inside ATHENS

10/10
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isScripps
the School of Journalism Moody
A weekly
news -magazine
students
in the E.W.

The Nation
in brief

From wire reports

Gay student sues Ohio school

district over gay tolerance T-shirt
CINCINNATI (AP) -- A gay student whose
high school prohibited him from wearing a Tshirt designed to urge tolerance of gays is suing
the school, saying it's violating his freedom of
expression rights.
The mother of 16-year-old Maverick Couch
filed the federal lawsuit on his behalf against
Wayne Local School District and its Waynesville
High School principal. Couch, a junior at the
southwest Ohio high school, has been threatened
by school officials with suspension if he wears
the shirt, which bears the message "Jesus Is Not
a Homophobe," the lawsuit says. Officials at the
public school told him the shirt is "sexual in
nature" and is inappropriate there, it says.
The lawsuit charges that the actions of officials
in the school district violated Couch's constitutional rights, including the First Amendment
right to freedom of speech and the Fourteenth
Amendment right to equal protection under the
law. It asks the U.S. District Court to order school
officials to allow Couch to wear the shirt and to
pay him unspecified "nominal" damages and
attorneys' fees.
Lambda Legal attorney Christopher Clark said
Couch tried to reach a solution without going to
court, but officials at the school would not cooperate.

Connecticut State Senate

moves to abolish death penalty
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) After executing
only one prisoner in more than 50 years,
Connecticut moved Thursday to become the fifth
state in five years to do away with the death
penalty.
But the repeal wouldn't be a lifeline for the
state's 11 death row inmates, including two men
who killed a woman and two children in a home
invasion, supporters touted as a key reason to
keep the law on the books.
The state Senate debated on Thursday about
whether the law would reverse those sentences
before voting 20-16 to repeal the law.
The heavily Democratic states House of
Representatives is expected to follow with
approval within weeks.
Like Connecticut, states that have recently
decided to abolish capital punishment were
among those that in practice rarely executed
inmates. New Jersey, for example, hasn't executed anyone in more than 40 years.
Connecticut would become the 17th state
without a death penalty.
-- From Associated Press Reports

minor capitalization error in the second

brief headline.

Romney sweeps primaries

By DAVID ESPO and
KASIE HUNT
Associated Press writers
MILWAUKEE (AP) -- Mitt
Romney tightened his grip on
the Republican presidential
nomination Tuesday night,
sweeping the primaries in
Wisconsin, Maryland and
Washington, D.C., with time
left over to swap charges with
President Barack Obama.
"Four more years?" Romney
asked sarcastically of the president as supporters cheered in
Milwaukee.
He said Obama was "a little
out of touch" after spending
four years in office and had
presided over near-record job
losses, increases in poverty,
home foreclosures, government debt and gasoline prices.
In Washington, Obama said
things could be worse -- and
he predicted they would be if
Romney and the Republicans
got their way.
The victories enabled
Romney to pad his alreadywide
delegate
over
Republican
rival
Rick
Santorum, who abandoned his
candidacy in the name of party
unity.
Wisconsin was the marquee
contest of the night.
Returns from 80 percent of
the state's precincts showed
Romney with 42 percent of the
vote to 38 percent for
Santorum, 12 percent for Ron
Paul and 6 percent for Newt
Gingrich.
Returns from 92 percent of
Maryland's precincts showed
Romney with 47 percent of the
vote to 29 percent for
Santorum, 11 percent for
Gingrich and 10 percent for
Ron Paul.
With all precincts counted in
Washington, Romney had 70
percent of the vote to 12 percent for Paul and 10 percent
for Gingrich. Santorum was
not on the ballot.
We won 'em all," Romney
declared,
a
former
Massachusetts governor now
the nominee-in-waiting for a
party eager to reclaim the

optional edit.

Republican Presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov.

Mitt Romney declares victory in the Wisconsin presidential primary, Tuesday, April 3, 2012, at the Grain Exchange in
Milwaukee. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
White House.
For Romney, the end of the
contested primary campaign
could hardly come soon
enough. Obama has gained in
the polls in recent months, particularly among women, as
Republicans vie among themselves for support from a conservative party electorate.
Interviews with voters leaving Republican polling places
in Maryland and Wisconsin
showed an electorate more
concerned with a candidate's
ability to defeat Obama than
with the strength of his conservatism, his moral character or
his stand on the issues. Similar
soundings in earlier states
have consistently worked to
Romney's advantage.
Increasingly, Romney and
senior figures in his party have
begun behaving as if the primaries were an afterthought,
hoping to pivot to the fall campaign and criticism of Obama.
He gets full credit or blame
for what's happened in this
economy and what's happened
to gasoline prices under his
watch and what's happened to
our schools and what's happened to our military forces,"

Romney said of the president

while
campaigning
in
Waukesha, Wis.
Wisconsin was the fourth
industrial state to vote in a little more than a month after
Michigan, Ohio and Illinois, a
string that Romney has utilized
to gain momentum as well as a
growing delegate lead in the
campaign. He and a super PAC
supporting him have greatly
outspent his rivals in state after
state.
Romney has also collected
endorsements from former
President George H.W. Bush,
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, a
tea party favorite, and Rep.
Paul Ryan of Wisconsin,
author of a conservative budget that Republicans pushed
through the House last week
and is certain to play a prominent role in the fall campaign
for the White House.
At the same time, Romney
continues to struggle for support from some of the party's
most reliable conservative voters. In the past five weeks,
while winning across the
Midwest, he has lost to
Santorum
in
Alabama,
Mississippi and Louisiana.