National Roundup

New York Multiple amputee wins $18M in settlement NEW YORK (AP) -- A New York City woman who had her hands and legs amputated has won a $17.9 million settlement from the city and a hospital. The Daily News reports that Tabitha Mullings will receive $9.4 million from Brooklyn Hospital Center and $8.5 million from the city. The hospital and city say they settled because a sympathetic jury would have been swayed by Mullings' severe injuries. Her nightmare began in 2008 when she went to the emergency room was sent home with a diagnosis of a kidney stone. She experienced excruciating pain and numbness the next day and called 911 but wasn't taken to the hospital. She developed a sepsis infection by the time she went to the hospital the following day. Gangrene spread to her extremities. New Jersey Synagogue firebomb suspect pleads not guilty HACKENSACK, N.J. (AP) -- The second man charged in a series of attacks on synagogues in northern New Jersey has pleaded not guilty. Nineteen-year-old Aakash Dalal of New Brunswick is charged with conspiracy, aggravated arson, bias intimidation and criminal mischief. Dalal appeared in court in Hackensack Monday morning. His plea was entered by his attorney. He's being held on $2.5 million bail. After Dalal was arrested Friday, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli characterized him as an instigator in the January firebombings allegedly carried out by then-19-year-old Anthony Graziano. Dalal is alleged to have encouraged Graziano and showed him how to make the bombs, though he's not believed to have participated in the acts themselves. The attacks included firebombing of a house of worship where a rabbi and several family members were sleeping upstairs. Massachusetts Lizzie Borden's lawyer journals see the light FALL RIVER, Mass. (AP) -- A series of journals kept by a lawyer who represented Lizzie Borden in her 1893 double murder trial are shedding new light on the case. The journals by attorney Andrew Jackson Jennings were willed to the Fall River Historical Society by Jennings' grandson, Edward Saunders Waring, who recently died. They contain among other information, details of interviews he conducted in building his defense. Museum curator Michael Martins tells The Herald News the journals contain some never before published information about the infamous case, including details some interviewees gave describing a caring relationship between Borden's father, Lizzie and her sister. Borden was charged with using an ax to kill her father and stepmother in 1892. Although she was acquitted, many people thought she literally got away with murder. Virginia Virginia Tech shooting lawsuit heading to trial CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. (AP) -- A wrongful death lawsuit brought by the parents of two Virginia Tech students killed during a campus rampage nearly five years ago is headed to trial in Christiansburg. Jury selection was scheduled to begin Monday in Montgomery County Circuit Court at a trial where university officials will be asked to defend their actions April 16, 2007, when a student gunman killed 32 people, then himself. The lawsuit was brought by the parents of Julia K. Pryde and Erin N. Peterson, two Tech students killed in the deadliest shooting spree in modern U.S. history. Among the witnesses to be called will be President Charles Steger. Attorneys for the parents maintain officials waited too long before alerting students to the first shootings on the Blacksburg campus. Tech officials defend their actions. Pennsylvania Verdict reached in ex-pol's corruption trial HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- A jury reached a verdict Monday on its third day of deliberation in the corruption trial of former Pennsylvania House Democratic whip Mike Veon. The Dauphin County panel came to a decision shortly after they reconvened on the 11th day of Veon's second corruption trial, court officials said. The former Beaver County lawmaker and co-defendant Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink, the former manager of his district legislative office in Beaver Falls, are accused of misusing state grant money awarded to a nonprofit -- the Beaver Initiative for Growth, or BIG -- that Veon ran. Veon served 22 years in the House. House Democrats elected him as their whip in 1998, and he held that post until voters turned him out of office in the 2006 election. Veon is already serving at least six years in state prison as a result of his 2010 conviction in a related corruption case. Perretta-Rosepink, his former aide, has yet to serve a three- to six-month jail term for her conviction in the 2010 case. Veon's sentence is the harshest imposed so far in a 5-year-old state corruption investigation into the misuse of taxpayers' money for political purposes. Twenty-five people were arrested in that probe. Of those, 12 Democrats and nine Republicans have been convicted or pleaded guilty, including former House speakers John Perzel of Philadelphia, a Republican, and Democrat Bill DeWeese of Greene County. Two defendants were acquitted and charges against another were dropped. The other defendant, former Rep. Stephen Stetler, D-York, is slated for trial later this year. Colorado State high court rules against campus gun ban DENVER (AP) -- The Colorado Supreme Court has sided with opponents of a campus gun ban at the University of Colorado who claimed the ban is illegal because it was not approved by the Legislature. The court ruled Monday that lawmakers intended to take away the authority of the Board of Regents to regulate concealed handgun possession on campus. Opponents said lawmakers would have listed universities as exceptions in a law passed in 2003 if they wanted guns banned on campus. The Concealed Carry Act prohibits local governments from limiting concealed carry rights, with the only exceptions being K-12 schools, places where federal law bans it, public buildings with metal detectors and private property where owners object to concealed weapons. A spokesman for the regents had no immediate reaction Published: Tue, Mar 6, 2012