• Report: School employee accidentally shot during concealed weapons class

    By Elizabeth Chuck, Staff Writer, NBC News

    A month after a Texas district voted to allow school employees to carry firearms on campus, a mechanical malfunction following a concealed handgun class has injured one of its workers, according to reports.


    The employee from the Van Independent School District had stayed for one-on-one training after class with the concealed handgun license training instructor on Tuesday when a mechanical malfunction with his weapon caused his gun to misfire, NBC affiliate KETK reported. The bullet ricocheted, striking the employee in the left leg; his injury was not life-threatening, the affiliate said.

    After being treated at the scene, the employee was transferred to the nearby city of Tyler for treatment, according to KETK.

    ABC affiliate KLTV.com in East Texas reported that the man who was injured in Tuesday's incident was a maintenance worker at the school, and that he was in fair condition.

    Van Independent School District, located about an hour east of Dallas, decided on Jan. 23 to authorize certain school employees to carry concealed handguns on school property and school events, KETK reported. The decision came a week after another school district in the area, Union Grove, passed a similar measure.

    Per state law, school employees need to get a weapons license to carry a concealed handgun on school property.  KLTV reported Tuesday's incident was after a school-sponsored weapons class, but it was unclear whether it was held on school grounds.

  • Three dead, high school basketball players hurt in head-on crash in Nebraska

    By Associated Press

    A pickup truck crashed into a van carrying high school basketball players on Friday, killing two of their coaches and another man, Nebraska authorities said.

    The accident happened along Highway 2 in rural central Nebraska just west of Ansley, a small town about 160 miles west of Lincoln. 

    The State Patrol said the van's driver, 38-year-old Zane Harvey, and his front-seat passenger, 24-year-old Anthony Blum, were killed. The truck's driver, 70-year-old Albert Sherbeck, also died. 

    The patrol said Harvey and Blum, both coaches at Broken Bow High School, were driving students home from a basketball clinic in Kearney when an eastbound truck crossed the centerline and hit their westbound van head-on. 

    Eight boys were taken to hospitals, including two who were treated and released, according to the patrol. 

    The conditions of the other six boys haven't been released, though a message on the school's website said they were seriously injured. A ninth student who was originally believed to be in the van had ridden home with a relative. 

    A vigil was scheduled Saturday morning at the school.

    More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

    Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook


     

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Boston University mourns death of 3 students in New Zealand van crash

    NBC's Michelle Franzen reports.

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    Boston University is mourning the loss of three students studying abroad who died in a minivan crash in New Zealand.

    Austin Breashears, Roch Jauberty and Daniela Lekhno were traveling in a minivan near the North Island vacation town of Taupo when the vehicle drifted to the side of the road and then rolled when the driver tried to correct course, New Zealand police said.

    Five other students were injured in the accident early Saturday, including one, Margaret Theriault, who was airlifted from the crash site to a hospital in Taupo. In a statement Sunday afternoon, local health official Mary Anne Gill said the 21-year-old woman had surgery Saturday and was in intensive care. 

    New Zealand police said Sunday two other women, one 20 and the other 21, were in stable condition. The other two injured — a 20-year-old man and 20-year-old woman — were released Saturday.

    More than 200 people gathered Saturday night at Boston University’s Charles River campus for a candlelight vigil for the students.

    Bizuayehu Tesfaye / AP

    Boston University students including Tori Pinheiro, third right, of New Bedford, Mass., the girlfriend of victim Austin Brashears, hold a candlelight vigil on Marsh Plaza at Boston University on Saturday.

    "We know these students were alive with hopes, dreams and potential and capacity, all dashed," BU president Robert Brown told the crowd.

    Fellow student Tori Pinheiro cried as she recalled how friendly Brashears was and how much she loved him.

    She said she had found an old voicemail he had left her. "I listened to it four times, just to hear your voice," she told the crowd as she tried to fight back tears.

    Brashears was from Huntington Beach, Calif., and was president of the BU men’s water polo club last semester, the university said. According to the New Zealand Herald, he celebrated his 21st birthday a few weeks ago by bungee jumping from the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

    Boston University

    Austin Brashears, Daniela Lekhno, Roch Jauberty

    Jauberty, 21, had lived in Los Angeles and Paris. He had a double major, international relations and economics, and a minor in business administration and management, the school said. Jauberty interned at the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Boston.

    Lekhno, of Manalapan, N.J., was studying business administration and management, with a minor in finance. She was a former member of Alpha Delta Pi sorority.

    Watch the most-viewed videos on msnbc.com

    New Zealand police spokeswoman Kim Perks said Sunday the cause of the crash isn’t known and the investigation "will take some time."

    The van was one of three carrying 26 BU students to Tongariro Crossing, a popular hiking site in the north of the country, according to the university. No BU staff was involved with the trip, which was organized by the students. The lead van proceeded to its destination, its passengers unaware of the disaster behind them, the school said. The second van stopped at the scene of the accident.

    Boston University's website quoted student Evan White, who was in one of the other vans, as saying that he and others saw the crash in the rearview mirror and backed up to the site.

    "We saw people lying in the road and saw wounded people and just felt kind of helpless," he said. "Our first impulse was to do whatever we could, but everyone had a sense of helplessness. I helped people away from the van. Others ran to a house to get help."

    Brashears' mother, Julie, told The Boston Globe that he frequently posted photos on Facebook documenting his adventures in New Zealand, including bungee-jumping off the Auckland Harbor Bridge on his birthday. She said he planned weekend outings for the study abroad group.

    "Everyone called him the cruise director," she said. "He wanted to include everybody on the trips. He loved having an eclectic group of friends."

    Student body president Howard Male, a friend of Brashears, said that before leaving the students said they hoped to view scenery captured on film in the "Lord of the Rings" movies.

    "They were all so excited to be able to go explore what many guidebooks ... have called some of the most beautiful places on the planet," Male said.

    The tragedy cast a pall over the campus as some students anticipated approaching graduation and others packed up at the end of the school year.

    Study abroad program executive director Bernd Widdig called the students' deaths an "unprecedented tragedy," the worst to hit the program since it began in the 1980s. The New Zealand part of the program began in 2003 and involves courses at the University of Auckland and Auckland University of Technology.

    All the students except Theriault were enrolled in a BU study abroad program in Auckland, the BU website said. Theriault was enrolled in a study abroad program in Sydney, Australia.

    The deaths were the latest in a series of tragedies to befall the campus this semester. According to The Boston Globe:

    In January, sophomore Joshua Goldenberg suffered serious head trauma after jumping from a second-floor window to escape a blaze in an Allston apartment building.

    Two BU hockey players were arrested on sexual assault charges.

    And in April, graduate student Kanagala Seshadri Rao, 24, was found dead, with gunshot wounds to his head and leg, on a residential Allston street.

    The Associated Press contributed to this story.

    More content from msnbc.com and NBC News:

    Follow US News on msnbc.com on Twitter and Facebook