New York City: Caroline Kennedy takes education post

Caroline Kennedy has been named to a newly created position soliciting private-sector help for the city’s public schools.

Kennedy, a lawyer and author who is the daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, will start her new job later this month.

The Office of Strategic Partnerships’ mandate will be to woo private-sector resources for projects ranging from systemwide initiatives to partnerships between a corporation and a school.

She will be paid $1 a year, work a part-time schedule and report directly to schools Chancellor Joel Klein.

Milwaukee: Victim of beating by youth mob dies

A man attacked by a mob of children who savagely beat him with rakes, shovels and bats died Tuesday, as authorities held nine youths in custody and sought seven others.

The children, ages 10 to 18, attacked Charlie Young Jr. late Sunday after a fight that started when one of the children tossed an egg at him, police said.

Young, 36, suffered severe brain injuries and was hospitalized in critical condition after the attack.

Police Chief Arthur Jones said about 16 to 20 young men who had gathered Sunday night prodded a 10-year-old to throw an egg at Young. The egg hit the Milwaukee man in the shoulder, and he started chasing the boy. But a 14-year-old got between the two, and Young punched him, knocking out a tooth.

Several of the youths then banded together and chased Young, picking up shovels, rakes, baseball bats, a folding chair and other items to beat him with, Jones said.

Montana: Murder charges dropped in suspected butchering

Prosecutors in Great Falls said Tuesday they will drop murder and kidnapping charges against a man accused of butchering a child and feeding him to neighbors because the alleged victim’s mother believes the boy is alive.

The stunning announcement came after Zachary Ramsay’s mother, Rachel Howard, said she was prepared to testify she did not believe Nathaniel Bar-Jonah had killed her son in 1996.

Bar-Jonah, 45, already serving a 130-year prison sentence in Montana for kidnapping and sexual assault in a separate case, was accused of abducting 10-year-old Zachary while he walked to school.

Searches of Bar-Jonah’s house nearly three years ago turned up lists of children’s names, including Zachary, and encrypted letters in which Bar-Jonah wrote about such dishes as “little boy stew,” “little boy pot pies” and “lunch is served on the patio with roasted child.”

Chicago: Old murder case brings 200-300 year sentence

A man convicted of murdering three boys in 1955 was sentenced Tuesday to 200 to 300 years in prison.

“I would not, I could not, I did not kill those children,” 69-year-old Kenneth Hansen said during the sentencing hearing.

Hansen was convicted in August in the murders of Robert Peterson, 14; and brothers John Schuessler, 13, and Anton, 11. He was also found guilty of the killings in 1995, but that conviction was overturned.

Police were baffled for years after the boys’ bodies were found in a forest preserve in 1955. An informant identified Hansen as the killer in the mid-1990s.

The boys vanished while hitchhiking home from a bowling alley. Prosecutors said Hansen took them to the horse stable where he worked and killed them after the older boy discovered Hansen molesting the two others.

Much of the trial testimony came from people who claimed that Hansen had admitted the murders over the years.