■ United States
Residents divided on tax
Residents of a southern New Mexico county were divided on Tuesday on a tax that would help pay for a commercial spaceport that could one day turn the area into a hub for space tourism. With all precincts reporting, unofficial results from the county's bureau of elections show those in favor of the tax increase outnumbered opponents of the measure by a mere 204 votes, but election workers were still counting another 541 provisional ballots. "It's going to depend on how those provisionals go," said Lynn Ellins, supervisor of the county's elections bureau.
■ United States
Missing python found
This was one search you could not just Google. An employee's 0.9m python went missing last weekend in Google's sprawling Manhattan office, sending search teams on an all-out snake hunt. The searchers finally found the serpent, known as Kaiser, on Monday night. "A snake was lost; it was not an April Fool's joke. It was found last night," Google spokeswoman Ellen West said on Tuesday. "The snake has left the building." She did not say where in the office Kaiser was found. But a contributor to Google's official blog wrote that the staff was told the snake was found "relaxing behind a cabinet."
■ United States
Teen faces terrorism charges
A teenager faces a terrorism charge for confronting a girl with a knife and later being found with a backpack full of restraining devices and weapons, a prosecutor said. The 14-year-old told police he planned to hold his class hostage, attorney Andrew Thomas of Maricopa County, Arizona, said on Monday. When the teen was arrested two weeks ago, county officials said he had plotted a "Columbine-like" scenario, comparing his plans to the 1999 deadly shooting massacre at Colorado's Columbine High School. The teen also was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, kidnapping and misdemeanor.
■ United States
Children arrested for sex
Five fifth-graders were arrested on Tuesday after an investigation into allegations that students had sex in an unsupervised classroom with other classmates present. "After 44 years of doing this work, nothing shocks me anymore," Union Parish Sheriff Bob Buckley said. "But this comes pretty close." The alleged incident took place on March 27 at the Spearsville, Louisiana, school in rural north Louisiana. Four students -- two 11-year-old girls, a 12-year-old boy and a 13-year-old boy -- were arrested on charges of obscenity. An 11-year-old boy who was the alleged lookout was charged with being an accessory after the fact, Buckley said.
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