PERRY HALL, Md.

Bullying cited as motive in shooting at school

Additional Photos

Tracie Bradford of Perry Hall, Md., consoles her daughter Leah, a student at Perry Hall High School who said she was in the school’s cafeteria when a student was shot there and critically wounded on the first day of classes Monday. The Associated Press

The father of a 15-year-old student who police say shot and wounded another student at a Baltimore County high school says his son was bullied.

The father spoke to a reporter at his home Monday evening and said his son was the shooter. The Associated Press is not identifying the teen or his family because he is a juvenile and has not been charged.

A woman who was also at the home and said she was related to the father, gave the following statement on the family’s behalf: “We are horrified. We did not see this coming and our thoughts and prayers are with the victim and the victim’s family.”

When asked about a motive for the shooting, the father indicated his son had been bullied. He gave no further details.

MIAMI

Daughter of Cuba’s veep in Tampa after defection

The 24-year-old daughter of Cuban Vice President Marino Murillo, sometimes mentioned as a possible successor to ruler Raul Castro, defected earlier this month and is now living in Tampa, knowledgeable sources said.

Glenda Murillo Diaz crossed the Mexico border at Laredo, Texas, around Aug. 16, the sources told The Miami Herald, meaning she was paroled under the wet-foot, dry-foot policy, which allows Cubans who set foot on U.S. land to stay.

Her decision to abandon communist-ruled Cuba and settle in the historically antagonistic United States would be a vote of no-confidence on the profound economic reforms that Castro has ordered and that her father is in charge of enacting.

Marino Murillo, 51, known as Cuba’s “reforms tsar,” is vice president of the ruling Council of State and member of the powerful political bureau of the Cuban Communist Party.

WASHINGTON

Account of bin Laden killing being reviewed for leaks

U.S. officials said Monday that they are reviewing a copy of a soon-to-be-published account of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, checking for leaks of classified information.

Pentagon spokesman George Little said Defense Department officials “received the manuscript and we are looking at it.”

CIA spokesman Preston Golson would only say that “the CIA has a copy of the book.”

The book, “No Easy Day,” is scheduled for publication on Sept. 11.

The author, a former Navy SEAL who participated in the raid, did not submit the book for pre-publication review that is required by the military secrecy agreements officials say he signed.

Pentagon officials say that if they determine the manuscript reveals classified information about the raid, the Pentagon would “defer to the Department of Justice.”

If there is classified information in the book, the former SEAL could face criminal charges.

SAN DIEGO

New leader of San Francisco diocese apologizes for DUI arrest

The Roman Catholic archbishop-elect of San Francisco apologized Monday for his arrest on suspicion of drunken driving, behavior he called an “error in judgment” and that legal experts said was unlikely to derail his promotion.

The Rev. Salvatore Cordileone said in a statement issued by his office that he was driving home from a dinner with friends in San Diego with his mother and a visiting priest friend early Saturday when he was pulled over at a DUI checkpoint near San Diego State University.

The statement said a sobriety test showed his blood-alcohol level to be above the legal limit, although Cordileone did not reveal by how much.

“I apologize for my error in judgment and feel shame for the disgrace I have brought upon the Church and myself,” he said. “I pray that God, in His inscrutable wisdom, will bring some good out of this.”

Cordileone, 56, currently serves as bishop of Oakland and is scheduled to be installed as San Francisco archbishop on Oct. 4, five days before his first court date.

FRANKFURT, Germany

Risk of death increases with waist-to-hip ratio

Normal-weight people with fat bellies have a higher risk of death than the obese, according to data presented Monday at the European Society of Cardiology conference in Munich.

People with a normal body mass index, or BMI, and “central obesity” as defined by a high waist-to-hip ratio had the greatest risk of cardiovascular-related death and the highest death risk overall, researchers said Monday. The risk of cardiovascular death was 2.75 times higher and the risk of death from all causes was 2.08 times higher compared with subjects with normal BMI and a normal waist-to-hip ratio.

“We knew from previous research that central obesity is bad, but what is new in this research is that the distribution of the fat is very important, even in people with a normal weight,” Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, senior author of the study and a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said. “This group has the highest death rate, even higher than those who are considered obese based on BMI.”

The risk of death may be related to a higher visceral fat accumulation, which is associated with insulin resistance and other risk factors, Karine Sahakyan, a research fellow at the Mayo Clinic who is presenting the results at the meeting, said at a press conference. Risk for fat-bellied subjects may also be connected to a limited amount of “protective” fat on the hips and legs and a relatively limited amount of muscle mass, she said.

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