Florida agency settles negligence lawsuit

Florida agency settlesnegligence lawsuit
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- The family of an elderly man who died after living in rat-infested squalor while under the care of the Department of Children & amp; Families has settled a lawsuit with the agency.
Relatives of Clarence Lewis will receive $100,000, the maximum per incident for which a state institution can be sued in a negligence case, the family's lawyers announced Tuesday.
The lawsuit alleged a DCF investigator closed Lewis' file without following up on a report that the man's ceiling was falling down, his couches were rotten and that sewage had backed up in the home.
The caseworker, who was denied entry to the home by Lewis, spoke with him outside and closed the file despite noticing "a strong odor coming from the home," according to the family's law firm, Montgomery & amp; Larson.
Lewis suffered a stroke and was found unconscious in his home in October, 2001, with rats eating at his feet. He died the following month.
Nader decides not to seekGreen Party nomination
WASHINGTON -- Ralph Nader's decision against running as the Green Party's presidential candidate has upset some party officials who thought he would be the likely nominee, but not Dave Cobb.
Cobb, the party's general counsel and candidate for president, welcomes the open field. "I am finding myself in the position of being the clear front-runner in the party," said Cobb, a California attorney.
But Nader, who carried the Green Party banner in 2000, hasn't ruled out an independent bid for president.
Nader, whom some Democrats blame for pulling decisive votes away from Al Gore, told Green Party officials Monday that he did not want their nomination. He plans to announce by January whether he will run as an independent -- a possibility that some in the Green Party are already trying to shoot down.
National party officials dismissed the notion that the 69-year-old Nader could get his name on many state ballots without the network of the Green Party, with 300,000 registered members.
Fight over Dean's records
WASHINGTON -- Vermont's attorney general says the state should dismiss a lawsuit seeking to open the gubernatorial records of Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean on grounds the former governor's papers are not subject to the state's public records law.
The move by Attorney General William Sorrell came Tuesday in response to a lawsuit by Judicial Watch, a Washington-based group that wants to unseal the documents. Dean's rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination have used the issue of the sealed papers to criticize his calls for openness in government.
At issue are 145 boxes of papers that Dean ordered sealed for 10 years when he left office in January. He also gave the state 190 boxes that were immediately available to the public.
"Judicial Watch, Inc., is not presently entitled to inspect the gubernatorial papers that were sealed by Governor Dean" under the terms of an agreement between Dean and the secretary of state, Sorrell said in his filing.
Queen's dog mauled
LONDON -- Queen Elizabeth II was mourning the death of one of her beloved corgis, mauled by a terrier belonging to her daughter Princess Anne, a British newspaper reported today.
The Sun tabloid said Pharos the corgi was injured in an altercation with bull terrier Dotty at the royal family's Sandringham estate on Monday. The corgi was treated by royal vets for leg injuries but had to be put down, the newspaper said.
Buckingham Palace would not comment on the alleged attack.
The queen is a noted corgi fancier, and has owned more than 30 of the petite Welsh cattle dogs.
Dotty has been in trouble before. In April 2002 she bit two children, aged 7 and 12, as they walked in Windsor Great Park near Windsor Castle.
Taiwanese spy ring?
SHANGHAI, China -- China said today it has broken up a ring that spied for rival Taiwan and that 24 Taiwanese and 19 Chinese have been captured and confessed.
The announcement, reported by the official Xinhua News Agency, didn't identify those detained or say what they were accused of doing for Taiwan, the self-ruling island that Beijing claims as its territory.
Taiwan's government already had denied that its agents were arrested after the story appeared this week in a Hong Kong newspaper.
Today, Taiwan's Vice President Annette Lu dismissed the Xinhua report as an attempt to embarrass President Chen Shui-bian ahead of the island's March 20 presidential election.
"Let's not believe in rumors," Lu said during a campaign appearance.
Associated Press