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NEWS FROM ACROSS THE NATION
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• NYPD TO STOP SEIZING SEX WORK SUSPECTS’ CONDOMS: NEW YORK (AP) — The New York Police Department will no longer confiscate unused condoms from suspected sex workers to be used as evidence of prostitution, ending a longstanding practice that had been criticized by civil rights groups for undermining efforts to combat AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections.

Under the new policy announced Monday, officers may continue to seize condoms as evidence in sex-trafficking and promotion of prostitution cases, but they will not use them in support of prostitution cases. Critics had said the previous policy amounted to police harassment, and noted that New York City spends more than $1 million a year to distribute free condoms.

For decades, police in New York and elsewhere had confiscated condoms from sex work suspects ostensibly for them to be used as evidence in criminal trials, even though the overwhelming majority of prostitution cases never go to trial.

 

• MAN DRIVES DRUNK TO STATION TO FILE REPORT: BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Police say a 31-year-old man has been arrested after he drove to a Louisiana state police headquarters while drunk to file an accident report.

Online booking records indicate Patrick Ruffner of Gonzales was in the East Baton Rouge Parish jail Monday with bond set at $1,000.

Trooper Jared Sandifer says Ruffner called state police Saturday, saying his vehicle was struck by a hit-and-run driver on Interstate 10 in Baton Rouge. He was told to come to Troop A’s offices to fill out a crash report.

Sandifer says that when Ruffner got out of his SUV, a trooper smelled alcohol and gave him field sobriety and breath tests.

 

• HARVARD CLUB DROPS MUCH-CRITICIZED SATANIC MASS: CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — A Harvard University club says it has dropped sponsorship of a satanic Mass that drew condemnation from the Archdiocese of Boston and the university’s president.

The Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club said Monday a Cambridge restaurant and nightclub would not host the black Mass as planned. It says no other location offered a site.

The Harvard group says organizer Satanic Temple will stage its own ceremony at an undisclosed location.

Harvard President Drew Faust says in a message on the university’s website the satanic Mass is “flagrantly disrespectful and inflammatory.” She says she plans to attend a Eucharistic holy hour and benediction on the Harvard campus.

 

• NBC’S ANN CURRY AIDED BY NJ BOY SCOUT TROOP: NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Ann Curry has reported from the most dangerous places on earth, yet when she broke her leg during a recent hike, it was a troop of New Jersey Boy Scouts that came to her rescue.

Curry was hiking with her family on Bear Mountain in New York’s Harriman State Park on Saturday, April 5, when she hurt her leg.

Members of Troop 368 from Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, came across the injured NBC News correspondent sitting along the trail after her family had tried unsuccessfully to carry her down the rugged mountain path, according to Scouting Magazine. Curry encouraged the scouts to keep going, but seeing she was in pain and needed medical attention, they quickly fashioned a splint for her injured ankle and crafted a stretcher from logs and a tarp. They carried her down the mountain to where her husband and son brought their car to rush her to the hospital.

Troop leader Rick Jurgens said many of the 14- to 16 year-old scouts were just following their training, and didn’t realize they had rescued someone famous.