BELLEFONTE, PA.
Sandusky trial to begin
Alleged victims will have to testify using their real names, and tweets or other electronic communication by reporters will not be permitted during the trial of former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, the judge ruled Monday. Meanwhile, Sandusky’s hopes for a last-minute delay in his trial on charges that he sexually abused 10 boys were dashed when the state Supreme Court issued a one-paragraph order that denied a sealed motion. That sets the stage for the start of jury selection this morning at a central Pennsylvania courthouse.
ALBANY, N.Y.
Reducing pot penalty
Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday proposed cutting the penalty for public possession of a small amount of marijuana, a change in state law that would defuse some criticism of the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy in minority communities. Cuomo said his bill to reduce the criminal misdemeanor to a violation with a fine of up to $100 would save thousands of New Yorkers, disproportionately black and Hispanic youths, from arrests and criminal charges. New York City prosecutors and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, whose offices handled almost 50,000 such criminal cases last year, endorsed the Democratic governor’s plan.
CHICAGO
Cancer risks for survivors
Women treated with chest radiation for cancer when they were girls have a higher risk of developing breast cancer than previously thought, doctors warn. Even lower doses of radiation therapy posed a risk for survivors of a childhood cancer — something not known before, researchers found. That means more women might need to be screened beginning at age 25 for breast cancer. “We find that by age 50, approximately 30 percent of women treated with radiation for Hodgkin lymphoma” as girls have developed breast cancer, said Chaya Moskowitz, a biostatistician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York who led the study. That is far higher than the 4 percent rate for the general population. Among women who had chest radiation for any type of childhood cancer, 24 percent developed breast cancer by age 50.
Compiled from wire reports.
