In the Nation

CALIFORNIA

$3M settlement in

death at hospital

The family of a woman who went missing for more than two weeks before being found dead in a stairwell at San Francisco General Hospital has settled a lawsuit for $3 million.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Saturday the city and University of California tentatively agreed to the payout. The city is responsible for $2.94 million. Lynne Spaulding, 57, was admitted on Sept. 19, 2013, with a bladder infection. She was disoriented and doctors ordered constant monitoring.

She vanished from her room two days later. Two weeks after that, her body was found during a routine check of the little-used stairwell. Four days before her body was found, a doctor reported to a nurse that he had seen a woman slumped over in the stairwell. A sheriff's dispatcher who told the nurse a deputy would check on the report was fired. - AP
CALIFORNIA

Effigies investigated

University of California, Berkeley, police are investigating the hanging of effigies near campus landmarks, a spokeswoman said Saturday. Two effigies were discovered shortly after 9 a.m. and a third was found near the campanile, according to spokeswoman Claire Holmes.

At least one of the effigies depicted a black man and was stamped with the words "I can't breathe" - a refrain among protesters at the anti-brutality demonstrations that have roiled the campus this week. - AP
MISSISSIPPI

Four die in I-10 wreck

A tractor-trailer plowed into 11 cars stopped on I-10 in coastal Mississippi early Saturday, killing four, injuring four, and closing the highway for more than six hours, police said. The crash started when a pickup truck and the trailer it was hauling overturned, spilling used computer equipment across the eastbound highway, about 10 miles from the Louisiana state line, - AP