Woman's feeding tube won't be removed

Woman's feeding tubewon't be removed
CLEARWATER, Fla. -- A woman who has been in a comalike state for over a decade will continue to have a feeding tube until an appellate court decides her case, a judge ruled Friday.
Circuit Judge George Greer stayed his Nov. 22 ruling that Terri Schiavo's husband could have her feeding tube removed Jan. 3, saying she must be kept alive until the 2nd District Court of Appeal reviews the case.
The 38-year-old has been in a coma-like state since suffering a heart attack in 1990 that temporarily cut off oxygen to her brain.
Her husband and guardian, Michael, says Schiavo's condition is irreversible and she wouldn't want to be kept on life support. But her parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, want the feeding tube kept in place, saying their daughter reacts to them with tears and smiles and could be rehabilitated with new, aggressive therapy.
Schiavo's feeding tube was removed for two days last year on an earlier order from Greer, but another judge ordered it reconnected. Greer reheard the evidence earlier this year and again ordered the tube removed.
The Schindlers' attorney, Pat Anderson, argued Friday that if the judge didn't stay that order, Terri could die before the appeal was heard.
Florida drops chargesagainst Miss Cleo
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The state attorney general's office dropped deceptive business practice charges against the woman known as television psychic "Miss Cleo" as part of its $44 million settlement with her promoter.
Two weeks later, the soothsayer's lawyer is speculating about the government's real reason for prosecuting his client.
In a statement, lawyer William Cone Jr. speculated whether the state sought to prosecute Youree Dell Harris, better known as Miss Cleo, "to put a face on a faceless corporation" or because "she was too accurate."
Harris, who claimed on television to be from Jamaica but was really born in Los Angeles, still "maintains an active practice as a shaman," her lawyer said.
Assistant Attorney General Robert Julian burst out laughing when he heard Cone's charge that the state might have gone after Miss Cleo because she was too good.
"I don't know what she is doing now, but certainly, if we got complaints about what she was doing in the state of Florida, it would be looked into," Julian said.
Best-selling historiandies at age 94
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Dee Brown, who raised awareness of the historical mistreatment of American Indians in his exhaustively researched 1970 book, "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," died Thursday at his home in Little Rock, Ark. He was 94.
The cause was congenital heart failure.
Brown was a librarian by training and a historian and novelist by avocation who wrote or co-authored more than 30 books about the American West over a six-decade career.
His best-selling "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" told the story of how the West was won from the viewpoint of the 19th-century American Indians who witnessed the last major battle between U.S. troops and Indian nations at Wounded Knee, S.D.
The book, which has sold more than 5 million copies and been translated into 15 languages, altered popular perceptions of frontier history. It also helped to revise scholarly views of the subject, paving the way for so-called New Western historians who were more inclined to see oppression than triumph in the way the West was settled.
Brown is survived by a daughter, Linda of Charlotte, N.C., and a son, James Mitchell of Sacramento, Calif.
Japan launches rocket
TOKYO -- A Japanese rocket carrying an Australian satellite lifted off from a remote island today, marking the first time the domestically developed H-2A has been launched with an international payload.
The black and orange rocket, which also carried a satellite designed to monitor the movement of whales, lifted off into blue skies from the Tanegashima Space Center on a small, rocky isle off the coast of southern Japan.
Australia is the first country to entrust Japan with launching a satellite into space, and officials were hoping it would mark a major boost to Japan's efforts to join the commercial satellite launching business.
Japan wasn't making any money this time, however.
It offered last year to put Australia's satellite -- the research pod, FedSat -- into space as a gift for the centennial anniversary of Australia's commonwealth government.
Combined dispatches