The condition of the 15-year-old North Carolina sophomore who was shot in the neck Monday was downgraded today to critical condition, authorities say.

Catilyn Abercrombie was wounded by a bullet from a .22-caliber rifle while standing in the courtyard of Cape Fear High School during lunch, the Fayetteville Observer says. She had been listed in stable condition.

Blog:  Girl, 15, wounded in shooting at N.C. high school

Abercrombie is using a ventilator to breathe and may require a second surgery, a Cumberland County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman told the Associated Press. The bullet is lodged against her vertebrae.

Police arrested two teens after reviewing surveillance video and saw the pair carrying a rifle. A 15-year-old student was charged with attempted first-degree murder, although they do not believe the girl was the intended target. An 18-year-old was charged with felonious aiding and abetting in the shooting.

Heavy-duty thieves have somehow managed to steal an historic 2.7-ton church bell that rang throughout the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

The 122-year-old mostly copper bell, which sat on a secluded corner outside St. Mary's Cathedral, vanished within the last month. No one can recall exactly when they last saw it.

Police say thieves would have needed a crane to haul away the 5,300-pound, 5-foot-wide bell, which is bigger than the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia.

The bell is 80% copper and 20% tin. The Chronicle estimates that if sold for scrap it would fetch about $75,000.

A federal judge has blocked North Carolina from requiring that a woman seeking an abortion see and hear a description of ultrasound images of a fetus, the Associated Press reports.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit last month, arguing that the law violates the rights of women and health care providers and intrudes on women's private lives.

U.S. District Judge Catherine Eagles' preliminary injunction comes a day before the law would have been enforceable.

Forget stimulus packages or quantitative easing. The key to reanimating the U.S. economy may rest with zombies.

According to estimates by the financial website 24/7 Wall Street, the undead pump more than $5 billion of life into the nation's economy and even more globally.

24/7 WS explains:

Think way beyond zombie movie ticket sales. Think about DVD sales, video games, comic books, novels, Halloween costumes, zombie walks, merchandise, conventions and even zombie art. Add to that all of the websites, homemade movies, Facebook sites, YouTube sites and other forms of "digital" zombies, not to mention music. And if you think the financial tab has been high so far, by the end of 2012 the tab is going to be far larger.

The living math?

* Movies: $2.5 billion.

* video games: $2.5 billion.

* Comic books, magazines, TV: $50 million.

* Halloween costumes: $500 million over four years.

* Books: $100 million.

* Merchandise: $50 million.

* Conventions, events, walks: $10 million.

* Digital world: $10 million.

* Music: $10 million.

* Art: $10 million.

Update at 5:06 p.m. ET: What's the zombie boom all about? "The economic fears of white-collar workers," according to Slate.

Thirty-two states are failing to abide by the Indian Child Welfare Act, a law passed by Congress in 1978 to stop thousands of Native American children from being forcibly removed from their families and being sent to boarding schools, where they were abused, or into other abusive conditions, a National Public Radio investigation has found.

The problem is most pronounced in South Dakota, NPR reports.

"Cousins are disappearing, family members are disappearing," Peter Lengkeek, a Crow Creek Tribal Council member, tells NPR. "It's kidnapping. That's how we see it."

About 700 Native American children in South Dakota are removed from their homes, some of them under questionable circumstances, NPR finds. The majority of those placed in foster care are sent to non-native homes or group homes, although the Child Welfare Act requires that Native American children must be placed with their relatives or tribes, except in rare circumstances.

South Dakota state officials say they have to do what's in the best interest of the child.

"We come from a stance of safety," Virgena Wieseler of South Dakota's Department of Social Services tells NPR. "That's our overarching goal with all children. If they can be returned to their parent or returned to a relative and be safe and that safety can be managed, then that's our goal."

Critics say the situation appears to be financially lucrative for foster care providers, one of whom has ties with state officials, NPR reports.

Ghouls, zombies and green-skinned witches have to observe a workweek just like the rest of us, and one state lawmaker in Connecticut wants to honor that.

State Rep. Tim Larson, a Democrat out of the Hartford area, proposes that the last Saturday in October be forever designated as Halloween, the Hartford Courant reports.

Ghouls, zombies and witches aside, Larson says the move would make life easier for harried parents and safer for trick-or-treaters. He says a Saturday observance could allow for activities earlier in the day, when it is light outside, and more celebrations, which could boost spending and help the economy.

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The Pinellas County Courthouse in Clearwater, Fla., has released the names of the 12 jurors who acquitted Casey Anthony in the murder of her toddler daughter, Caylee, as well as the five alternates.

Orange-Osceola Chief Judge Belvin Perry called for the release of the names to be delayed to serve as a "cooling off period" in the high-profile case that drew a groundswell of anger from the public, according to WTSP 10 news.

In issuing his decision, Perry noted how the crowd outside the courthouse held signs reading "Arrest the jury" and "Somewhere a Village is Missing 12 Idiots," the Orlando Sentinel reports.

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Riders of New York City's subway system are trashing a new program designed to curb the rat population along the subterranean platforms and tracks, the New York Daily News reports.

The city has removed trash cans from the platforms to prevent passengers from bringing garbage into the system, but riders tell the News the idea is just trashy. Passengers at test stops said they've seen an increase in trash on platforms and tracks, where rats are often spotted frolicking and making themselves at home.

"Without trash cans, people are throwing food all over the place," rider Rolando Ayala, 65, told the News as he pointed out a discarded slice of pizza nearby on the platform.

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An 87-year-old Indiana man was busted after police stopped him and found 104 bricks of cocaine worth $2.9 million in his pickup, the Detroit Free Press and other news organizations report.

Michigan state police spotted Leo Sharp of Michigan City, Ind., on Friday swerving along highway I-94 in Ann Arbor, Mich. When they pulled him over, a drug-sniffing dog discovered the stash of the illegal drug, the Free Press reports.

At U.S. District Court in Detroit on Monday, Sharp began to tell a magistrate that he was forced at gunpoint to haul the drug, but his lawyer, Ray Richards, advised him to only answer the judge's questions.

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The phenomenon known as the northern lights, or the aurora borealis, made a rare appearance as far south as Georgia Monday evening, according to WSAZ in Huntington, W.Va., and other news organizations.

A solar wind made the colorful sight visible much farther south than normal, WSAZ reports. There have been sightings reported from Kentucky, Georgia, Indiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas and other places, according to published reports.

The image of the northern lights in our photo is not from last night, incidentally, but from Nikiski, Alaska, back in early August. As soon as photos from this recent appearance become available, we'll post them here.

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