The running was apparently a punishment for Savannah Hardin, 9, who died on Monday at Children’s Hospital in Birmingham from dehydration and low sodium, a condition common in marathon runners, according to Natalie Barton, Etowah County, Alabama Public Information Officer.

The child was apparently forced to run in the family’s yard for eating a forbidden candy bar and lying about it, she said.

A call placed to a 911 emergency operator reported an unresponsive child having seizures, said Barton.

“It appears they ran her until she dropped,” she said.

The child’s grandmother, Joyce Hardin Garrard, 46, and step-mother, Jessica Mae Hardin, 27, were charged on Wednesday with felony murder. Bond was set at $500,000 each.

The girl’s father, who had custody, was not home at the time, said Barton.

There had been no prior reports of abuse in the family, Barton said.

The third-grader’s fellow students created a makeshift memorial on her desk at school, writing notes

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After all, a spike in gasoline prices early last year helped nearly knock the economy back into recession.

The answer, economists say, is that this time is different: the recovery is in far better shape to absorb the blow.

“This is the dark cloud in an otherwise brightening domestic economic picture. It’s something we need to watch right now, but not panic about yet,” said Jerry Webman, chief economist at OppenheimerFunds in New York.

U.S. gas prices have jumped 8.8 percent since the start of this year, according to the Energy Information Agency, topping an average of $3.65 a gallon in the week through Monday. This is a record for this time of the year when prices are usually on the low side because of slow seasonal demand.

Early last year, a combination of strong gasoline prices in the wake of the so-called Arab spring uprisings and disruptions to motor vehicle production after a devastating earthquake in Japan put the brakes on U.S. growth.

Although gasoline prices are 41 cents higher than they were at this time last year, there are no supply-chain problems disrupting

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In 2000, 6.3 million children lived in high poverty in the United States, a report by the Annie E. Casey Foundation found.

The growth – a 25 percent increase – reverses the trend just a decade ago that saw fewer children living in communities with high poverty rates, according to the nonprofit group.

And three-quarters of those children live in such areas despite having at least one parent working, the study showed.

The findings reflect the hit the U.S. economy took during and after the 2007-2009 recession even as signs now point to steady recovery. The nation’s jobs market has improved, the number of home sales has grown and recent gains on Wall Street have prompted optimism among investors.

“The recession has really set back much of the progress that was made in the 1990s when poverty went down,” Robert Sampson, a professor of social sciences at Harvard University and head of the Social Sciences Program at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Laura Speer, associate director for policy reform and data at the

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The jury deliberated for about nine hours before finding Huguely, 24, guilty of killing his 22-year-old on-again, off-again girlfriend Yeardley Love.

The case drew national media attention to the quiet college town of Charlottesville, Virginia, where Huguely and Love once played on the university’s nationally ranked men’s and women’s lacrosse teams.

Prosecutors said their college romance turned deadly in May 2010 when Huguely entered Love’s apartment while she was asleep, kicking in her bedroom door and slamming her head against the wall.

Prosecution expert witnesses said Love, from Cockeysville, Maryland, died about two hours later from blunt force trauma to the head.

“Every year that goes by, I would like to know what she would be doing now,” Sharon Love, the victim’s mother, told the court on Wednesday. “Also, every year that goes by, I’m like afraid that I’m forgetting little pieces about her.”

Huguely faced a first-degree murder charge and could have received a lifelong sentence, but after the two week trial jurors instead found Huguely guilty of second-degree murder and grand larceny. In Virginia, a second-degree murder charge

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The officer shot Tony Jones, 24, in the back as he fled from a police car at about 11:45 p.m. on Sunday, according to Jones’ attorney, Waukeen McCoy.

“He made a mistake running, but that didn’t give them the right to shoot him in the back,” McCoy said. Jones is the son of Oscar Grant’s aunt, he added.

Oakland police have said that officers shot at Jones when he ran from them carrying a firearm after leaving a car they believed was involved in a robbery.

An Oakland police spokeswoman could not be reached for further comment on Wednesday.

Grant’s death after being shot by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) police officer Joseph Mehserle on New Year’s Day in 2009 has since become a rallying point for anti-police demonstrations in Oakland.

Mehserle, who is white, shot Grant, who was black, in the back as Grant lay on the ground. Mehserle said later he confused his service revolver for his Taser.

Protesters said the case was an example

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In a decision with national implications for the role of personal morality in the workplace, U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton also imposed an injunction blocking enforcement of the regulation.

Leighton said he struck down the state rule because it trampled on pharmacists’ right to “conscientious objection.”

The ruling only applies to Washington state but is sure to reverberate nationally, as it comes in the midst of a roiling political debate about a new federal regulation mandating that all health insurance plans – even those sponsored by religious employers – provide free birth control.

Several religiously affiliated universities have sued to block that insurance regulation. Their arguments are similar to those that prevailed in the pharmacy case – namely, that the government has no right to compel individuals to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs.

Washington Governor Chris Gregoire, a Democrat who had pushed for the pharmacy mandate, said the judge’s ruling left her concerned that some women will be denied timely access to emergency contraception, which can prevent pregnancy if taken within a few days of unprotected sex.

Gregoire said she saw “strong arguments” for an appeal of

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Virginia’s House of Delegates by a vote of 65-32 approved the revised bill, which calls for women to undergo an abdominal ultrasound but not necessarily a more invasive internal one as required under the original measure. Whether the Senate will now follow suit remains in doubt.

Satirized by television comedians and savaged by opponents, the original version of the bill supported by McDonnell drew a large crowd of protesters to the state capital in Richmond earlier this week.

A petition sent to McDonnell urging him to veto the bill contained more than 33,000 signatures, according to NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia Executive Director Tarina Keene.

At the last minute, McDonnell, an abortion opponent and possible contender for vice president, withdrew his support and asked for changes to the bill.

“Mandating an invasive procedure in order to give informed consent is not a proper role for the state,” McDonnell said.

“I am requesting that the General Assembly amend this bill to explicitly state that no woman in Virginia will have to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound involuntarily.”

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