Jury awards former prison warden $438K in retaliation case
LANSING (AP) — A jury has awarded a former Michigan prison warden $438,000 after finding supervisors retaliated against him for defending a female subordinate who complained about sexual discrimination and harassment.
The Detroit Free Press reports an Ingham County Circuit Court jury returned the verdict last week in the case of Jeff Larson, who was warden at Central Michigan Correctional Facility.
Larson retired in 2017 and took a pay cut when he was demoted to resident unit manager.
State corrections officials say Larson was demoted for failing to comply with all the terms of a court order after he was stopped for drunken driving in 2013. Larson’s lawyer said his client was targeted.
Court rejects appeal over Rosa Parks coat
DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a dispute over a coat that belonged to civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks.
The court rejected an appeal Monday. A lawyer for the trustee of Parks' estate says relatives reneged on a deal to turn over a wool coat that Parks wore when she was arrested on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus in 1955. But a niece insists she doesn't have the coat.
Steven Cohen turned to the Supreme Court after exhausting appeals in Michigan courts.
In 2014, the foundation of philanthropist Howard Buffett purchased hundreds of Parks' personal belongings for $4.5 million, without the coat. Cohen says Buffett subsequently donated them to the Library of Congress. Parks died in 2005.
Judge calls off trial over slain millionaire’s residency
CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — A New Hampshire judge has called off the upcoming probate court trial of a man accused by relatives of killing his millionaire grandfather for inheritance money, saying the grandfather was not a resident of the state.
Judge David King said John Chakalos lived in Connecticut, even though he had a New Hampshire driver’s license and registered to vote there.
A June trial had been set for 24-year-old Nathan Carman, of Vernon, Vermont, who’s denied any role in his grandfather’s shooting death in Connecticut in 2013.
Carman also denies any role in the disappearance of his mother during a 2016 fishing trip.
Carman’s three aunts believe Carman killed her and are trying to prevent him from inheriting the mother’s share of her father’s estate.
New Jersey gets official state microbe
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A microorganism that played a role in treating tuberculosis is now officially recognized as New Jersey's state microbe.
Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill Friday giving the distinction to Streptomyces (strep-toh-MY'-seez) griseus (GREE'-say-us).
The microbe was discovered in New Jersey soil in 1916. In 1943, researchers from Rutgers University used the microbe to create the antibiotic streptomycin.
Tuberculosis death rates in the U.S. plummeted. They fell from about 194 deaths per 100,000 people in 1900 to about 9 deaths per 100,000 people in 1955.
Rutgers researcher Selman Waksman was awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize for Medicine for discovering the microbe and creating the antibiotic.
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