New York
Police say man in stolen car runs out of gas
PLAINFIELD, Pa. (AP) - Police say a New York City man driving a stolen car took the wrong road and ended up lost and without gas in Pennsylvania.
State police say 26-year-old Cristian Osorio left Queens early Friday and was headed to Syracuse, New York.
State police tell The Morning Call Osorio got lost and ended up on the side of Route 33 in Plainfield, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. That's when a state trooper arrived to help and discovered the car was stolen.
Osorio is held on $15,000 bail, charged with receiving stolen property and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.
Ohio
Groups seek changes to police consent decree
CLEVELAND (AP) - Civil rights groups are asking a federal judge to change an agreement aimed at reforming the Cleveland police department. They want an independent agency responsible for investigating deadly-use-of-force cases instead of the department's investigators.
The groups filed a brief Monday in federal court seeking input for a consent decree between Cleveland and the U.S. Justice Department that Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. signed June 12.
The groups also are asking Oliver to change the agreement to have the person appointed to the newly created position of police inspector general report to the mayor and city council and not the police chief. They also want him to expand collection of race and gender information for police complaints and to add a provision that addresses how officers interact with children.
Montana
Environmentalists' open-meetings lawsuit rejected
MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) - A Helena judge has rejected three environmental groups' claims that Gov. Steve Bullock violated the state's open-meeting laws by holding discussions before nominating 5.1 million acres of forest land for priority federal management.
Last year, Bullock nominated land in the Lolo, Bitterroot, Flathead, Helena-Lewis and Clark, Kootenai, Beaverhead-Deerlodge and Custer-Gallatin national forests for more intensive management through logging and measures to improve forest health.
The process was authorized by Congress to treat insect infestations and disease.
The lawsuit by WildWest Institute, Conservation Congress and Friends of the Bitterroot objected to the committee of conservationists, state officials and timber industry representatives that advised the governor on which lands to nominate.
No notice was given of the committee's meetings and no minutes were recorded, the lawsuit said.
District Judge Kathy Seeley agreed with Bullock's argument that he had the sole discretion in responding to the U.S. Forest Service's request to nominate land. From there, the process was managed at the federal level, ending the state's involvement in the one-time request, Seeley said in her June 15 ruling.
"There is simply no future window of opportunity for further recommendations, or a method for recalling or revising ones already made and acted upon by the Secretary of Agriculture," Seeley wrote.
WildWest Institute director Matthew Koehler told the Missoulian the judge's ruling allows government officials to make decisions in secret.
"The governor, with no notice to anyone in Montana, and no opportunity for Montana citizens to participate or share their views, nominated 5 million acres for fast-track logging that's categorically excluded from the requirements of NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act)," Koehler said Wednesday
Bullock spokesman Mike Wessler said the governor makes it a priority to hear from constituents and stakeholders in the decision he makes.
Ohio
Legal fight over 'M-A-S-H' hot dog eatery's recipes
TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - Ownership of secret recipes and ingredients from an Ohio restaurant made famous on the TV series "M-A-S-H" is at the center of a legal dispute between a grandson of the original owner and the current ownership group.
Tony Packo's Toledo LLC has copies of the recipes and ingredient lists for the restaurant chain's famous spicy Hungarian hot dogs and chili, The Blade reported. The company was created by the late Bob Bennett, a local businessman, for the purchase and operation of the restaurant founded by Tony Packo.
But a grandson of Packo says in court documents that he has the original notebook his grandfather authored. Robin Horvath, who is in the process of bankruptcy, says in court documents that the ingredient list is separate from the recipes and wasn't purchased in the company's 2012 sale. Horvath has estimated the recipes could be worth more than $2.5 million.
Horvath also claims control over a licensing agreement the Packo family signed in 2002 that paid his mother royalties for the restaurant chain using the recipes, which she said were given to her by her father.
A court-appointed trustee in Horvath's bankruptcy proceedings has filed motions to force him to turn over the recipes and ingredients list, because they could be considered potential assets and part of his bankruptcy estate.
A court previously determined that Packo recipes and ingredients lists were intellectual property and part of the restaurant assets under the 2002 license agreement, but it didn't appear to rule on who owns the actual notebook or other papers associated with the recipes in Tony Packo's handwriting.
Packo's became a household name in the 1970s when actor Jamie Farr portrayed a homesick U.S. soldier in the Korean War who longed for the hot dogs.
Oklahoma
After ruling, state set to carry out executions
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the use of one of the drugs in Oklahoma's lethal injection protocol, the state is prepared to move forward with three previously scheduled executions.
Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokeswoman Terri Watkins confirmed Monday that the state has access to midazolam and the other drugs needed to carry out the executions.
Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt's office is expected to notify the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals that three inmates have exhausted their appeals. The court will then set execution dates for Richard Eugene Glossip, John Marion Grant and Benjamin Robert Cole.
The three inmates had challenged the use of midazolam, but Supreme Court justices voted 5-4 that it can be used without violating the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Published: Tue, Jun 30, 2015
