BOSTON - The parents of an Alabama professor accused of shooting three of her colleagues to death in 2010 say she was a well-adjusted, "family-oriented" girl growing up and didn't deliberately kill her brother in Massachusetts in 1986, according to testimony during a closed-door inquest after the Alabama shootings.

House Democrats' plan would not boost the sales tax, but would give local governments that option.

Aaron Reardon talks with the press with supporters around him at the Labor Temple in Everett on election night in November 2011, shortly after opponent Mike Hope conceded.