USA
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles will pay $660 million to settle its remaining sexual abuse cases in the largest such settlement in the national scandal that erupted in 2002, the Associated Press said Sunday. A judge must still sign off on the agreement that calls for more than 500 plaintiffs to receive an average of roughly $1.3 million each and for priest personnel files to be released.
Information retrieved from a 15-year-old student's computer provided the evidence that led to his arrest and that of another teen on charges of plotting a Columbine-style attack at a Long Island high school, police in Suffolk County, N.Y., said Saturday. The alleged plot, which police said was fleshed out in a video-tape, was planned for April 20, 2008, the ninth anniversary of Colorado's Columbine High School massacre.
Jim Gilmore, the former governor of Virginia and past chairman of the Republican National Committee, became the first GOP presidential hopeful to drop out of the race. He said Saturday that he couldn't raise enough money to vie with the nine other candidates.
The Hualapai Indian tribe reached an agreement with a landowner near their remote Arizona reservation late last week that clears the way to construct a 14-mile, paved road to the glass-bottom Grand Canyon Skywalk the tribe opened in March. A rugged dirt road currently provides the only overland access to the site.
Firefighting crews in Washington and Oregon kept busy over the weekend, quickly containing 212 fires sparked by some of nearly 2,700 lightning strikes reported in areas where triple-digit temperatures, low humidity, and high winds have been concerns.
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D) of Connecticut (above) criticized fellow presidential candidates John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton for offhand remarks they shared at last week's NAACP meeting about limiting debates to the major candidates. Of a conversation picked up by several broadcasters, Dodd said while campaigning in Utah Saturday, "I'd remind them that the mike is always on."