State urges motorists to stay alert as schools begin

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — State emergency medical services officials are urging Ohio motorists to stay alert in school zones, in residential areas and near schools as the school year starts around the state.

Ohio’s Department of Public Safety’s Division of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) also says parents and teachers should remind students to be aware of their surroundings traveling to and from school.

Mel House, executive director of the Ohio Division of EMS, says preliminary data from the state’s Trauma Acute Care Registry shows 95 child pedestrians between the ages of 5 to 15 years of age were severely injured in the state last school year. That was from August 2017 through March 2017.

Motorists are reminded to follow all laws, be cautious driving near school buses and obey posted school speed limits.

Judge sentences convicted killer to death at resentencing

CINCINNATI (AP) — A judge has sentenced a convicted serial killer to the death penalty in the man’s resentencing for slaying two teenage girls.

The judge on Tuesday followed the jury’s recommendation in the resentencing of 49-year-old Anthony Kirkland.

Kirkland was sentenced to death in 2010 for killing 14-year-old Casonya Crawford and 13-year-old Esme Kenney. Ohio’s Supreme Court overturned that sentence.

Kirkland’s lawyers argued for life in prison without the possibility of parole. They argued Kirkland was sexually, physically and mentally abused as a child and his life should be spared.

The prosecutor sought the death penalty, citing the “human carnage” committed. Authorities say he strangled the teens and burned their bodies.

Kirkland is serving a life sentence for killing two women in 2006.

A message was left Tuesday for Kirkland’s attorneys.