Minnesota

Teen guilty of murder in high school shooting

A 16-year-old boy who prosecutors say smirked as he pulled the trigger in a school shooting that left two teenagers dead was convicted Monday of murder.

John Jason McLaughlin faces a life sentence unless his lawyer can persuade a judge that the boy was mentally ill at the time. If so, McLaughlin could be sent to a mental hospital instead of prison.

A judge who heard the case without a jury found McLaughlin guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Seth Bartell, 14, and second-degree murder in the slaying of Aaron Rollins, 17. The two were killed in 2003 at Rocori High School in Cold Spring. McLaughlin was tried as an adult.

A defense psychiatrist testified that McLaughlin was suffering from schizophrenia and heard a voice that urged him to shoot Bartell, whom McLaughlin regarded as a bully.

Indianapolis

Maker issues warning for 28,000 pacemakers

Guidant Corp., already under fire for problems with its implantable defibrillators, on Monday warned physicians replacements might be needed for nine pacemaker models made between 1997 and 2000.

The Indianapolis-based company said a sealing component in the pacemakers has degraded in some cases, resulting in higher-than-normal moisture in the devices and possible malfunction.

Guidant distributed about 78,000 pacemakers, about 18,000 of which are still in use in U.S. patients. The devices, which send electrical pulses to the heart to accelerate a slow heartbeat, have a seven- to 10-year life span before they must be replaced.

The company said it has identified 69 failures among the pacemakers – all after they had been used for at least 44 months. The models include: Pulsar Max, Pulsar, Discovery, Meridian, Pulsar Max II, Discovery II, Virtus Plus II, Intelis II and Contak TR.

New Jersey

U.S. divorce rate falls as cohabitation climbs

The divorce rate in the United States is falling, and a new study offers an explanation: More people are shacking up instead of getting married.

In a report to be released today, the co-directors of the National Marriage Project, a nonpartisan institute at Rutgers University that promotes marriage, said couples who get married are more committed to each other than those who are just live together.

The study analyzed data gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau and other researchers.

Nine of every 1,000 married women in the United States divorced in 1960, according to the study. The rate increased to more than 22 per 1,000 by 1980 and has steadily declined since, to a little under 18 per 1,000 in 2004.

Meanwhile, the number of unmarried, opposite-sex couples living together has climbed from 439,000 in 1960 to more than 5 million now.

And the marriage rate has fallen over the past three decades: Seventy-seven out of every 1,000 single women got married in 1976; last year, the number was fewer than 40 per 1,000.