South Bend police officer shot\nSOUTH BEND -- A city police officer was shot while serving a warrant, after which the suspect fatally shot himself, authorities said.\nMatthew H. Schreul, 22, of South Bend, shot 31-year-old Officer William Pelletier, who was in good condition Tuesday at a hospital after having surgery to fix a shattered bone in his left arm, said Capt. Michael Grzegorek, spokesman for the St. Joseph County police.\nPolice received a tip that Schreul was at a house Monday on the southeast side of the city, said Capt. John Williams, spokesman for the South Bend Police.\nAfter Pelletier was shot, Schreul ran, and a police dog tracked him to a home just blocks away. Police said he shot himself once in the head as officers closed in.\nSchreul was wanted on an outstanding drug-related warrant from Elkhart County, Grzegorek said.
Former teacher charged for stripping naked in class\nSOUTH BEND -- A former teacher's aide accused by prosecutors of stripping naked in a classroom and touching herself in a seductive manner and of having sexual contact with some students was charged Tuesday with nine criminal counts.\nSchmeca White, 27, who worked at Greene Intermediate School, is accused of having sexual contact last year with seven students, both boys and girls between the ages of 11 and 15, while supervising them in a classroom during their teacher's lunch period.\nAmong the allegations by prosecutors against White are that she forced an 11-year-old boy to touch her with his mouth and that she pulled down the pants of a 13-year-old girl and touched her inappropriately.\nShe also is charged with choking a 13-year-old girl to the point where an ambulance had to be called. White had claimed the child was having an asthma attack, prosecutors said.\nCotter said the children, at least some of whom have mental disabilities, did not report White's actions until after she was fired in January for an unrelated matter.
Policy on creationism causes controversy\nKOUTS, Ind. -- Two members of a Porter County school board are upset that newly-approved biology textbooks do not include references to the religious belief of creationism.\nAt the East Porter board's last meeting April 11, members Bob Martin and Tim Bucher expressed concern that the textbook recommended by a parent-teacher-administrator committee does not discuss the Bible-based view crediting the origin of life to God.\nThe board delayed its vote on the new textbooks to allow Martin and Bucher to review that recommended textbook and others.\nMartin said Monday he remained unconvinced about the merit of the text and cast the only dissenting vote against the books, citing his own research.\n"There's much written about the theory of evolution today that discounts it as being similar to the theory that the world was flat," he said.\nBucher expressed reluctance about the textbook, but voted in favor of it because of the lack of a better option for the district some 25 miles southeast of Gary. None of the other books include ideas other than natural selection and evolution.\nBucher said he would try to find a way to include other concepts such as creationism.\nThe U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1987 that creationism was a religious belief that could not be taught in public schools along with evolution.\nOther board members suggested it might be better to teach ideas such as creationism elsewhere.\n"I don't think (that discussion) should happen in a science class or a biology class," said Board Member Jill Bibler. "I believe those discussions should happen in a different atmosphere, like sociology or even history"
