NATION IN BRIEF
Saturday, January 14, 2006; Page A08
Teenager Wounded By Fla. SWAT Team
LONGWOOD, Fla. -- An eighth-grader was shot and wounded by a SWAT team officer in a school restroom Friday after he pulled out a pellet gun that resembled a real weapon and raised it at deputies, authorities said.
Sheriff Don Eslinger said the 15-year-old brought the gun to Milwee Middle School in his backpack. Eslinger said two students saw it and one persuaded the other to report it, causing a scuffle.
  Susan O'Rourke hugs her son Daniel, 12, as they wait for his twin brother, Patrick, to appear outside Milwee Middle School in Longwood, Fla. (By George Skene -- Associated Press) 
| ||||||||||||||||||||
"He was suicidal," Eslinger said of the youth deputies cornered in the restroom. "During this standoff, and during the chase, the student said he was going to kill himself or die."
* * *
· MESA, Ariz. -- A Catholic priest was sentenced to 111 years in state prison for sexually abusing three boys at a suburban Phoenix church and area campsites 15 to 20 years ago. The Rev. Paul LeBrun, 49, received the maximum sentence for his conviction on six felony sex crimes against youths ranging in age from 11 to 13.
· RALEIGH, N.C. -- An appeals court gave new life to the defense of a former Green Beret doctor convicted of the 1970 murders of his wife and daughters, ruling that his lawyers can introduce evidence that a prosecutor threatened a witness. A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, meeting in Richmond, granted a motion by Jeffrey MacDonald's lawyers to present the new evidence in Raleigh federal court. It could result in a new trial, said Hart Miles, one of MacDonald's attorneys.
· BOSTON -- After more than a decade of traffic detours, the last major piece of roadway in Boston's Big Dig opened Friday, officials said. The opening of an off-ramp from Interstate 93 south means the $14.6 billion project to ease congestion in downtown Boston is substantially finished, said Matt Amorello, Massachusetts Turnpike Authority chairman. Heavy construction began in 1991.
· ANCHORAGE -- A volcano on an uninhabited island 180 miles from Anchorage erupted three times, sending plumes of ash more than six miles into the sky. Airplanes were warned to keep at least five miles away from 4,134-foot Augustine Volcano.
