Judge blocks Neb. gay-marriage ban

Judge blocks Neb. gay-marriage ban

OMAHA, Neb.

Nebraska’s same-sex marriage ban was thrown into question Monday alongside those in three nearby states that are set for a hearing before a federal appeals court.

U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Bataillon struck down Nebraska’s constitutional amendment, triggering an appeal less than an hour later by the state attorney general’s office.

Nurse sues hospital

DALLAS

The Dallas hospital that treated the first patient to be diagnosed in the U.S. with Ebola lied to Congress when it said its staff was trained to handle the deadly virus, a nurse who contracted the disease contends in a lawsuit filed Monday.

Nina Pham, who was an intensive-care unit nurse at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas, says after being told last fall that she would be treating a patient suspected of having Ebola, “the sum total” of information she was given to protect herself was “what her manager ‘Googled’ and printed out from the Internet.”

20 reported killed when bus plummets

BEIJING

A bus carrying an opera troupe fell off a cliff in central China today, killing 20 people and injuring 13, state media reported.

The accident happened early today in Linzhou city in Henan province, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The bus was carrying members of a local opera troupe, according to the government of Anyang city, which oversees the smaller Linzhou.

Amish attackers get reduced terms

CLEVELAND

A judge reduced the prison sentences Monday for the leader of a breakaway Amish group and seven followers after their hate-crime convictions were thrown out in their hair- and beard-chopping attacks against fellow members of the faith.

The Ohio group’s leader, Samuel Mullet Sr., saw his 15-year term reduced to 10 years, nine months. His followers got up to two years taken off their sentences and will serve 31/2 or five years.

Sixteen men and women in all were convicted in a string of attacks on seven fellow Amish in 2011. Most of the victims were awakened in the middle of the night and restrained while their hair — an important symbol of their faith — was cut.

Mom convicted of poisoning son

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y.

A woman who blogged for years about her son’s constant health woes was convicted Monday of poisoning him to death by force-feeding heavy concentrations of sodium through his stomach tube.

A jury in the New York suburbs found Lacey Spears, of Scottsville, Ky., guilty of second-degree murder in the death last year of 5-year-old Garnett-Paul Spears.

The defense portrayed Spears as a caring mother and her son as sickly, but the prosecution argued Spears reveled in the attention his illness brought her. Video showed Spears twice taking him into a hospital bathroom with a connector tube and him suffering afterward.

Execution on hold

JACKSON, Ga.

Corrections officials have postponed Georgia’s first execution of a woman in 70 years, citing problems with the lone drug that would be used for the lethal injection.

The only drug used in Georgia executions is pentobarbital.

Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gwendolyn Hogan said late Monday that the drug appeared cloudy so officials called a pharmacist and then decided to postpone the execution.

Associated Press