New Hampshire

Hunter’s license revoked after fatal shooting

A man acquitted of negligent homicide after fatally shooting a fellow hunter has been banned from hunting in the state for 10 years.

The Fish and Game Commission voted unanimously Thursday to revoke Steven Laro’s lifetime hunting license. Commissioners agreed Laro — a former police officer and FBI-trained firearms instructor — did not properly identify his target before shooting.

“I didn’t hear anything in Mr. Laro’s testimony indicating that ‘I’ve learned my lesson,”‘ Commissioner Sharon Guaraldi said.

Laro, 50, was acquitted in December in the January 2004 death of Robert Proulx, 58, at a private game preserve. He said he mistook the man for a wild boar.

The state questioned Laro’s competency to handle the rifle, pointing out he acknowledged being unprepared the morning of the shooting.

Laro’s lawyer argued that the fatal accident was not solely his client’s fault and said it wasn’t clear whether the victim was walking an agreed-upon path.

Laro may reapply for a hunting license after the revocation period ends. If convicted, he would have automatically lost his lifetime license.

Washington

Pacific Northwest drought hits growers

Months of below-average precipitation have left a parched Pacific Northwest reeling from what water managers say is the worst drought since 1977 — and perhaps the worst ever if spring and summer rains don’t arrive.

In Oregon and Washington, farmers are cutting back significantly on planting several crops, including wheat and hay. The planting decisions likely will lead to a drop in farm income this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The drought spells particularly bad news for some of the region’s permanent crops, such as apples and cherries, because orchards take years to grow enough to produce-quality fruit, and a severe drought can kill trees.

Washington, D.C.

Chilling process may improve treatments

Consider it hibernation-on-demand.

Researchers plunged mice into almost a state of suspended animation and then revived them, with no apparent ill effects, in an experiment that is generating excitement because it might ultimately lead to new ways to treat critically sick people.

It works essentially like hypothermia, in reducing the amount of oxygen needed to survive, scientists from Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center reported Thursday in the journal Science.

Doctors now sometimes use ice to chill stroke victims in hopes of minimizing damage to their brains.

Chilling might help other illnesses, too, buying time for surgeons to stop a trauma victim’s hemorrhaging, for example. But inducing hypothermia is difficult and can take time that patients may not have, so scientists are hunting ways to lower body temperature more effectively.

The new experiment uses a small amount of hydrogen sulfide gas to force the body into a state of hibernation for six hours.

New York

Former ferry director pleads guilty in crash

A former director of the Staten Island ferry pleaded guilty to negligent manslaughter in a 2003 crash that killed 11 passengers, one of the worst mass-transit disasters in city history.

Patrick Ryan admitted in court Friday that he chose not to implement or enforce a rule requiring ferries be operated by two pilots whenever at sea. The Andrew J. Barberi crashed on Oct. 15, 2003, after a lone skipper in the pilot house, Richard Smith, passed out.

Ryan faces a maximum sentence of one year in prison.

Ryan, 53, the city’s chief of ferry operations and the top-ranking official charged in the case, appeared at a loss when asked by U.S. District Judge Edward Korman why he didn’t make sure the two-pilot rule was observed.

Another defendant, former port captain John Mauldin, also pleaded guilty Friday to lying to investigators. Smith, the pilot, is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to 11 counts of negligent manslaughter.

Connecticut

Serial killer mentally able to forgo appeals

Removing a major hurdle to New England’s first execution in 45 years, a Connecticut judge ruled Friday that serial killer Michael Ross is mentally competent to abandon his death row appeals.

“Michael Ross, a competent individual, has the right to make this voluntary decision concerning whether to pursue any further appeals regardless of what others may feel about his decision,” Superior Court Judge Patrick Clifford wrote.

Ross, 45, is scheduled to be die by lethal injection May 11. He has admitted killing and raping eight young women in Connecticut and New York in the early 1980s.

Ross fought off attempts by public defenders, death penalty opponents and his own family to stop his execution last year and came within hours of death in January. His attorney asked for a new competency hearing only after being chastised by a federal judge for helping Ross hasten his execution.

The Connecticut judge’s ruling came after a six-day hearing in which psychiatrists gave conflicting assessments of Ross’ mental competence.

Los Angeles

Former priest sentenced for child molestation

A judge Friday sentenced a defiant former Roman Catholic priest to more than six years in prison for molesting three boys.

The judge said Fernando Lopez, 40, used his position to abuse the boys during a three-year period that began shortly after his transfer to Los Angeles from Rome in 2001.

Two of Lopez’s victims earlier told of lasting pain from the abuse, while nearly two dozen parishioners praised their former priest.

Holding his hands out to the teen and young man in the courtroom, Lopez said: “I would like to offer my forgiveness to those who betrayed my trust and friendship,” Lopez said.

He was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison and ordered to pay restitution and fines as well as register as a sex offender. He will be credited for 10 months served.

Lopez was convicted last month of five felony and three misdemeanor counts. He planned to appeal, his attorney William Moore said.

Lopez was suspended from the church immediately after he was arrested in September.

Virginia

Court upholds sniper’s death sentence

The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday upheld sniper John Allen Muhammad’s murder convictions and death penalty for carrying out what it called a “cruel scheme of terror” that left 10 people dead around the Washington area.

The court brushed aside arguments that Muhammad could not be sentenced to death under state law because he was not the triggerman. And it rejected claims that the post-Sept. 11 terrorism law under which he was prosecuted is unconstitutionally vague.

Muhammad was convicted on two counts of capital murder for the shooting of Dean Harold Meyers in Virginia during the killing spree in October 2002.

The Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the conviction based on the terrorism law but split 4-3 in upholding the conviction under the triggerman rule.

The court’s majority found that even if Muhammad’s teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, pulled the trigger, Muhammad was eligible for the death penalty as an “immediate perpetrator” of slaying.

Atlanta

Governor signs strict voter identification law

Georgia’s Gov. Sonny Perdue signed into law a bill Friday requiring voters to show government-issued photo identification, an issue so emotional for black legislators that they staged a walkout from the Capitol this spring.

The move would give Georgia one of the strictest voter identification laws in the United States. Support for it has split along party lines: While Republicans say it will protect against voter fraud, Democrats say it could prevent as much of 3 percent of the population — especially poor, black and elderly Georgians — from voting.

The law now comes before the U.S. Department of Justice, which must review and approve it under the provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1965 because Georgia has a history of vote suppression. In March, leaders of the Black Legislative Caucus compared the restrictions to Jim Crow-era methods of disfranchisement, like the poll tax or the literacy test.

Washington, D.C.

NASA defends testing, prelaunch safety

NASA officials on Friday denied that they’re cutting corners or cheapening safety standards in preparing the space shuttle for its first flight in more than two years, but they acknowledged there are in-house disputes over how best to analyze and assess improvements made to the orbiter’s heat shielding.

Since the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry on Feb. 1, 2003, NASA engineers have made significant modifications to the foam insulation covering the orbiter’s external fuel tank, and have extensively tested the damage potential of chunks of foam and ice that break free from the tank during launch. A chunk of external tank foam severely damaged the heat shielding on Columbia’s left wing.

The shuttle program’s deputy manager, Wayne Hale, said NASA was not “moving the goal posts” on safety standards to give a more optimistic assessment of the risk of catastrophic foam and ice damage to the orbiter.

Hale was responding to a report in the New York Times, which cited NASA documents suggesting that the agency is deliberately minimizing risk by changing the standards.

Los Angeles

Spinal implants dispute settled for $1.35 billion

A Minneapolis medical device manufacturer said Friday that it would pay a Los Angeles back surgeon and his nonprofit company $1.35 billion to end a long-running dispute over rights to spinal implants and other instruments invented by the doctor.

The deal is believed to be one the largest ever involving an intellectual property dispute. Under its terms, Medtronic Inc. will pay $800 million to acquire many of Dr. Gary Michelson’s inventions and an additional $550 million to settle all legal claims.

Michelson, 56, a former surgeon at Centinela Hospital Medical Center in Inglewood, and his licensing firm, Karlin Technology, would share the total payment.

The dispute centered on rights to implants, surgical tools and techniques that Michelson had licensed in the mid-1990s to Sofamor Danek, a company acquired in 1999 by Medtronic.