Classes resume at site of rampage
SANTA FE, Texas -- Classes resumed Tuesday at Santa Fe High School, less than two weeks after a student shot 10 people to death in an art classroom.
Students at the school near Houston were greeted by more than 20 law enforcement vehicles and supporters holding signs saying "Santa Fe Strong" and "United We Stand."
Students who had classes in the area of the shooting were the first allowed back in, followed by the rest about two hours later. The teens lined up in front of the school's main entrance, which was the only approved entrance. They were not allowed to carry backpacks or large purses and were required to show their IDs before entering.
The day began with a two-hour assembly honoring the victims, and counselors were available for anyone who needed to talk about the May 18 shooting that took the lives of eight students and two substitute teachers.
Authorities have charged Dimitrios Pagourtzis with capital murder in the attack. He's accused of using a shotgun and pistol that belonged to his father. The 17-year-old remained jailed without bail in Galveston.
Maryland search finds flood victim
ELLICOTT CITY, Md. -- Searchers on Tuesday scouring a river alongside a historic Maryland town ripped apart by flash flooding found the body of a man last seen being swept away by the raging waters as they gutted shops and pushed parked cars into swollen tributaries.
Volunteers and crews with trained dogs had been hunting for 39-year-old Eddison Hermond. He disappeared late Sunday afternoon after torrential rains that prompted destructive flash flooding in Ellicott City.
On Tuesday afternoon, Hermond's body was located in the Patapsco River. He was the only person reported missing in Ellicott City. Hermond, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and a sergeant in the Maryland Army National Guard, disappeared while trying to help a woman who was escaping the flooded zone with her cat.
Ex-beau's count tossed in spa blast
LOS ANGELES -- A Southern California man arrested on suspicion of having explosives after a blast killed his ex-girlfriend at her day spa has walked free after U.S. prosecutors said Tuesday that they had dropped the charge against him.
Stephen Beal was released from jail Sunday -- a day after a judge approved prosecutors' request to drop a single charge of possessing an unregistered destructive device, the U.S. attorney's office said.
Beal, 59, a model-rocket hobbyist, was arrested during the investigation into the May 15 bombing that killed Ildiko Krajnyak in her Orange County spa. He told investigators he had not made any bombs and did not have material for an explosion as powerful as the one he saw in news coverage.
Federal investigators said they had discovered two improvised explosive devices, three firearms and more than 100 pounds of explosive material in Beal's house.
However, the FBI said it had questions about whether material found in the house met the legal definition of a "destructive device."
A Section on 05/30/2018