School gunman had 2 guns, lot of ammo

TROUTDALE, Ore. — A 15-year-old gunman who killed a student at an Oregon high school had an assault rifle, handgun and several magazines of ammunition hidden in a guitar case and duffel bag when he rode a school bus to the campus, police said Wednesday.

The attacker, Jared Michael Padgett, a freshman at Reynolds High School in Troutdale, entered a boys locker room Tuesday at a gymnasium, where he “murdered a fellow student,” Police Chief Scott Anderson said.

He also wounded a teacher who managed to get to an office and alert officials, Anderson said, adding that the action by teacher Todd Rispler and responding officers likely saved numerous lives on the campus.

The shooter later encountered officers in a hallway. After a brief exchange of gunfire, he fled into a restroom and was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.

Anderson said no link had been found between the shooter and Emilio Hoffman, the 14-year-old student who was killed. No motive was disclosed.

House looks at school-lunches waiver

WASHINGTON — The House began to consider legislation Wednesday that would allow some schools to opt out of more healthful meal standards — a proposal that has drawn a veto threat from the White House.

The GOP spending bill on the House floor would allow schools to waive for the next school year the lunch and breakfast standards championed by first lady Michelle Obama if they lost money on meal programs over a six-month period. The chamber is expected to have a final vote on the bill next week.

In a statement threatening a veto, the White House said Tuesday that the bill would be “a major step backwards for the health of American children by undermining the effort to provide kids with more nutritious food.”

The school-meal rules set by Congress and the administration of President Barack Obama over the past several years require more fruits, vegetables and whole grains in the lunch line. Also, there are limits on sodium, sugar and fat.

U.S. to study criminal-aliens policies

WASHINGTON — Government lawyers will review how the administration of President Barack Obama releases some criminal aliens facing deportation, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told Congress on Wednesday.

Johnson, the former top lawyer at the Pentagon, told the Senate Judiciary Committee that his agency’s lawyers will review federal policies, which he said were based on a Supreme Court ruling, that require the government to release criminal aliens if the U.S. can’t send them to their home countries within six months.

Johnson said he wants to know whether the government can hold them in immigration jails as threats to national security or public safety.

Last month, the Obama administration acknowledged that it has released more than 36,000 criminal aliens living in the country illegally, including those accounting for 193 homicides and 426 sexual assaults.

In many cases — but not all of them — the U.S. was required to release the aliens while their deportation cases are pending.

Seattle sued over new minimum wage

SEATTLE — A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday challenges Seattle’s adoption of what would be the nation’s highest minimum wage as unfair to small franchises.

The Seattle City Council voted unanimously this month to gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The plan gives businesses with more than 500 employees nationally at least three years to phase in the increase — four if they provide health insurance. Smaller employers get seven years.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle, the International Franchise Association, a Washington, D.C.-based business group, said the ordinance “unfairly and irrationally discriminates against interstate commerce generally, and small businesses that operate under the franchise business model specifically.”

Mayor Ed Murray rejected any assertion of unfairness, saying that the franchises have advantages unavailable to other local businesses. For example, fast-food franchises have menus, a supply chain, training and advertising provided by national corporate entities, he noted.