2 teens killed, 2 injured in I-295 crash

The state's highest court has upheld the murder conviction of a Kingston man who ran over his former wife in her driveway with his sport utility vehicle. In a ruling yesterday, the Supreme Judicial Court rejected an appeal by Joseph Garuti, who was convicted in the 2004 death of Shirley Garuti, 49, a Spanish and French teacher at Silver Lake Regional High School in Kingston. Police said he ran over his former wife with his Ford Explorer after they argued over his request to take their children for an unscheduled visit. Garuti argued that the trial judge should not have allowed jurors to hear his statement to police or to be told of a protection order his wife had obtained against him five years earlier. The court rejected his arguments. (AP)

Boston police have recovered a handgun from the harbor off Long Wharf after a passerby noticed it there at about 10 a.m. yesterday, police said. Police dive teams responded to the scene, near 296 State St., and successfully recovered the weapon, said Officer James Kenneally, a police spokesman. "It's not often that you get a call that ultimately leads to the recovery of a weapon in a situation like this," Kenneally said. He said the firearm would be taken to the ballistics lab, where police would try to determine whether it had been used in a crime.

Six bus passengers were taken to hospitals yesterday morning with neck and back injuries after an MBTA bus driver stopped suddenly to avoid hitting another vehicle near the Forest Hill T Station, according to a transit spokesman. The Route 32 bus hit the brakes at 8:30 a.m. to avoid hitting a van that had pulled out in front of it, Joe Pesaturo, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority spokesman, said in an e-mail. The bus did not hit the van and was not involved in a crash, Pesaturo said. The mishap occurred near Hyde Park Avenue and Weld Street.

Three more Boston public schools were closed yesterday after high rates of absenteeism and influenza-like illnesses were reported, according to a statement released by the school district. William E. Russell Elementary School in Dorchester, Charles Sumner Elementary School in Roslindale, and Maurice J. Tobin K-8 School in Roxbury will not reopen until June 18, according to the district's statement. School Superintendent Carol R. Johnson closed the schools after consulting with the mayor and Boston Health Commission, the statement said. With these latest, 13 schools have been closed so far out of fear of influenza infections, the statement said.

A priest receiving medical attention in Massachusetts has been accused of sexually abusing a minor nearly two decades ago. A civil lawsuit has been filed against the Rev. Gerald Ornowski, 74, contending that he sexually abused a young girl at least three times in the early 1990s when he was pastor in Stebbins, Alaska, a community on the Bering Sea. Also named in the lawsuit was Ornowski's religious order, the Congregation of Marians of the Immaculate Conception of Stockbridge, Mass. Bishop Donald Kettler of the Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks put Ornowski on administrative leave. The diocese, which is not named in the lawsuit, supervises Ornowski. Ornowski had been serving the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus parish. (AP)