News briefs

Local and VCU

Suspect in Hanover ax attack is held without bond

A Lee-Davis High School student surrendered without resistance to Hanover County authorities last week as a classmate lay a few feet away, severely injured from an ax attack that sloughed off the side of the victim’s face.

The youth charged in the attack, Omar K. Abdelaal, who turned 16 this month, was ordered held without bond Tuesday after a prosecutor told a juvenile court judge that Abdelaal “represents a threat to the community.”

The ax attack occurred Friday evening at Tractor Supply Co. across from the high school on Mechanicsville Turnpike. Gilmer set a preliminary hearing for Abdelaal for Nov. 13. Hanover prosecutors said they will seek to try the sophomore student as an adult; he faces up to life in prison on a charge of aggravated malicious wounding.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

Sniper Muhammad to die by lethal injection

If executed as scheduled Nov. 10, condemned Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad will die by lethal injection, not electrocution.

Larry Traylor, spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections, said Tuesday that Muhammad, 48, declined to choose between either means of execution. In such cases, the default method is lethal injection.

In 1995, Virginia began giving the condemned the option of lethal injection instead of electrocution. Since then, there have been 75 lethal injections and four electrocutions.

Muhammad was sentenced to die for the Oct. 9, 2002, slaying of Dean Meyers, 53, shot to death by a rifle.

Unless the courts or the governor intervene, Muhammad’s execution is set for 9 p.m. at the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch

National and International

Mich. teen guilty in beating death ofhomeless man

A 15-year-old was found guilty Wednesday in the fatal beating last year of a homeless man, a day after a second teenager was convicted and a third was taken into custody.

Dontez Tillman was charged with first-degree felony murder in the death of 61-year-old Wilford Hamilton, a homeless man who prosecutors say was beaten in Pontiac by a group of teenagers in August 2008. The charge carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole.

Authorities said Tillman confessed to police that he participated in the attack. Tillman will appeal, defense attorney Marsha Kosmatka said.

Brief by The Associated Press

Farm states may copy Ohio vote on livestock rules

Ohio voters will decide next week whether to create a board overseeing livestock care in a move that could give farmers in rural America a blueprint for battling animal rights groups intent on outlawing cramped cages for chickens and hogs.

Agriculture industry leaders pushed the issue onto the state ballot, hoping to thwart an attempt by animal rights activists who were threatening to force farmers to change how they house livestock.

Supporters of the changes say animals raised for food deserve humane treatment. Opponents argue the regulations will force farmers to make costly changes that could put them out of business and drive up the price of eggs, chicken, pork and beef.

That’s why Ohio’s agriculture leaders decided to take a shot at creating a livestock board that would include farmers and animal care experts.

Voters in Ohio – often a crucial swing state in national elections – will decide Tuesday whether to approve Issue 2 in what could be a significant decision for farmers nationwide.

Brief by The Associated Press

Car bomb kills 93 in Pakistani city of Peshawar

A car bomb struck a busy market in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing 93 people, mostly women and children, as visiting Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged U.S. support for Islamabad’s campaign against Islamic militants.

More than 200 people were wounded in the blast in the main northwestern city of Peshawar, the deadliest in a surge of attacks by suspected insurgents this month. The government blamed militants seeking to avenge an army offensive launched this month against al-Qaida and Taliban in their stronghold close to the Afghan border.

The bombing was the deadliest since explosions hit homecoming festivities for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Karachi in October 2007, killing about 150 people. Bhutto was later slain in a separate attack.

Wednesday’s bomb destroyed much of the Mina Bazaar in Peshawar’s old town, a warren of narrow alleys clogged with stalls and shops selling dresses, toys and cheap jewelry that drew many female shoppers and children in the conservative city.

The blast collapsed buildings, including a mosque, and set scores of shops ablaze. The wounded sat amid burning debris and parts of bodies as a huge plume of gray smoke rose above the city.

Brief by The Associated Press