Police were warned gun wasn't real

The parents of Christopher Penley, 15, who is accused of terrorizing classmates with a pistol, warned authorities the weapon likely was fake before police shot him at school, a family attorney said Saturday.

Penley, of Winter Springs, reportedly pulled a pellet gun in a classroom Friday and pointed it at other students. When he later raised the weapon at a deputy, a SWAT member shot him, authorities said.

Officers who responded to the 1,100-student school in suburban Orlando believed the gun was a Beretta 9 mm. The boy's parents, Ralph and Donna Penley, told them they believed Penley did not have a real gun, said family attorney Mark Nation. Penley was clinically brain dead Saturday, Nation said, and added that his organs were being harvested for transplant.

Group can sue

over faith initiative

A group can sue the federal government over claims that President Bush's faith-based initiative is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion, a federal appeals court ruled.

A three-judge panel of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday reinstated the lawsuit brought by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. The group claims Bush's program, which helps religious organizations get government funding to provide social services, violates the separation of church and state.

Bush sidestepped Congress by issuing executive orders to create the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives during his first term.

Eugene McCarthy

is eulogized

Eugene McCarthy, the Minnesota senator who upended President Johnson's re-election effort amid the Vietnam War tumult of 1968, was remembered Saturday as a man of sharp intellect, broad curiosity and a deep sense of justice and compassion.

An audience of about 800, including former President Clinton, gathered at the National Cathedral, where lawmakers, relatives and friends spoke of a humble and independent-minded leader who opposed the Vietnam War. Mr. McCarthy, 89, died Dec. 10 of complications related to Parkinson's disease.

Clinton recalled meeting Mr. McCarthy in the early 1970s. The future president was having trouble locating a pair of large shoes to wear to a black-tie Washington dinner, and a friend said he knew someone with even bigger shoes.

Days later, Clinton said, Mr. McCarthy came by with a pair of shoes to lend. "That night, I stood in Gene McCarthy's shoes," Clinton said, to laughter. At the dinner, he decided to pass up a receiving line for President Nixon.

"It just didn't seem the right thing to do wearing McCarthy's shoes," Clinton said, to more laughter.

Volcano continues

eruptions in Alaska

Snowflakes laced with fine, gray ash fell on communities south of Anchorage as volcanic eruptions continued Saturday on an uninhabited island dozens of miles away.

The 4,134-foot Augustine volcano began erupting Wednesday; by Saturday morning, it had erupted at least eight times.

Alaska Airlines, which canceled 28 flights into Anchorage and Fairbanks on Friday and early Saturday, resumed its schedule later Saturday.

Compiled from The Associated Press and The New York Times