Playwright Foote dies

Playwright Foote dies

NEW YORK — Playwright and screenwriter Horton Foote, who movingly portrayed the broken dreams of common people in “The Trip to Bountiful,” “Tender Mercies” and his Oscar-winning screen adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” died Wednesday in Connecticut, Paul Marte, a spokesman for Hartford Stage, said. He was 92.

Foote died in his sleep in his apartment in Hartford, where he was preparing work on “The Orphans’ Home Cycle,” a collection of nine plays, for next September at the nonprofit theater, Marte said.

Foote left the cotton fields of his native Wharton, Texas, as a teenager, dreaming of becoming an actor. But realizing his gifts as a storyteller, he embarked on a writing career that spanned more than half a century and earned him two Academy Awards (“To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Tender Mercies”) and a 1995 Pulitzer Prize for “The Young Man From Atlanta.”

Detective fatally shoots man after attack on judge

FRESNO, Calif. — A man accused of killing his girlfriend was shot to death in a Stockton courtroom Wednesday after he attacked the judge presiding over his murder trial, officials said.

David Paradiso, 28, was shot by a police detective after he left the witness stand and began attacking San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Cinda Fox during a break in proceedings, said Dave Conecny, a spokesman for the sheriff’s department.

Paradiso had been testifying around 2 p.m. when his mother, in the audience, left the courtroom upset. Judge Fox called a recess, and as jurors filed out, Paradiso left the stand and approached the judge from behind “with an unknown cutting instrument,” Conecny said.

Judge Fox, who had a bandage on her left arm as she was carried out of the courthouse on a stretcher, told reporters, “I’m OK,” before being taken to a hospital. Calls to her home were not immediately returned.

Suit: Hospital killed son

PITTSBURGH — The parents of an 18-year-old Ohio man who suffered a brain injury while snowboarding claim in a lawsuit that doctors at a northwestern Pennsylvania hospital intentionally killed him so they could harvest his organs.

The lawsuit claims that Hamot Medical Center doctors and a representative of the Center For Organ Recovery and Education caused Gregory Jacobs’ death by administering medication and by removing his breathing tube, causing him to suffocate.

The suit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh by Jacobs’ parents, Michael and Teresa Jacobs, of Bellevue, Ohio. It seeks more than $5 million for their son’s pain and suffering, medical bills and funeral expenses, plus punitive damages.

The hospital denied the parents’ accusations.

‘Octomom’ legislation

ATLANTA — Lawmakers in two states, outraged by California’s “Octomom,” are seeking to limit the number of embryos that may be implanted by fertility clinics.

The legislation in Missouri and Georgia is intended to spare taxpayers from footing the bill for women having more children than they can afford. But critics say the measures also would make having even one child more difficult for women who desperately want to become mothers.

Fertility doctors argue that decisions on how many embryos to transfer should be left up to medical experts familiar with a patient’s individual circumstances.

Afghan vote date remains

KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan election commission rejected President Hamid Karzai’s request to move the presidential elections to the spring, saying the country won’t be safe enough or have enough money by then to hold a vote.

The commission’s decision came Wednesday as a car bomb exploded outside the main U.S. base at Bagram, underscoring the shaky security situation the country faces as a resurgent Taliban militia increases its attacks.

Karzai had asked the commission to move the elections from Aug. 20 to spring, but the commission said it could not because of bad spring weather, lack of funds, security issues and logistical problems like the distribution of ballots.

Election officials say high mountain snows would prevent many thousands of Afghans from voting in the spring.

Associated Press