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- Closing arguments coming in US-Google antitrust trial on ad tech
- Galaxy hit Minnesota for six, Orlando end Atlanta run
- Left-wing candidate Orsi wins Uruguay presidential election
- High stakes as Bayern host PSG amid European wobbles
- Australia's most decorated Olympian McKeon retires from swimming
- Far-right candidate surprises in Romania elections, setting up run-off with PM
- Left-wing candidate Orsi projected to win Uruguay election
- UAE arrests three after Israeli rabbi killed
- Five days after Bruins firing, Montgomery named NHL Blues coach
- Orlando beat Atlanta in MLS playoffs to set up Red Bulls clash
- American McNealy takes first PGA title with closing birdie
- Sampaoli beaten on Rennes debut as angry fans disrupt Nantes loss
- Chiefs edge Panthers, Lions rip Colts as Dallas stuns Washington
- Uruguayans vote in tight race for president
- Thailand's Jeeno wins LPGA Tour Championship
- 'Crucial week': make-or-break plastic pollution treaty talks begin
- Israel, Hezbollah in heavy exchanges of fire despite EU ceasefire call
- Amorim predicts Man Utd pain as he faces up to huge task
- Basel backs splashing the cash to host Eurovision
- Petrol industry embraces plastics while navigating energy shift
- Italy Davis Cup winner Sinner 'heartbroken' over doping accusations
- Romania PM fends off far-right challenge in presidential first round
- Japan coach Jones abused by 'some clown' on Twickenham return
- Springbok Du Toit named World Player of the Year for second time
- Iran says will hold nuclear talks with France, Germany, UK on Friday
- Mbappe on target as Real Madrid cruise to Leganes win
- Sampaoli beaten on Rennes debut as fans disrupt Nantes loss
- Israel records 250 launches from Lebanon as Hezbollah targets Tel Aviv, south
- Australia coach Schmidt still positive about Lions after Scotland loss
- Man Utd 'confused' and 'afraid' as Ipswich hold Amorim to debut draw
- Sinner completes year to remember as Italy retain Davis Cup
- Climate finance's 'new era' shows new political realities
- Lukaku keeps Napoli top of Serie A with Roma winner
- Man Utd held by Ipswich in Amorim's first match in charge
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- England thrash Japan 59-14 to snap five-match losing streak
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- Breyten Breytenbach, writer who challenged apartheid, dies at 85
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- Salah wants Liverpool to pile on misery for Man City after sinking Saints
- Berrettini takes Italy to brink of Davis Cup defence
- Lille condemn Sampaoli to defeat on Rennes debut
- Basel backs splashing the bucks to host Eurovision
- Leicester sack manager Steve Cooper
- IPL auction records tumble as Pant, Iyer break $3 mn mark
Witnesses draw damning portrait of US teen shooter's parents in court
The parents of a teenager who shot dead four people at a high school in Michigan had ignored the boy's psychiatric problems and his calls for help, witnesses told a US court Tuesday.
Ethan Crumbley, 15, killed four people and injured six more at his school in Oxford, north of Detroit, on November 30, using a gun his parents had bought him days earlier.
After trying to flee, parents James and Jennifer Crumbley, aged 45 and 43, were charged with manslaughter, a charge very rarely used in such cases.
On Tuesday, they appeared handcuffed and with their legs shackled, before a Michigan judge who will decide if there is enough evidence to send them to trial.
Prosecutors called a series of witnesses to the stand who gradually painted a damning picture of the couple, showing how they appeared to have been willfully blind to the many warning signals from their son.
An investigator presented text messages sent by Ethan Crumbley to his mother more than seven months before the tragedy, in which he said he heard noises, saw "demons" and evoked his "paranoia".
"Can you get home now?" he texted his mother one evening when he was in the family home alone. "There is someone at home I think" before adding, "Maybe it’s just my paranoia."
Analysis of Jennifer Crumbley's phone showed she didn't answer until the next morning.
During that time, "she was horse-riding," Detective Edward Wagrowski said, showing selfie photos she had taken at the time.
To those around her, she spoke "every day" about riding, but very rarely about her son, limiting herself to evoking a "lonely" child, affected by the death of his dog and the departure of his only friend, according to former colleagues and the owner of the stable where her horses were kept.
The day before the shooting, the school called her because Ethan had being searching online on his cell phone for information about ammunition during class.
She texted him, "lol I am not mad, you have to learn not to get caught."
The next day, the parents were summoned to the school after their son scribbled "my life is useless" and "blood everywhere," and drew a gun and a bloody body on the paper of his math quiz.
Jennifer Crumbley had shared a photo of the paper with her department head and with her riding instructor, saying she was just having "a shitty day".
But the couple left Ethan in school so they could go back to work. The teenager then took a gun out of his backpack and fired around thirty times indiscriminately.
The hearing will resume on February 23.
T.Bondarenko--BTB