., sends a text message Monday while waiting for her snowboarding friends at Seven Springs Mountain Resort in Champion, Pa.

A Section on 12/25/2018

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