NEW ORLEANS - New Orleans' first black district attorney discriminated against 43 whites when he fired them en masse and replaced them with black workers upon taking office in 2003, a federal jury decided Wednesday. The jury awarded the employees about $1.8-million in back pay and damages.
The jury - made up of eight whites and two blacks - returned the unanimous verdict in the third day of deliberations in the racial discrimination case against District Attorney Eddie Jordan.
Jordan admitted he wanted to make the office more reflective of the city's racial makeup, but denied he fired the employees just because they are white.
Under U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval's instructions, jurors had to find Jordan liable if they concluded the firings were racially motivated. The law bars the mass firing of a specific group, even if the intent is to create diversity.
Eight days after taking office, Jordan fired 53 of 77 white nonlawyers in his office - investigators, clerks, child-support enforcement workers and the like - and replaced them with blacks.
Falwell's condition improved, doctors say
LYNCHBURG, Va. - Doctors on Wednesday upgraded the Rev. Jerry Falwell's condition from critical to stable and said the Moral Majority founder was breathing without the help of a ventilator.
"At this point he is breathing quite easily and spontaneously," said Dr. Carl Moore, a cardiologist.
Falwell, 71, has fluid in his lungs, and doctors say he suffers from congestive heart failure. Moore said that testing showed "his heart is strong" and that Falwell had not suffered a heart attack or damage to his heart.
Falwell was admitted to Lynchburg General Hospital in "respiratory arrest." Family members told doctors that Falwell had been unconscious from five to seven minutes and had to be resuscitated at the hospital emergency room.
Mass. Senate passes bill to expand stem cell research
BOSTON - Despite a veto threat from the governor, the state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday to give scientists more freedom to conduct embryonic stem cell research in Massachusetts.
The 35-2 vote came after less than two hours of debate, on the same day Gov. Mitt Romney launched a statewide radio campaign to urge the bill's defeat.
The measure would allow scientists to create cloned embryos and extract their stem cells for research into the treatment and cure of diabetes, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries and other conditions. Removing the stem cells destroys the embryos.
Connecticut rejects plan to abolish death penalty
HARTFORD, Conn. - With New England's first execution in 45 years looming, Connecticut lawmakers refused Wednesday to overturn the state's death penalty.
The House of Representatives, after more than five hours of debate, voted 89-60 against a bill that would have replaced the state's death sentence with life in prison without the possibility of release.
The bill would have spared serial killer Michael Ross and six other death row inmates from lethal injection. Ross, who has admitted killing eight women in Connecticut and New York, is scheduled to die in May.
Penn. lawmaker charged in white powder hoax
GLENSHAW, Pa. - A legislator faces criminal charges after he was accused of lying about a white powder he claimed was inside a letter from a critical constituent.
State Rep. Jeffrey E. Habay, 38, said that he got the letter at home in May and that it had a suspicious white substance inside, raising fears of anthrax contamination.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service said the substance was harmless.
Habay faces charges of falsely incriminating another, fictitious reports, solicitation to commit perjury and "facsimile weapons of mass destruction," documents show.
