| Provision thrown out in WR Grace case
A federal judge has again thrown out a key portion of the criminal case against W.R. Grace and Co. and seven one-time employees.The dismissed allegations were a central element of a conspiracy count that lies at the core of the case against Grace, and accused top executives of knowingly endangering miners and residents in Libby, where the company's now-defunct vermiculite mine released dangerous cancer-causing asbestos into the air. .
Victims free to sue decades later
VICTIMS of childhood sexual assault, medical negligence and workplace accidents could now sue for damages decades after the event, following a landmark High Court decision that will force former ATSIC chairman Geoff Clark to defend claims he led the 1971 pack-rape of a 16-year-old girl. Carol Stingel was "over the moon" yesterday with the court judgment clearing the way for her to sue the Aboriginal leader despite 35 years passing since the alleged attack. It will be the first time Mr Clark has had to respond to the rape allegations, as no criminal case was ever mounted and he has waged a constant battle to strike Ms Stingel's claim out of the Victorian courts. The decision significantly expands the number of cases that can now proceed even if the legal time limits for taking court action have expired.
Red Baron Lands in Topeka
It's a feat that's never been completed before: "Red" Baron Tayler is flying non-stop on a four month journey across the country, but not in a plane-- in a powered parachute. And on America's birthday, Tayler brings a whole new meaning to Independence Day. "You've broken that bond with the earth, you're flying along," says Tayler of time in his powered parachute. But it's not just freedom in the air that motivates Tayler to keep flying. "I had to set down the other day because of wind, I knock on the door, you don't know what to expect," says Tayler, "they invite me in, make us this big breakfast, this is what makes America, these are the people that make America run." Unlike any powered parachute pilot before him, Tayler took off from the deck of an aircraft carrier in California and unlike any pilot before him, he'll make the trek across the country, landing on the USS Yorktown in Pennsylvania-- in a flight that'll go down in the history books.
Louis Winnick, 85, pushed low-income homeownership
MANHASSET, N.Y. Louis Winnick, an economist who helped guide the investments of the Ford Foundation and promoted low-income homeownership, has died. He was 85. Winnick died Saturday at a hospice in Manhasset, on Long Island. The cause of death was mesothelioma, a type of lung cancer that his daughter Pamela Winnick attributed to exposure to asbestos when he worked in the Brooklyn Navy Yard during World War II. Winnick was born in Romania and went to Brooklyn when he was 1. He graduated from Brooklyn College and earned a graduate degree in economics at Columbia University. He worked for the New York City Planning Commission and the Housing and Redevelopment Board before joining the Ford Foundation in 1962. He served as deputy vice president in the national affairs division from 1968 to 1986.
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