Connecticut

Supreme Court to hear eminent domain case

Fifteen houses are all that remain of Fort Trumbull, a once vibrant immigrant neighborhood flattened into expanses of rutted grass and gravel.

The homes stand in defiance of New London’s plan to pave the way for a riverfront hotel and convention center, offices and upscale condominiums.

Refusing the city’s efforts to get them to leave, seven families are going before the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, arguing that the city has no right to take their private property solely for economic development. The rebellious homeowners include an elderly Italian immigrant, a mechanic and a former deli owner.

“It’s a case of the rich eating the poor,” said Matthew Dery, who lives in one of four houses on a compound his family has owned since 1901. “Sometimes the poor are difficult to digest.”

Oregon

American Indians protest fence at school

Barbed wire was removed from the top of an 8-foot-high fence being built around an American Indian school after protests by students and tribal members who said it felt like an attempt “to keep the animals” from escaping.

The fence, which construction crews began setting up this week, was ordered by the federal government to improve campus safety and define the grounds at the Chemawa Indian School, a boarding school that serves tribes across the country.

But Larry Byers, the school supervisor, said he was not told about the barbed wire atop the fence before the crews arrived. It was being removed Friday before weekend celebrations of the school’s 125th anniversary.

Nedra Darling, a Bureau of Indian Affairs spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., said the barbed wire was originally meant to be temporary.

“It will be taken off,” Darling said Friday. “We certainly understand the sensitivity of this.”

Virginia

Famous desegregation judge dies at 86

Robert R. Merhige Jr., a federal judge whose rulings forcing schools to desegregate made him so unpopular that for a time he required 24-hour protection, has died. He was 86.

Merhige died Friday at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical Center after undergoing open heart surgery days earlier, his son, Mark R. Merhige, said Saturday.

Named to the federal bench in 1967 by President Lyndon Johnson, Robert R. Merhige Jr. ordered dozens of Virginia’s school systems to desegregate.

After a 1972 decision to consolidate public school systems in Richmond and neighboring counties for the sake of integration, his dog was shot to death and a guest cottage on his property was destroyed by arson.

Last year, Merhige told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that he was still amazed, disappointed and angry at the public reaction to his rulings.

“I thought people would say, ‘We don’t like the little S.O.B., but he’s following the law,”‘ he said. “That didn’t happen.”