A mother who drunkenly drove a station wagon full of children into a New York City highway wreck that killed one of them has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a case that spurred a state law.

Carmen Huertas wiped her eyes as she entered her guilty plea Tuesday in a Manhattan courtroom packed with her relatives and victims' families.

The October crash occurred as Huertas drove to a slumber party. It killed 11-year-old Leandra Rosado and injured the other six children, including Huertas' daughter. It prompted Leandra's Law, which makes drunken driving a felony if a child is in the vehicle.

Huertas' sentencing is set for Oct. 1. A judge has promised her more than the minimum range of one to three years in prison but less than the maximum range of five to 15 years.

A Bolivian man charged with killing a nun in a car crash in Virginia had at least two previous drunken driving convictions and had been released twice by immigration officers who took him into custody because he was in the United States illegally.

Carlos A. Martinelly Montano, 23, was charged in Sunday's accident in Virginia's Prince William County. Sister Denise Mosier, a nun with the Benedictine Sisters of Virginia, died in the crash, and two others, Sisters Charlotte Lange and Connie Ruth Lupton, were injured. They remained in critical condition on Wednesday, a spokeswoman, Sister Glenna Smith, wrote in an e-mail.

A wake for Mosier was planned for Thursday evening and a funeral Mass and burial for Friday, both at the nuns' Bristow, Va., monastery, according to its website.

The accident occurred as the nation has become divided over how much authority police should have to check the immigration status of people they stop. Some in Virginia would like to expand that authority, similar to a tough law Arizona recently passed. That law is under review in federal court.

In a statement on their website, the nuns said they're upset that the tragedy is being politicized and "become an apparent forum for the illegal immigration agenda."

A mother whose three children were found starving after being shut away in a Dallas hotel bathroom for as long as nine months changed her plea to guilty Friday, bringing her trial to a sudden end.

Abneris Santiago's plea on the third day of her trial comes one day after she apologized to her 12-year-old daughter in a tearful courtroom reunion, saying she wasn't strong enough to stop the abuse.

Sentencing is expected to happen later Friday. She faces up to life in prison on one charge of injury to a child.

Police last summer rescued the then 11-year-old girl and her two younger half brothers from a bathroom in an extended-stay hotel along one of Dallas' busiest freeways.

The emaciated children, whose skeletal structures were visible beneath their flaky, stretched skin, were near death from chronic starvation. Authorities say the girl was repeatedly sexually assaulted by her mother's boyfriend.

Alfred Santiago was convicted Tuesday of injury to a child and continuous sexual abuse. He was sentenced to two 99-year prison terms, to be served concurrently.

A 76-year-old Connecticut man has been arrested after authorities discovered he was released from a mental hospital in 1992 after being found incompetent to stand trial for a 1991 murder.

Prosecutors say they should have been notified 18 years ago when Pedro Custodio was released from a state hospital in Newtown. Authorities had expected Custodio to be committed to the hospital for much longer.

A judge had asked about the status of the case this month because it had been open for almost two decades. Custodio was arrested Monday and ordered held on $200,000 bail during a court appearance Tuesday.

Custodio's sister tells the Republican-American newspaper that the state approved his release from the hospital. She says his arrest this week amounts to a death sentence.

A former New Hampshire high school teacher has pleaded guilty to a charge she e-mailed nude photographs of herself to a 15-year-old student.

Forty-one-year-old Melinda Dennehy of Hampstead entered the plea Monday to a misdemeanor charge of indecent exposure.

As part of a plea agreement, Dennehy was given a suspended jail sentence on the condition that she remain on good behavior and have no contact with the child or go to the high school.

In court, Dennehy apologized for her actions and poor judgment. She told the court she's continuing counseling and hopes to lead a productive life.

Dennehy was arrested in March after the photos were found circulating around the high school. She resigned three weeks later.

A lawyer was accused of burglarizing the home of a client who filed a complaint against him with the Florida Bar. Albert Ford II was being held on charges of burglary to a structure causing damage, grand theft, criminal mischief and burglary to an occupied dwelling. The 43-year-old Longwood environmental and land use lawyer was arrested Thursday. He has his first court appearance Friday afternoon.

A person who answered the phone at Ford's law office declined to comment.

Lake Mary police said Ford went to the client's home, threw something into the pool and removed a tank and filter near the pool. He also took a flag from the front of the house.