Changes in safe-haven law


Changes in safe-haven law

LINCOLN, Neb. — Stung by the abandonment of children as old as 17 at Nebraska hospitals, the governor and lawmakers struck a deal Monday to rewrite the state’s safe-haven law so it applies only to infants up to 3 days old.

A rash of drop-offs in recent months, particularly those of teenagers and from out of state, thrust the state into the national spotlight.

Forty of the 49 senators in the unicameral Legislature and Gov. Dave Heineman have agreed to the changes, Speaker of the Legislature Mike Flood said during a news conference Monday.

The state’s safe-haven law allows caregivers to abandon children — interpreted by some to include those as old as 18 — at hospitals without fear of prosecution. The age cap would change Nebraska’s safe-haven law from the most lenient in the country to one of the most restrictive. Sixteen other states have a similar 3-day-old age cap.

Taliban kill aid worker

KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban assailants on a motorbike gunned down a Christian aid worker in Kabul on Monday, and the militants said she was killed for spreading her religion — a rare targeted killing of a Westerner in the nation’s capital.

Gayle Williams, a 34-year-old dual British-South African national who helped handicapped Afghans, was shot to death as she was walking to work about 8 a.m., said Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary.

A spokesman for the militants said the Taliban ordered her killed because she was accused of proselytizing.

Britain’s secretary of state for international development called the killing a “callous and cowardly act” and said Williams was in Afghanistan to help ease poverty.

’70s comedian dies

AKRON — Raunchy 1970’s comedian Rudy Ray Moore, who played a flashy pimp in the 1975 movie “Dolemite,” has died in Akron from diabetes complications. He was 81.

Gerald Moore says his brother died Sunday evening. Services are planned in Akron and Spokane, Wash., where most of his family lived.

Rudy Ray Moore, born Rudolph Frank Moore, was part of the heyday of black “party records.” His stage personality featured blunt sex routines, but unlike contemporaries Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor, he never crossed over to the white audience mainstream.

BYU withholds degree

SALT LAKE CITY — Brigham Young University has yanked the diploma of a man who created a calendar featuring shirtless Mormon missionaries and was later excommunicated from the church.

Chad Hardy of Las Vegas attended graduation ceremonies Aug. 15 after finishing up his last four units of study online in June. But on July 13, in between completing his studies and the graduation ceremony, he was excommunicated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

A Sept. 30 letter from Norman B. Finlinson, the school’s executive director of student academic and advisement services, said a nonacademic hold was placed on Hardy’s record after the church-owned university learned of the excommunication.

Hardy, 31, plans to challenge the school’s decision.

Walesa’s autobiography

WARSAW, Poland — Former Polish President Lech Walesa on Monday presented a new autobiography that he hopes will put to rest allegations he served as a communist agent in the 1970s.

“The Road to the Truth. An Autobiography” — the third book by Walesa, 65, a hero of the anti-communist movement — hit Polish bookstores Friday. Walesa said the release was timed to coincide with the 25th anniversary of his 1983 Nobel Peace Prize win.

It comes months after two historians with the state-run National Remembrance Institute claimed that Walesa — then an electrician at the Gdansk shipyard — collaborated with the secret police between 1970 and 1972 and provided information on the activities of shipyard workers.

2nd arrest in abduction

LAS VEGAS — Another arrest has been made in the investigation into the abduction of a 6-year-old Nevada boy found safe over the weekend, federal authorities said Monday.

FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said Monday that 42-year-old Terri Leavy was taken into custody by Fontana, Calif., police officers Sunday. Leavy is believed to be the companion of Clemons Fred Tinnemeyer, the grandfather of the boy, Cole Puffinburger.

Authorities said Leavy was wanted on an outstanding federal material witness warrant.

Police have said Cole’s grandfather may have stolen millions of dollars from drug dealers, but they have declined to elaborate and haven’t said whether the kidnappers sought a ransom.

Associated Press

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