$3m to fund local anticrime programs

BOSTON
The Patrick administration will make $3 million in grants to innovative anticrime programs developed by cities, towns, state universities, state agencies, and nonprofit organizations, the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security said yesterday. Priority will be given to programs dealing with youth and gang violence, substance abuse, sexual and domestic violence, and sex offenders, although other programs will be considered. The grants will be administered by the Executive Office of Public Safety and will be funded with federal dollars for one year, officials said. The application deadline is Sept. 28.

Progress has been made, but more still needs to be done to implement a law that is intended to protect children in schools and day-care centers from exposure to pesticides, State Auditor Joseph DeNucci said yesterday. DeNucci reported that an audit found that 24 percent of the state's public and private schools and 59 percent of its day-care centers still do not comply with a 2000 law that requires them to submit a plan detailing their uses of pesticides. In a previous audit, DeNucci's office found that more than 71 percent of schools and 90 percent of day-care centers had not complied with the legislation. The law requires schools and day-care centers to submit plans detailing their pest problems, the pesticides they plan to use, and who will apply the pesticides. The plans must be filed, even if a facility has no pest problems and plans no pesticide use.

LOWELL

A grand jury has indicted a North Carolina man in an alleged home invasion that was stopped by a mother and father who pulled the man off their teenage daughter. Adam Lane, a truck driver, faces charges including home invasion and attempted rape. His lawyer, Dan Callahan, declined to comment. Prosecutors say the 42-year-old entered a house in Chelmsford at 4 a.m. on July 30 and held a knife to the throat of the 15-year-old girl. The girl's parents heard her scream, entered her room, and after a violent struggle the father put Lane in a headlock and held him until police arrived, prosecutors said. Lane will be arraigned at a later date in Middlesex Superior Court. (AP)

NEW BEDFORD

After 18 years of skirting child support payments, Robert A. McDonald owed more than $106,061 to his former wife and another $100,000 to the state, which had been giving her the money in his absence. Police found and arrested the scallop fisherman in his bedroom in New Bedford on Wednesday, and Bristol County Judge Anthony Nesi ordered McDonald yesterday to bring $1,500 to court Monday or face 30 days in jail. McDonald, 48, has served three 90-day jail sentences in the past for failing to pay child support. The judge plans to discuss how McDonald will pay Massachusetts or his former wife, to whom he was married for 16 years. "It's rare, really, for a child-support case to get into the six figures," said Robert Bliss, a spokesman for the Department of Revenue.

NORTH HAVEN, Conn.

A northbound Amtrak train struck and killed a pedestrian last night, Amtrak officials said. It happened about 9 p.m. just south of the Wallingford line. The train was headed from Washington, D.C.. to Springfield, Mass. The identity of the victim has not been released. (AP)

CHESHIRE, Conn.

A local woman killed a raccoon with her bare hands yesterday when the animal attacked a young boy. Officials with Cheshire animal control say the woman was walking in the woods around 11 a.m. with a group of children when the animal bit the 5-year-old son of a friend. She pulled the raccoon off the child, told the children to run home, and strangled the animal, authorities said. The carcass was taken to a state laboratory in Hartford, where it tested positive for rabies. The unidentified woman and boy are undergoing rabies treatment. (AP)

PORTLAND, Maine

An Auburn man was sentenced in US District Court yesterday to eight years in prison for his part in setting a fire last winter that destroyed four buildings in downtown Lewiston. Timothy Giggey, 27, who pleaded guilty to the arson charge in April, also faces three years of probation after he gets out of prison. (AP)