■ UNITED STATES
Report shows `superbug' risk
More than 90,000 Americans get potentially deadly infections each year from a drug-resistant staph "superbug," the US government reported on Tuesday. Deaths tied to these infections may exceed those caused by AIDS, said one public health expert commenting on the new study. The overall incidence rate was about 32 invasive infections per 100,000 people. That is an "astounding" figure, said an editorial in yesterday's Journal of the American Medical Association, which published the study.
■ UNITED STATES
Boy held over brother's death
A 13-year-old boy accused of killing his younger brother over a dessert will be charged as a juvenile, prosecutors said. The Florida state attorney's office has not filed formal charges, but said on Tuesday that Demetrius Key would stay in juvenile court in Orlando because he was an abuse victim with no prior record. Authorities said Demetrius told investigators he choked and beat Levares Key, 8, because the boy ate a chocolate dessert and picked a scab that bled. Demetrius told police he feared being blamed for those things when the boys' mother, Tangela Key, returned home.
■ UNITED STATES
`Toilet rage' woman cited
A woman who allegedly shouted profanities at her overflowing toilet within earshot of a neighbor was cited for disorderly conduct, authorities said. Dawn Herb could face up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to US$300. "It doesn't make any sense. I was in my house. It's not like I was outside or drunk," Herb told the Times-Tribune of Scranton, Pennsylvania. "The toilet was overflowing and leaking down into the kitchen and I was yelling [for my daughter] to get the mop." Her next-door neighbor, a city police officer who was off-duty at the time, asked her to keep it down, police said. When she continued, the officer called police.
■ UNITED STATES
Child killer to die
A man who threw a five-year-old girl into a Florida swamp to be devoured by alligators after trying to strangle her mother has been sentenced to death by a Florida court. "The defendant ... caused this five-year-old to die, alone in the wilderness, and to be mutilated by monsters of the swamp," Miami-Dade County Judge Leonard Glick said on Monday before announcing the sentence to Harrel Franklin Braddy, 58. He was accused by the mother who survived his attack, the online edition of the Miami Herald reported on Tuesday. Quatisha Maycock and her mother Shandelle Maycock were kidnapped in November 1998 from their home by Braddy, who was angry at being rebuffed by the mother. He drove his victims to the Everglades National Park where he strangled the mother and tossed her daughter into a swamp. The mother came to after her attack. The girl's body was found two days later with bite marks on her body and her left arm missing.
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