Around the Nation

MASSACHUSETTS

School custodian pleads not guilty to rape

MALDEN — A Massachusetts school custodian and basketball coach has pleaded not guilty to charges that he repeatedly raped a 12-year-old boy over six months last year.

Robert Shea was ordered held yesterday on $15,000 bail. He is charged with two counts of child rape and three counts of indecent assault and battery.

Authorities said Mr. Shea lives in the boy’s neighborhood in Everett.

Mr. Shea’s attorney said his client was shocked by the allegations and acted only as a “big brother” to the boy.

Everett’s school superintendent did not return calls seeking comment.

NEW YORK

Lawmakers ditch traffic fee plan

ALBANY — Lawmakers rejected a proposal yesterday to charge Manhattan motorists an extra fee to drive in the city, a plan that advocates hoped would reduce traffic and curb pollution.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver announced the decision after days of closed-door negotiations and after Democratic Assembly members were surveyed in a private conference.

The city will forfeit $354 million in federal funding for trying to activate the plan.

The concept aimed to cut traffic and pollution by forcing more commuters onto mass transit. It would have charged most motorists $8 to drive below 60th Street between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. Truckers would have paid $21.

The Legislature faced a Monday deadline to act on Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposal, which was endorsed by Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat; the Republican-led Senate; and the City Council.

Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser did not comment.

CALIFORNIA

Woman celebrates 114th birthday

LOS ANGELES — Gertrude Baines, one of the world”s oldest women, celebrated her 114th birthday this week at a convalescent center in Los Angeles.

Miss Baines, born near Atlanta in 1894, said she never consumed alcohol or smoked but regularly eats bacon with her breakfast, the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday.

Miss Baines, who is in good health and exercises frequently, said she spends her days watching television shows she loves such as “The Price Is Right” and the “Jerry Springer Show.”

The only people older than Miss Baines are Edna Parker of Indiana, who has her 115th birthday in two weeks, and Maria de Jesus of Portugal, who had her 114th birthday in September, the Times reported.

FLORIDA

Suspicious package delivered to sheriff

ORLANDO — Investigators are looking into a suspicious package delivered to the Orange County Sheriff”s Office.

The Orlando building was evacuated yesterday morning. Sheriff”s spokeswoman Susan Soto said two employees had burning and watery eyes after coming into contact with the package. They were treated at the scene.

Employees were allowed back into the building about 1 p.m. Authorities were working to track down the person who delivered the package on Friday.

ILLINOIS

Sleepless infants at risk for obesity

CHICAGO — When the wind blows, the cradle will rock. And when babies sleep less, they may gain too much weight.

A Harvard study finds that babies and toddlers who sleep fewer than 12 hours daily are at greater risk for being overweight in preschool, startling evidence that the link between sleep and obesity may affect very young children.

TV viewing heightened the effect. The children who slept the least and watched the most television had the greatest chance of becoming obese.

The findings, published in April”s Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, are based on mothers” reports of their babies” sleep habits and TV viewing, and direct measures of the children”s height, weight and skin-fold thickness.

Among the long sleepers, 7 percent were obese at age 3. The short sleepers fared worse. Twelve percent of them became obese 3-year-olds.

Adding TV to the picture, 17 percent of those who slept less than 12 hours a day and watched two or more hours of television a day were obese by the time they were 3.

MICHIGAN

Girl, 3, critical after shooting self

DETROIT — A 3-year-old girl found a gun in a bedroom of her home and shot herself in the head Sunday, police said.

One of the girl”s parents apparently owned the gun, and at least one parent was home when she shot herself Sunday afternoon. Police questioned the parents and took the gun, the Detroit Free Press reported.

The girl was taken to Sinai Grace Hospital, then transferred to Children”s Hospital of Michigan. The Detroit News reported that she was in critical condition.

NEW JERSEY

Ex-mayor accused of betraying city

NEWARK — Closing arguments began yesterday in the corruption trial of former Newark Mayor Sharpe James and his one-time mistress, with a prosecutor saying that the politician betrayed his city.

Mr. James, 72, is accused of arranging for the sale of nine city-owned properties at a discounted rate of $46,000 to Tamika Riley, 39, a publicist who once ran a clothing boutique near City Hall, from 2001 to 2005. She quickly sold the properties for $665,000 without starting required rehabilitation work on most of them, prosecutors said.

“We are here because Sharpe James betrayed the people of Newark,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Judith A. Germano told jurors at federal court in Newark, just a block from City Hall, where Mr. James led the state”s largest city for 20 years.

The defense for Mr. James, whose summations are scheduled for today, has stressed that the Newark City Council, not the mayor, had final approval over the sales. His defense presented only two witnesses, both members of the council, who said Mr. James never tried to influence their decisions.

OHIO

Child stops runaway bus

CLEVELAND — A fast-acting child was credited as a hero yesterday for grabbing the wheel of a runaway school bus and steering it into a pillar after the driver apparently left the bus to fill up with gas and take a bathroom break.

After all the chaos, 15 students suffered only minor injuries.

The bus, carrying 27 children in kindergarten through seventh grade, started rolling down a hill away from the gas station across the street from Progressive Field, home of the Cleveland Indians.

Authorities said the child took the wheel to keep the bus from going farther down the hill and drove it into a bridge support pillar, where it crashed.

The children jumped out of the side door and landed in the street, said the gas station”s manager, Conner Strickland.

“I”m surprised none of them got hit. There was a lot of traffic,” he said.

It wasn”t clear why the bus started rolling down the hill. Authorities were investigating.

TEXAS

Gunman opens fire at birthday party

FORT WORTH — A gunman drove up and opened fire at a child”s birthday party, killing a woman and a 5-year-old girl and wounding four others, authorities said.

Annette Stevenson, 48, died at the scene Sunday night, and Queshawn Stevenson, 5, who had been shot in the neck and stomach, died early yesterday at a hospital, according to the Tarrant County Medical Examiner”s Office.

Wounded in the incident were a woman and three children, including the birthday girl, who turned 9 yesterday, authorities said.

Winifred King, a spokeswoman for Cook Children”s Medical Center in Fort Worth, said the wounded children”s families had asked that no information be released about their conditions. Medical information on the wounded adult was also not available yesterday.

From wire dispatches and staff reports