Man, 26, admits his role in fatal fight

SOMERVILLE

A 26-year-old Somerville man pleaded guilty yesterday to second-degree murder in Middlesex Superior Court in Lowell, admitting that he helped another man kill Ryan Sullivan, 16, in Somerville during a fight on Warwick Street in July 2004. Van Gustave was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 15 years, the Middlesex district attorney's office reported. Prosecutors said Gustave and Joseph Spinucci, who was convicted last year of first-degree murder, got into an argument with a friend of Sullivan's that escalated into the murder.

CAMBRIDGE

Responding to a Harvard study on nicotine levels, cigarette maker R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. said in a statement yesterday that the company "does not have a program to systematically increase the nicotine content or smoke nicotine yields of its products." Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health issued a report yesterday that examined industry-supplied data on the nicotine content of cigarettes as well as other factors in cigarettes that can affect nicotine delivery. The Harvard researchers confirmed an earlier Massachusetts Department of Public Health study that showed an upward trend in inhalable nicotine levels. The Harvard report also found that actual nicotine content in the tobacco used in cigarettes increased from 1997 to 2005.

MIAMI

A Miami judge agreed yesterday to a defense request to delay the murder trial of retired FBI special agent John J. Connolly Jr. until Oct. 22 to give lawyers more time to prepare. Connolly was indicted in May 2005 on state murder charges in allegedly helping longtime informants James "Whitey" Bulger and Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi orchestrate a 1982 gangland slaying in Florida. The victim, John B. Callahan, a Winchester financier , was killed allegedly because the gangsters feared he would tell the FBI they were involved in the slaying of Tulsa businessman Roger Wheeler, who owned World Jai Alai. Connolly, 66, is serving a 10-year prison term for his 2002 conviction on federal racketeering and obstruction of justice charges for protecting Bulger and Flemmi from prosecution.

BOSTON

Teachers in Boston's English High School agreed yesterday to turn the troubled school into a Commonwealth pilot school, converting the 1,300-student school into a smaller college preparatory school starting in September. Under the school's proposal, which 81 percent of teachers approved, the school will set tougher graduation requirements, require daily courses focused on getting students into college, and institute a longer school day. The school will be divided into two communities of 400 students each. In November, the state Board of Education offered English High and three other schools a chance to fix themselves by becoming pilot schools, which gives teachers and principals more flexibility in budgets, schedules, and curriculum.

A former Indiana University law school dean will replace Robert Smith as dean of Suffolk University Law School on July 1, the school announced yesterday. Alfred Aman Jr. is now director of the Institute for Advanced Study and a law professor at Indiana University, and he has also worked at Cornell Law School and in England, France, and Italy. During Smith's eight-year tenure, Suffolk opened graduate and international programs at Suffolk. After a sabbatical, he will return to teaching. The school enrolls about 1,600 students.

BARNSTABLE

Prosecutors have filed a motion to seal permanently the graphic photographs and video used in the trial of a trash collector convicted of killing former fashion writer Christa Worthington. Cape and Islands District Attorney Michael O'Keefe filed the motion in Barnstable Superior Court on Tuesday after a CBS television request earlier this month to gain access to pictures and video from the trial. Christopher M. McCowen was convicted in November of murdering and raping Worthington in her Truro home in 2002. Evidence during the five-week trial included horrific crime scene photos and police video of Worthington's body. The images should be kept from the public because of their "personal nature" and "to protect the privacy of Worthington's family and estate," the district attorney's motion said. (AP)