Ex-student charged in body fluids case

HARTFORD, Conn. — The case of a white former Connecticut university student accused of smearing body fluids on her black roommate’s belongings returns to court.

A pretrial conference is scheduled Tuesday in Hartford Superior Court in the case of 18-year-old Brianna Brochu. The Harwinton resident has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor criminal mischief and breach of peace charges.

Police say the former University of Hartford student wrote on Instagram in October about rubbing used tampons on her roommate’s backpack and putting her roommate’s toothbrush “where the sun doesn’t shine.” Her roommate says she developed throat pain.

Representatives of the state NAACP and other civil rights advocates have called on prosecutors to charge Brochu with a hate crime. Her lawyer says the roommates had a falling out and Brochu’s actions were not racially motivated.

Teacher killed in space shuttle honored

CONCORD, N.H. — New Hampshire has proclaimed a day in tribute to a local teacher who died in the NASA space shuttle Challenger disaster decades ago.

Republican Gov. Chris Sununu said Sunday would be known as Christa McAuliffe Day in honor of the Concord woman selected to become the first educator in space out of 11,000 applicants.

McAuliffe never made it to orbit because she and six crewmates were killed when the Challenger broke apart shortly after takeoff on Jan. 28, 1986.

McAuliffe would have been NASA’s first designated teacher in space. She was going to experiment with fluids and demonstrate Newton’s laws of motion for schoolchildren.

Raw pork carted into San Jose store

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Authorities are investigating a delivery of raw, unwrapped pork that was hauled into a Northern California grocery store in shopping carts.

The Santa Clara County Department of Environmental Health says it received complaints Friday about an “unauthorized delivery of pork” to the 99 Ranch Market in San Jose.

The agency says it is “taking immediate steps to conduct a thorough investigation and appropriate actions to ensure food safety for the public.”

Department officials are looking into the delivery after San Jose resident Loretta Seto posted images of the delivery to Facebook.

Jim’s Farm Meat Co. office manager Maria Moon confirms to the Modesto Bee the meat came from her company.

Pastor quits after arrest in her church

EAST HAVEN, Conn. — A Connecticut church pastor has left her job days after confronting police who arrested a domestic violence suspect inside her church.

The New Haven Register reports that Rev. Care Goodstal Spinks resigned her post Thursday at East Haven’s First Congregational Church.

Spinks had confronted East Haven officers Tuesday, telling them they had no right arrest 34-year-old Ryan Champlin inside the church and demanding they release him into her custody.

Police say Champlin had fled to the church after hitting his 59-year-old mother in the head with a cordless phone. He was charged with assault and remains in custody in lieu of $25,000 bond.

Serial stowaway nabbed at airport

CHICAGO — Authorities say a serial stowaway who sneaked onto a plane in Chicago earlier this month and made it to London has been arrested again after being spotted at O’Hare International Airport.

Marilyn Hartman, of Grayslake, was taken into custody early Sunday and charged with misdemeanor trespassing on state land and violating the conditions of her bail bond that were set last week by the judge who warned her to stay away from airports.

Police say they were responding to a call of someone refusing to leave the airport when they spotted the 66-year-old Hartman at a terminal.

By The Associated Press