SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Three men who said job offers were rescinded because they did not disclose they had HIV can sue American Airlines alleging discrimination, a federal appeals court has ruled.
The airline can request medical information, but only after it has completed background checks and made a job offer, according to Friday's ruling from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
This allows applicants to decide whether to disclose personal information and makes it possible to determine if an application was rejected illegally, the court said.
The three Bay Area men said American offered them jobs as flight attendants in 1998 and 1999 on the condition that they pass medical exams and background checks.
They were asked about their medical histories and none mentioned having the virus. They disclosed their conditions after blood tests showed they were using HIV medication, then received letters withdrawing their offers of jobs because of the concealment.
"It's a huge victory for people with hidden disabilities," Todd Schneider, a lawyer for the applicants, told the Oakland Tribune.
Calls seeking comment from American Airlines representatives were not immediately returned Sunday.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — More than 40 surfers cruised into the record books Saturday when they successfully rode a giant surfboard off an Australian beach, breaking the previous world record set by an English team of 14 people in 2003.
More than 5,000 people gathered Saturday to watch riders conquer the 40-foot-long, 10-foot-wide board, newspapers reported. The board, created by board shaper Nev Hyman, arrived by semitrailer. More than 20 people carried it to the surf.
The riders at the Queensland state tourist city, Gold Coast, where the Quiksilver and Roxy Pro surf competitions were held, included pro surfers Chris Ward of California and Australian champion Danny Wills.
Newspaper reports of how many riders took part ranged from 44 to 47.
Hyman said the four-minute ride to shore was worth the monthlong effort to build the board.
"It was the best four minutes of my surfing life. It went in strong and straight," Hyman told Queensland's The Sunday Mail newspaper.
The board that set the 2003 record was 36 feet long.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Cases alleging negligence at two northern California Roman Catholic dioceses are scheduled to go to trial Monday, making them the first of about 150 civil suits filed by alleged victims of sexual abuse by priests since the statute of limitations was temporarily lifted in 2002.
The trials involving the San Francisco and Oakland dioceses are scheduled to begin Monday in Alameda County Superior Court before two separate judges. But the Oakland case may be delayed after a judge ordered a settlement conference for Monday.
"The bishop is hoping mediation works," said the Rev. Mark Wiesner, spokesman for the diocese.
The case set for trial against the Oakland diocese was filed by a 34-year-old former altar boy, who now lives in Arizona. The man claims he was abused by former priest Robert Ponciroli at St. Ignatius Church in Antioch. Ponciroli, 68, now lives in Florida and is not a defendant in the case.
A second claimant in that same case is the man's brother, according to Stephen McFeely, a lawyer for the diocese.
The case against the San Francisco diocese was filed by a man who alleges abuse by the late Rev. Joseph Pritchard while the man was a student at St. Martin of Tours Church in San Jose. The man, now in his mid-40s, has said the abuse took place in 1972 and 1973.
Pritchard, who died of cancer in 1998 before the allegations became known, was the son of a former Santa Clara mayor. Pritchard was pastor at St. Martin from 1972 to 1979, before he was transferred to St. Nicholas Parish in Los Altos.
Trials for four additional claimants against Pritchard will follow.
More than 850 alleged victims are suing dioceses throughout the state, with millions of dollars in potential settlements at stake. The scope is so vast that the lawsuits have been lumped geographically into three consolidated cases, known simply as Clergy I, Clergy II and Clergy III, which are the Northern California cases.
A 2002 state law temporarily suspended the statute of limitations for filing molestation lawsuits, opening the door for hundreds of claims. In July, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Ronald Sabraw, who is handling Clergy III, upheld the constitutionality of that law and allowed all but a handful of the Northern California cases to proceed.
Dozens of lawyers have been participating in settlement talks for the past two weeks. Everyone involved in the negotiations is prevented by law from talking about specifics.
"Trials are scheduled, we're talking," said Paul Gaspari, lawyer for the San Francisco diocese. "It's a very fluid situation."
In December, alleged victims agreed to a record $100 million settlement with the Diocese of Orange County, resolving 90 lawsuits that included allegations against 31 priests, 10 lay personnel, one religious brother and two nuns.
In 2002, the Archdiocese of Boston agreed to pay $85 million to 552 plaintiffs.
HAVILAH, Calif. (AP)— The woman involved in a brutal chimpanzee attack says her husband pushed her away from the rampaging animals and took the brunt of the violence to save her.
Two male chimps viciously attacked St. James Davis and his wife, LaDonna, at an animal sanctuary 30 miles east of Bakersfield where they were visiting their former pet chimp, Moe.
St. James Davis lost all the fingers from both hands, an eye, part of his nose, cheek, lips, and part of his buttocks in the ferocious attack, his wife, LaDonna Davis, told NBC's "Today Show" Saturday. His foot was mutilated and his heel bone cracked.
St. James Davis, 62, was in stable condition at Loma Linda University Medical Center, his wife said.
LaDonna Davis, 64, who lost a thumb in the attack, told the Los Angeles Times Friday she saw the two chimps from the corner of her eye on Thursday as she and her husband were about to cut a birthday cake for Moe, who stayed in his cage during the attack at the Animal Haven Ranch.
"I turned around and they started charging," she said. One of the animals pushed her against a wall and bit off her left thumb.
"James saw that, pushed me behind a table and took the brunt of everything else," she said.
The ferocity of the attack stunned paramedics and law enforcement authorities on the scene.
"I've been around for 30 years in this job, and I've never seen anything like this," said Kern County Sheriff's Cmdr. Hal Chealander.
The attack ended when the sanctuary owner's son-in-law shot and killed the chimps — Buddy, 15, and Ollie, 13.
Officials are investigating how the chimps escaped from their outdoor cage.
"The attack itself isn't being investigated. That's animal instinct," said Chealander. "It appears it was unprovoked on the part of the Davises. What provoked the chimpanzees was something from within the chimpanzees. Whether it was jealousy or some other primal factor, it was something within their own makeup that triggered this."
Chealander said authorities have gathered most of the information they need and probably won't reach any conclusions until midweek. No one at the sanctuary has been arrested or cited.
The Davises were visiting Moe to celebrate his 39th birthday. Authorities removed Moe from their home in 1999 after biting a woman and a police officer.
The Animal Haven Ranch is a private sanctuary that has been licensed by the state since 1996 to take in primates, usually from zoos that no longer want them.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Art Franks had already paid $38.00 to park a rental car near Fisherman's Wharf and $12.00 a day for hotel Internet access. So the Atlanta businessman wasn't pleased to hear that the city might boost the price of a cable car ride by $2.00 a trip.
"The city has problems with pollution and overcrowding as it is, and I think it could bring down tourism," the Atlanta businessman said. "One of the things I like about San Francisco is the bus and the cable cars. I think it's a pretty good deal now, but I wouldn't want to pay more."
But many of the tourists who had lined up for the scenic trip on Sunday morning said that the extra cost wouldn't keep them away from one of the city's most popular attractions. Visitors say a trip on a cable car from downtown to the wharf is a required part of any trip to San Francisco, along with stops at Alcatraz, Coit Tower and the Golden Gate Bridge.
"It's one of the things that you can't go home without doing, although we think they could have made 8-and-under free," said one mother getting in line with her husband and two children who declined to give her name.
Facing continued budget shortfalls, the board that oversees public transportation in the city voted last week to raise the price of a cable car ride from $3 to $5 — the most expensive local transit fare in the country. The price for a ride was raised by $1.00 in 2003. Maggie Lynch, a municipal railway spokeswoman, conceded that cable cars face a bigger proposed hike than buses because they target tourists.
Biba Walker 22, of London, said she didn't believe the extra costs would stop any visitors from taking the ride.
"Tourists are always going to pay, and it won't make a difference to us," said Walker, visiting the city with her friend, 26-year-old Derek Crumpler of London. "Plus, it's the only way to get up these hills."
"The dollar is quite weak for us so it's cheap anyway," said Andrew Smith, 32, who lives outside London and was traveling with his girlfriend.
Kathy Dunn, 57, said the extra cost wouldn't make tourists take a cheaper bus ride or a comparably priced taxi.
"It's a big city and big cities are expensive," said Dunn, of Salisbury, N.C. "If a tourist is going to go on the cable car it will only be once or twice so it isn't going to make a difference."
The proposal still must be approved by Mayor Gavin Newsom and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. The board also proposed to raise the price of parking, parking tickets and bus rides.
Two days after the hike was proposed, cable car service was stopped for several hours when workers staged a brief strike over the firing of fellow employees.
Ricky Teague, a 48-year-old homeless man who hawks "Street Sheet" newspapers and self-published poetry near the cable car stop, said he expects a downturn in service if fees increase.
"They only ride this because they see it on TV, you know, 'Rice-A-Roni," he said, referring to the longtime TV ad campaign featuring cable cars. "But it will upset tourists if it's too much. They will take a bus and go the opposite way."
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — Scientists working at the Copan archaeological site in western Honduras said Sunday they have unearthed the 1,450-year-old remains of 69 people, as well as 30 previously undiscovered ancient Mayan buildings.
Copan, about 200 miles west of Tegucigalpa, the capital, flourished between A.D. 250 and 900, part of a vast Mayan empire which stretched across parts of modern-day Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. The site was eventually abandoned, due at least in part to overpopulation, historians believe.
Seiichi Nakamura, one of a team of Japanese scientists working alongside Honduran counterparts, said the human remains likely belong to people who inhabited Copan around 550.
Nakamura said offerings were discovered in and around the sites where the bones were buried and artifacts found near the remains of a 12-year-old child were among the richest ever discovered in Copan, meaning the youngster was likely an important member of Mayan society.
Scientists hope to open the area to tourists in 2007, Nakamura said.
The first European report of Copan is believed to be that of Diego Garcia de Palacios, a representative of Spain's King Felipe II. On March 8, 1576, he wrote to the crown with news of the archaeological site. Accounts published by U.S. explorers John L. Stephens and Frederick Catherwood made the site an international phenomenon in the 1840s.
Once a thriving commercial center, the ancient Maya are thought to have first settled in Copan around 1200 B.C.
UNESCO declared Copan a world heritage site in 1981.\
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A 2-year-old boy was fatally injured when he ran into the path of an ice cream truck in the parking lot of his apartment complex, and the driver allegedly left the scene, authorities said Sunday.
Angela Rodriguez, 27, later turned herself in and was charged with leaving the scene of a fatality, which carries a possible 15-year prison sentence. She was jailed Sunday in lieu of $100,000 bail.
Witnesses said the driver got out of her truck after Saturday's accident and moved the boy, Moses Joseph, before driving away.
When Rodriguez got home, her husband saw blood on her hands, thought she was injured and started to drive her to a hospital, Palm Beach County sheriff's spokeswoman Teri Barbera said Sunday.
Rodriguez then "told her husband that she thinks she may have hit a small child and the husband said, 'You need to do the right thing,"' Barbera said.
Rodriguez surrendered at the sheriff's office.
Moses died after his mother, Emmanuelle Richard, ran to him.
"That's all she has," said family friend John Chery, who had been on his way to pick up Moses to go to a park. "You just don't know how lovable this child was."
LITTLE ROCK (AP) — Nearly two years after he embarked on a diet and fitness regimen that left him 110 pounds lighter and diabetes free, Gov. Mike Huckabee finished the Little Rock Marathon Sunday ahead of his new running mate — Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa.
The crowd cheered as Huckabee turned the corner toward the finish line and started the last stretch of the 26.2 mile race. Huckabee finished in just over 4.5 hours and hugged his two sons and daughter.
"What do you say? Is that not cool?" the Republican governor said, holding up his medal afterward before heading over to the VIP tent for a massage and two Diet Pepsis.
Vilsack, a Democrat, had given an early concession speech the day before and finished about 40 minutes after Huckabee, who waited at the finish line and hugged his friend as he crossed, giving him his finisher's medal.
Huckabee said afterward that he watched the movie "Rocky" the night before the race to get pumped up.
"I never felt I was going to quit," he said. "I never hit a point where I thought I couldn't do it. I felt good all the way through the finish, and I was kicking it at the end."
Arkansas' first lady Janet Huckabee walked the entire 26 miles, while Iowa first lady Christie Vilsack walked the first seven miles of the marathon.
Huckabee has championed healthy living in public talks nationwide and media interviews after losing more than 100 pounds from eating right and exercise. He invited the Iowa governor to join him in the race a few weeks ago at a Washington, D.C., meeting.
As the governors and their wives met outside the Clinton Presidential Library Saturday for a tour of the center, Vilsack said his state was following Huckabee's lead and taking a closer look at the problem of obesity.
More than 1,500 people were expected to attempt the marathon.
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (AP) — More than 700 soldiers and federal and state agents took to the streets of this important city on the Mexico-U.S. border Sunday to help local authorities control an increasing wave of violence believed to be drug-related.
On Saturday, two men whose mouths were covered with adhesive tape, were shot and killed inside a sedan left beside a highway linking Nuevo Laredo and the city of Monterrey.
Those killings came less than 24 hours after a gunman on a bicycle opened fire on a group of men smoking marijuana and drinking beer as they sat in a parked car in this city's Colonia Victoria neighborhood around 11:30 p.m. Friday. Two passengers were killed and a bystander was wounded in that attack.
The four victims raised to 20 the number of people who have been killed in ambush-style shootings in Nuevo Laredo so far this year. The city is located across from Laredo, Texas.
Arturo Jimenez, a commander of the Federal Preventative Police, said in addition to the massive mobilization of forces, investigators would begin interviewing Nuevo Laredo municipal police officers and state prosecutors in search of those who may be taking bribes from drug smuggling gangs.
"It's difficult to combat crime when there are a lot of allies of organized crime who block our efforts," said Jimenez, who was sent to oversee the Nuevo Laredo crackdown by Mexico's Public Safety Secretary Ramon Huerta.
Jimenez said the first priority will be re-establishing law and order, but that soldiers and agents would also eventually play an active role in going after key drug smugglers.
The border region in Mexico's northeast has seen an increase in drug violence after the area's alleged kingpin, Osiel Cardenas, was arrested in 2003 in the border city of Matamoros.
Authorities say the violence has intensified in recent months because another reputed drug lord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, has been fighting smugglers loyal to Cardenas to gain access to the drug smuggling routes in Nuevo Laredo.
Around 9 a.m. Sunday, more than 40 vehicles loaded down with federal agents rolled into the city, while soldiers arrived to patrol poorer, violent neighborhoods.
Dispatching federal and state authorities and soldiers to problem spots along the U.S.-Mexico border is not new. In recent years, special forces have descended on Tijuana and soldiers and federal agents were deployed to Nuevo Laredo amid growing violence here as recently as January.
In the past, reinforcements usually have calmed violence-ridden areas for a few days, but have had little long-term effect.
The deployment comes in the wake of a U.S. State Department issued travel advisory from late January which altered citizens to recent drug-trafficking and kidnapping violence on the Mexican side of the shared border. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will visit Mexico City on Thursday to discuss security, migration and economic issues.
Juan Antonio Varela, a state police commander, said the assailants in Saturday's double-slaying used R-15 assault rifles and that investigators found 18 shell casings at the scene.
The victims, identified only as two men ages 25 and 30, were found in the front seats of a Nissan with Texas license plates around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, after an employee at a nearby hotel called police reporting gunfire.
Both victims were dressed casually, suggesting their killers probably kidnapped them from their homes and drove them to the scene of the shootings, Varela said.
Friday's killing saw the gunmen shoot a 24-year-old man in the parked car six times in the face, neck and shoulder. Another passenger, age 22, sustained two gunshot wounds to the chest and died while being treated at the city's General Hospital. Police said he was carrying a bag of marijuana at the time of his death.
A third victim, who was standing with his girlfriend near the parked car when the shooting began, was injured by a bullet that struck him in the left arm.
STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) — Portly police have a new reason to work out thanks to a new security entrance at the National Police headquarters that won't let them in if they weigh too much.
A construction error in the recently remodeled security entrance, which has a built-in scale designed to only let one person at a time pass through the door, has caused some embarrassing moments for officers who may not have spent enough time exercising.
Those weighing more than 230 pounds who try to pass through the entrance are greeted by a recorded voice telling them: "Stop! One at a time!" and are not let through, police spokeswoman Linda Widmark said.
She said the scale is supposed to be adjustable to let people weighing up to 350 pounds pass through, but an apparent construction error is playing tricks on those with ample girth.
"We'll have to get that fixed," Widmark said. "We've got some big strong men around here."
The security entrance is mainly for visitors and police denied entrance can use other doors.
"There are other options for them," she said.
——— AP Photo IDPOC101
INKOM, Idaho (AP) — Torri Hutchinson's cat might just have one less life to live.
Hutchison was driving along Interstate 15 one day recently when a motorist kept trying to get her attention and pointing to the roof of her car.
She said she was wary of the man, but wondered if perhaps her ski rack might have come loose.
She pulled over to the side, but kept her doors locked and the motor running.
The man pulled up behind her. Hutchinson rolled down her window to hear the man frantically shouting, "Your cat! Your cat!"
He reached for the roof of her car and handed the shocked Hutchinson her orange tabby.
She had driven about 10 miles with the cat on top of the car, and didn't even notice the feline when she stopped for gas.
Hutchinson said Cuddle Bug, or C.B. for short, had climbed into the back of her car as she was getting ready to leave. She put him out, but he must have jumped on the roof while she wasn't looking, she said.
ELKHORN, Wis. (AP) — Game warden Tim Price had to see it to believe it when a woman reported she saw a wild bighorn sheep next to the interstate in Walworth County.
"I thought she was a nut," Price said. "Ironically enough, that very next day I was on Peck Station Road and I thought, 'That's a bighorn ram.' "
The sheep has been seen numerous times since November roaming in Walworth County. It may be a wild bighorn or it may be another species of sheep. People have described it as brown and shaggy, with curled horns and a white butt.
Wild bighorn sheep hang out on cliffs and mountains to help them avoid predators. Since Wisconsin does not offer that habitat, it's possible the animal escaped from a game farm.
Norma Botma and her friend Lauri Paddock were driving to Milwaukee from Elkhorn on Dec. 16 when Paddock saw the animal near Walworth County Trunk D and Interstate 43.
"I said, 'It looks like a bighorn sheep,' " Botma recalled Wednesday. "When we came home and told Lauri's husband, he thought we both had been drinking."
Bighorn sheep are herbivores. They hail from Canada and several Western states, said Bess Frank, curator of large animals at the Milwaukee County Zoo.
With no predators in Walworth County, the animal could roam as long as it can find enough to eat, said June Sampson, director of the National Bighorn Sheep Interpretative Center in Dubois, Wyo.
Greg Matthews of the Department of Natural Resources said a major danger the animal faces is motor vehicles.
"Normally, these exotic animals get run over down here," Matthews said.
FORT SMITH, Ark. (AP) — Getting tanked has a whole new meaning for a woman on the lam.
Brandy Shante Moss, 19, decided that police wanting to talk to her about a domestic dispute complaint would never think to look in a septic tank.
They did.
Officer Danny Baker found Moss in her hideout and stepped on the tank to arrest her.
The tank collapsed on Moss, injuring her badly enough that she had to go to the hospital.
Baker and his colleagues responding to the call Tuesday had seen a man and a woman run from a house to an abandoned one nearby. The woman, Moss, found the septic tank behind the abandoned house.
After being treated, Moss was booked into the Sebastian County Jail on suspicion of fleeing apprehension and two counts of third-degree domestic battery. She also was held on warrants for contempt and failure to comply with a court order.
Posted in Backpage on Monday, March 7, 2005 12:00 am
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