The nation in brief

— QUOTE OF THE DAY

“The system was in fact flashing red in Libya and Benghazi.”

Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental

Affairs Committee, on the state of security at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, before the deadly attack on Sept. 11, 2012 Article, 1A

10 pardoned in N.C. after 40-year wait

RALEIGH, N.C. - Outgoing North Carolina Gov.

Beverly Perdue issued pardons Monday to the “Wilmington 10,” a group wrongly convicted 40 years ago in a Civil Rights-era prosecution.

Perdue issued pardons of innocence Monday for the nine black men and one white woman who received prison sentences totaling nearly 300 years for the 1971 firebombing of a Wilmington grocery store during three days of violence that included the shooting of a black teenager by police.

The three key witnesses in the case later recanted their testimony.

In 1978, then-Gov. Jim Hunt commuted their sentences but withheld a pardon. Two years later, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., threw out the convictions, saying perjury and prosecutorial misconduct were factors in the verdicts.

The surviving members of the Wilmington 10 are Benjamin Chavis, Reginald Epps, James McKoy, Wayne Moore, Marvin Patrick and Willie Earl Vereen. Those who have died are Jerry Jacobs, Ann Shepard, Connie Tindall and Joe Wright.

Bus crash survivor one of many ejected

PENDLETON, Ore. - A survivor of a deadly bus crash in Eastern Oregon said Monday that she and several other passengers were ejected after the tour bus smashed through a guardrail and plummeted down an embankment.

Twenty-two-year-old Berlyn Sanderson of Canada said windows on the bus broke as it careened down the embankment, and she and a number of others were thrown out.

She said the bus began skidding on ice before it hit the guardrail on Interstate 84 and plummeted200 feet down an embankment.

Sunday’s crash killed nine people and sent more than 30 others to hospitals.

Company exempted from health law

DETROIT - A federal judge has ruled a property management company owned by the founder of Domino’s Pizza doesn’t have to immediately implement mandatory contraception coverage in the health care law.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Zatkoff ruled Sunday in favor of Tom Monaghan and his Domino’s Farms Corp., near Ann Arbor.

Monaghan, a devout Roman Catholic, contends that contraception isn’t health care but a “gravely immoral” practice.

Zatkoff granted Monaghan’s emergency motion for a temporary restraining order until a final decision is made in the case.

In a related case, a lawyer for craft chain Hobby Lobby, which unsuccessfully appealed to the Supreme Court for a stay on the contraceptives mandate, said the company will defy the law and refuse to provide health coverage for emergency contraceptives they considered to be “abortion inducing.”

The Oklahoma Citybased chain is owned by a conservative Christian family that also has holdings in the religious bookseller Mardel Inc.

Front Section, Pages 3 on 01/01/2013

Upcoming Events