DETROIT
Trial over gay-marriage ban hears from study’s author
The author of a controversial study of adult children often cited by opponents of gay marriage defended his work in court Monday but also said it’s too early for social scientists to make far-reaching conclusions about families headed by same-sex couples.
University of Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus testified for more than three hours as a witness for the state of Michigan, which is defending a ban on gay marriage. The constitutional amendment, approved by voters in 2004, is being challenged by two Detroit-area nurses.
“Severe and swift,” Regnerus told U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman about the response to his study, published in 2012.
NEW YORK
Schizophrenic faces third trial over psychologist’s slaying
Prosecutors began their third try Monday at convicting a schizophrenic who turned a Manhattan psychotherapy office into a lethal bloodbath, retrying a murder case repeatedly thrust into limbo by questions about his mental state.
David Tarloff admits he killed psychologist Kathryn Faughey with a meat cleaver in her Upper East Side office. His defense argues the oft-hospitalized Tarloff was too psychotic to be held criminally responsible.
Prosecutors told jurors Tarloff “knew exactly what he was doing” on Feb. 12, 2008.
HOWELL, Mich.
Highway sniper sentenced on terrorism, gun offenses
A man who kept a swath of southeastern Michigan on edge for weeks by shooting at two dozen vehicles along a busy highway corridor was sentenced Monday to 18 to 40 years in prison on a combination of terrorism and weapons convictions.
Raulie Casteel, 44, learned his fate in Livingston County Circuit Court, where a jury in January found him guilty of terrorism, rejecting his claim that the shootings were the impulsive result of uncontrolled delusions and paranoia.
LOS ANGELES
Hepatitis C infections down, likely because deaths are up
The number of Americans who are infected with hepatitis C is falling, but that’s probably because more people who have been sickened by the virus are dying as a result, government researchers reported Monday.
Altogether, 1.3 percent of the population has a past or current HCV infection, according to a study based on survey data from 2003-2010, to be published in Tuesday’s edition of Annals of Internal Medicine.
Previous studies have estimated that 1.6 percent of Americans had a past or current HCV infection in the years 1999 to 2002.
Firms that used official alarm in movie ad fined $1.9 million
It turns out that using emergency warning tones in a TV commercial with images of the White House blowing up and the flashing words “THIS IS NOT A TEST” is frowned upon by the government.
The Federal Communications Commission said Monday it was fining Viacom Inc., NBCUniversal and The Walt Disney Co. $1.9 million for using the Emergency Alert System signal in an ad for the movie “Olympus Has Fallen” that had some complainants jumping out of bathtubs and racing to the TV screen.
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