NATIONAL BRIEFS

MARYLAND

One convicted in beating

One brother was convicted, the other exonerated Thursday in the 2010 beating of a black teenager they met while answering a suspicious person report received by an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood watch group, Shomrim of Baltimore. Judge Pamela White ruled against Eliyahu and Avi Werdesheim, 24, and 22, who had withdrawn a motion to move their trial because publicity comparing their case with the fatal shooting of Florida teen Trayvon Martin would make it tough to find an impartial jury. Eliyahu was convicted of false imprisonment and second-degree assault, and cleared of carrying a deadly weapon with intent to injure. Avi was acquitted of all three counts. Prosecutors said the brothers hit the teen with a radio and held him on the ground. Eliyahu testified that he acted in self-defense when the teen attacked him with a nail-studded plank and said his brother, not a group member, wasn't involved.

ARIZONA: Gunman kills 4 and himself

Many considered Jason Todd Ready the most high-profile neo-Nazi in Arizona. He led heavily armed civilians into the desert to look for illegal immigrants and repeatedly tried to win public office. But his beliefs and actions got so extreme that conservative politicians distanced themselves. There was little to suggest turmoil in his personal life. On Wednesday, police said, Ready, 39, shot and killed four people, including a 16-month-old girl, in the Phoenix suburb of Gilbert where he lived. He then turned the gun on himself. The dead included Lisa Lynn Mederos, 47, who was his girlfriend; her daughter Amber Nieve Mederos, 23; and Amber's boyfriend, Jim Franklin Hiott, 24.

CALIFORNIA: Son held in agent's slaying

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, Myron Chisem, 42, was shot and killed by his 14-year-old son, who fired a single shot through a window from the backyard in Carson with his father's gun, then called 911, authorities said Thursday. The boy was booked for investigation of murder.