QUOTE OF THE DAY “Our choice was to cut the hours or give them health care, and we could not afford the latter.” Mayor Dennis Hanwell
of Medina, Ohio, one of many cities that have limited the work hours of part-time employees to avoid having to provide them with insurance under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Article, 3A2 plead guilty in baseball fan’s beating
LOS ANGELES - Two men charged with severely beating San Francisco Giants fan Bryan Stow in the parking lot of Dodger Stadium in 2011, leaving him with brain damage, pleaded guilty Thursday to assault.
Marvin Norwood, 30, and Louie Sanchez, 31, faced charges of mayhem, assault and battery, and inflicting great bodily injury in the beating of Stow, a 44-year-old father of two.
The March 31 attack left Stow, a Northern California paramedic, with serious head trauma and a permanent disability that means he will need care for the rest of his life.
Norwood was sentenced to four years in prison after he pleaded guilty to assault causing great bodily injury in Los Angeles Superior Court. In exchange, the earlier mayhem charge was dropped.
Sanchez pleaded guilty to one count of mayhem in exchange for eight years in prison. He could have received 11 years in prison if convicted of the original charges.
Oregonian won’t defend same-sex ban
SAN FRANCISCO - Oregon’s attorney general said Thursday that she won’t defend her state’s ban on same-sex marriage, joining other top law-enforcement officials in refusing to fight challenges to similar prohibitions in five other states.
The law “cannot withstand a federal constitutional challenge under any standard of review,” Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in a court filing in Eugene. She said the state will continue to enforce the ban unless it’s overturned by a court.
Rosenblum followed fellow Democratic attorneys general Kamala Harris of California, Mark Herring of Virginia, Lisa Madigan of Illinois, Kathleen Kane of Pennsylvania and Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada in refusing to defend gay-marriage bans against lawsuits.
Litigation over the issue has spiked since a June U.S. Supreme Court decision invalidating part of a law that limited federal recognition to heterosexual marriages. Since then, four courts have overturned state bans on same-sex unions.
Three of those decisions are on hold pending appeal.
Winning-ticket seller given $1 million
MILPITAS, Calif. - A Northern California convenience store that sold the sole winning ticket to the $425 million Powerball jackpot received a $1 million check Thursday, as state lottery officials waited for the winner of one of the largest jackpots in U.S. history to step forward.
The California Lottery presented the check to Parmeet Singh, whose family owns Dixon Landing Chevron in Milpitas, a city about 10 miles north of San Jose that bills itself as The Gateway to the Silicon Valley. In California, retailers who sell winning jackpot tickets receive a share of the prize money up to $1 million, according to lottery officials.
The winner has up to a year to claim the prize and could opt for a lump-sum payment of $242.2 million, according to state lottery officials.
Ship leaves port after probe of 2 deaths
NORFOLK, Va. - The Maersk Alabama left port from the island nation of Seychelles after authorities there completed an onboard investigation into the deaths of two former Navy SEALs aboard the ship that was the focus of a 2009 hijacking, a company spokesman said Thursday.
Seychelles police have given no cause of death for security officers Michael Daniel Kennedy, 43, and Jeffrey Keith Reynolds, 44, who were found dead Tuesday while the ship was berthed in Port Victoria in the Indian Ocean. On Thursday, police spokesman Jean Toussaint said officials were awaiting autopsies.
Later Thursday, Maersk Line Ltd. spokesman Kevin Speers said in a statement that the Seychelles police report said drugs and paraphernalia were present in the room where the two men were found dead, although the type of drug was unknown.
The U.S. Coast Guard has said it also is investigating the deaths.
In 2009, Navy SEALs aboard the USS Bainbridge shot and killed three of the pirates who were holding Capt.
Richard Phillips in a lifeboat, ending the five-day hijacking standoff involving the Maersk Alabama.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 02/21/2014