Connecticut
Frat members are sued over game day death
NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Eighty-six current and former members of a Yale University fraternity are being sued over a deadly tailgating crash at the 2011 Yale-Harvard football game.
A rental truck carrying beer kegs heading to the Sigma Phi Epsilon tailgating area outside the Yale Bowl fatally struck 30-year-old Nancy Barry of Salem, Mass., and injured two other women. The Yale student who was driving entered a probation program that erased the criminal charges against him.
Lawyers for Barry’s family and one of the injured women sued the fraternity members late last month. They say insurance for the national Sigma Phi Epsilon organization doesn’t cover the local chapter, so they have to sue the local fraternity and its members.
Fraternity members declined to comment.
Yale tightened tailgating rules in the wake of the crash.
Iowa
U.S. seeks to dismiss suit over contraception
SIOUX CENTER, Iowa (AP) — The Obama administration is asking a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed by Christian colleges in Iowa and Michigan over a mandate requiring health insurance plans to provide birth control coverage.
The Justice Department said in a filing last week the legal challenge by Dordt College and Cornerstone University is meritless and an attempt to prevent their female employees from obtaining coverage.
Dordt spokeswoman Sonya Knauss disputed that allegation, saying the college already covers most forms of birth control.
Sioux Center, Iowa-based Dordt and Grand Rapids, Mich.-based Cornerstone argue that the mandate requiring insurance plans to cover birth control coverage violates their religious freedom since many Christians oppose its use.
The Obama administration says the mandate accommodates religious-based employers by requiring third-party administrators to provide and pay for that coverage.
Wisconsin
15 year sentence for man who killed for money
EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (AP) — A defendant who pleaded no contest to strangling a man in a dispute over money and burying his body has been sentenced to 15 years in prison by Eau Claire County Circuit Court.
Larry Fernandez, 46, entered the plea and was found guilty of second-degree reckless homicide in the 2012 death of Frederick “Brian” Harvey at the victim’s trailer home in Eau Claire. A number of other felony charges, including hiding a corpse, were dismissed in an agreement with prosecutors.
Family members filed a missing persons report after Harvey disappeared. The family believed Fernandez was involved because of a violent past and because he’d given them false information, the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram reported Wednesday.
Fernandez was accused of burying Harvey’s body on rural property near Bruce in Rusk County.
The victim’s sister, Robin Gydesen, held a clock near a courtroom microphone when giving a statement during sentencing Tuesday. Four minutes ticked by, the estimated time it took to kill her brother, Gydesen said.
“That was how long the defendant had to change his mind and stop what he was doing and let Brian live,” Gydesen told the judge. That was the amount of time Fernandez had “to stop before he changed the lives of many, many people, not just my brother,” she said.
Fernandez declined to comment during the sentencing hearing.
Massachusetts
Boston Marathon suspect’s friends want 2015 trial
BOSTON (AP) — Two friends of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are seeking a trial date early next year on charges of hindering the investigation.
Attorneys for Dias Kadyrbayev and Robel Phillipos are expected to appear in federal court Wednesday to discuss a proposed schedule they submitted to the court, including their request for a trial date next January.
A third friend, Azamat Tazhayakov, wasn’t included. He’s expected to file a separate request.
Authorities allege that Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov removed Tsarnaev’s laptop computer and a backpack from Tsarnaev’s dorm room at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth three days after the bombing.
Phillipos is accused of lying to authorities. All three men have pleaded not guilty.
The April 15 bombings killed three people and injured more than 260.
Oklahoma
Lawsuit is filed over monument commandments
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Another lawsuit has been filed over the Ten Commandments monument at the Oklahoma Capitol.
The suit was filed Monday in federal court by Americans Atheists Inc., and two of its members in Oklahoma. It’s the latest challenge filed over the monument, which was installed on the Capitol grounds after lawmakers approved it in 2009. The monument was donated by state Rep. Mike Ritze.
The Oklahoman reports that the lawsuit claims the monument is a state-sponsored endorsement of religion and therefore unconstitutional.
A similar lawsuit is pending in state court. And the New York-based Satanic Temple has formally submitted plans to place a statue of Satan on the Capitol grounds, arguing that the state’s decision to allow the Ten Commandments monument opened the door for their display.
Kentucky
Court reinstates Ky ban on stores selling liquor
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A federal appeals court has reinstated a 76-year-old old ban on grocery stores, gas stations and other retailers selling wine and liquor in Kentucky after finding the law doesn’t violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday reversed a decision by U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn in 2012 to lift the restriction.
Judge Deborah L. Cook wrote for the court that the state “indisputably maintains a legitimate interest” in reducing access to high-alcohol content products.
A Louisville convenience store, Maxwell’s Pic-Pac, and the Food with Wine Coalition challenged the ban in a lawsuit filed in federal court in 2011. The plaintiffs said the law treated them differently from package liquor stores simply because they sold food and other staples.
