Florida

Orange becomes state’s official fruit

It’s a safe assumption that the orange is Florida’s official state fruit, right?

After all, Florida orange juice is sold worldwide, the Orange Bowl brings thousands to the state every New Year’s Day and the fruit’s image is on the state’s license plates. And if the Legislature had time to name the zebra longwing the state’s official butterfly, surely it took a moment to put King Orange on his throne.

In fact, it took Janet Shapiro’s students at Southside Elementary School to get state officials to recognize the orange. A bill was passed this spring, and Gov. Jeb Bush signed it at the school Friday.

Bush said he was “completely surprised” that while the orange blossom is the state flower and orange juice is Florida’s official beverage, the role of official fruit was vacant. Citrus generates an estimated $9.1 billion in economic activity in Florida and employs nearly 90,000 people.

Illinois

Legislature votes to pull Sudanese investments

Illinois lawmakers have voted to have the state sell off about $1 billion worth of investments in companies doing business with Sudan, part of a nationwide campaign to protest genocide in the African nation.

If Gov. Rod Blagojevich signs the legislation, Illinois would become the first state in the nation to pull investments from companies with Sudanese ties. Similar legislation is pending elsewhere, and Harvard University also recently announced plans to stop Sudanese investments.

The Sudanese region of Darfur has been the site of an upheaval where about 180,000 people have died since fighting flared in February 2003. An estimated 2 million others have been forced to flee the region.

The conflict erupted when rebels took up arms against what they saw as years of state neglect and discrimination against Sudanese of African origin. The government is accused of responding with wide-scale abuses against the African population.

Sen. Jacqueline Collins, who pushed the bill through the Illinois Senate with unanimous support, said she modeled her proposal on laws passed in the 1980s that put pressure on South Africa to end apartheid.

Boston

Law banning Indians repealed

Gov. Mitt Romney signed a bill Friday repealing a 330-year-old law that barred Indians from setting foot in Boston.

The 1675 law, adopted when settlers were at war with the Massachusetts Bay Colony’s tribes, had not been enforced for centuries, but was still a source of anger for Indians.

“It is our hope that signing this bill into law will provide some closure to a very painful and old chapter in Massachusetts history,” Romney said. “This archaic law belongs in the history books, not the law books.”

With little fanfare, the Massachusetts Legislature voted unanimously Thursday to strike the law from the books.

Chris “Quiet Bear” Montgomery, a Nipmuc Indian who lives in Revere, testified at a legislative hearing that the law was “a black mark against the state of Massachusetts. Not just Boston, but the whole state.”

Indians and activists worked for about eight years to get rid of the law. Before the Democratic National Convention last year, a Cape Cod coalition of Indian tribes called for its repeal.

Chicago

Jury rules for Tribune in prosecutor’s libel case

The Chicago Tribune did not libel a former suburban prosecutor who accused the newspaper of knowingly publishing an error in a 1999 story as part of a “witch hunt” against him, a jury found Friday.

Former DuPage County Assistant State’s Attorney Thomas Knight had represented himself in his case against the Tribune, whose attorney characterized the error as an innocent mistake.

“I’m very relieved,” said Ann Marie Lipinski, the Tribune’s editor. “This was important journalism and it was important to defend it.”

Because he is a public figure, Knight had to prove not only that the Tribune’s story was false, but also that the paper acted with “actual malice,” or that defamatory statements were published with reckless disregard for the truth.

Knight said he was considering whether to appeal.

The libel case focused on 29 words from a 4,000-word story Jan. 12, 1999, part of a five-part series titled “Trial and Error: How Prosecutors Sacrifice Justice to Win.”