American Scene

ALABAMA

County mulls options as bankruptcy looms

BIRMINGHAM — Jefferson County faces an 80 percent chance of declaring bankruptcy, one of its commissioners said Thursday, as experts advised the county on the implications of a possible Chapter 9 filing.

Another commissioner, Joe Knight, said the county has yet to hear a response from creditors over its proposal that $1.3 billion be shaved from its crippling $3.2 billion sewer bond debt as part of a settlement to avoid what would be the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history.

With a “standstill” period for talks with creditors, which include JPMorgan Chase, expected to end July 29, the county held a long-scheduled meeting to discuss pending litigation surrounding its debt and bankruptcy.

Other commissioners and the state’s governor have said bankruptcy remains a real option if talks with creditors fail, but they hold out hope for the success of the talks. Jefferson County is home to Birmingham, Alabama’s largest city.

CALIFORNIA

2 teens wounded leaving anti-gang program

LOS ANGELES — Two teens were shot and wounded in an apparent gang shooting Thursday outside a Los Angeles recreation center that is part of the city’s program to reduce violence in the streets by keeping public parks well-lit and open at night, police said.

A 15-year-old girl was shot in the back and a 19-year-old man was shot in the hand while leaving a “Summer Night Lights” event at the Wilmington Recreation Center, police Lt. John Pasquariello said. They were hospitalized in critical condition.

The shooting came hours before delegates to the U.S. Conference of Mayors Summer Leadership Meeting in Los Angeles planned to attend a similar program in Boyle Heights. It was also the second time in a week that violence has erupted after one of the “Summer Night Lights” events, which are open from 8 p.m. until midnight and attended by police and gang-intervention workers.

GEORGIA

Murderer executed as video cameras watch

JACKSON — A Georgia man convicted of killing his parents and sister was executed Thursday after the courts allowed what was likely the nation’s first video-recorded execution in almost two decades.

Andrew DeYoung, 37, was pronounced dead at 8:04 p.m. DeYoung blinked his eyes and swallowed for about two minutes, then his eyes closed, and he became still. A video camera and a camera operator were in the execution chamber about 5 feet away.

Attorneys for death-row inmate Gregory Walker, who sought the recording, argued that would provide critical evidence in his appeal about the effects of pentobarbital. Walker’s attorneys want to show that Georgia’s reconfigured three-drug lethal-injection procedure does not adequately sedate the inmate and could cause pain and suffering.

A Fulton County judge allowed the recording to take place, and that decision was upheld by the Georgia Supreme Court on Thursday.

LOUISIANA

Judge: Monks can sell caskets

NEW ORLEANS — An order of monks — or anyone else — can sell caskets in Louisiana without having a state funeral home license, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

Acting on a suit filed by the monks of St. Joseph Abbey in St. Tammany Parish, U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval said “there is no rational basis” for the licensing requirement to be applied to those only wanting to sell caskets, such as the 38 monks.

The Louisiana Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors had blocked the monks from selling caskets with simple white cloth interiors for $1,500 to $2,000, saying the abbey had neither a funeral director’s license nor a funeral home license as required by state law.

But the judge said “the sole reason for these laws is the economic protection of the funeral industry” and that the monks’ constitutional rights were being violated by the ban.

From wire dispatches and staff reports