California
BART unions ratify contract that ended strike
OAKLAND, Calif. – A second Bay Area Rapid Transit labor union has ratified the contract agreement that brought to an end a bitter labor dispute that led to two San Francisco area transportation strikes.
BART officials on Saturday said the company had reached agreement with the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555, whose members voted to approve the four-year deal.
The other, Service Employees International Union Local 1021, announced late Friday that its members had approved the contract.
The agreement includes a 15-percent raise and safer working conditions.
It also requires BART workers to pay into their pensions for the first time and increases health care costs.
BART’s board of directors still needs to vote on the contract at its next meeting, which the agency said would happen “soon.”
New York
West Point hosts first wedding between 2 men
WEST POINT, N.Y. – Two West Point graduates were married Saturday in the military academy’s first wedding between two men.
Larry Choate III, class of 2009, married Daniel Lennox, class of 2007, before about 20 guests.
Choate, 27, taught Sunday school at the U.S. Military Academy’s Cadet Chapel and said he always thought of it as the place he would get married if he could.
West Point hosted two same-sex weddings of women in late 2012, more than a year after New York legalized gay marriage. But Saturday’s wedding was the first time two men wed at West Point.
“It’s maybe one more barrier that’s pushed over a little bit, or maybe one more glass ceiling that’s shattered that makes it easier for the next couple,” Choate said Friday.
Choate and Lennox are out of the military and wore tuxedoes for the ceremony. Some of their guests were in uniform.
The 28-year-old Lennox is getting his master’s degree in business administration at Harvard University. Choate is applying to Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Subway vigilante Goetz charged in drug case
NEW YORK – Subway vigilante Bernhard Goetz, who ignited a national furor over racism and gun control after he shot four panhandling youths on a train in the 1980s, has been charged with misdemeanor sale and possession of marijuana, authorities said Saturday.
Goetz was nabbed in a sting operation in Union Square park Friday evening for selling $30 worth of pot to an undercover officer, police said. He asked the woman if she wanted to get high, then went back to his apartment, where he has lived for decades, and returned with marijuana, authorities said. He was arrested on charges of criminal sale of marijuana.
Goetz wasn’t being targeted specifically; he just happened to cross paths with the undercover officer assigned to crack down on drug dealing in the park, authorities said.
The 65-year-old was arraigned Saturday in Manhattan Criminal Court on three misdemeanor drug charges for sale and possession of marijuana. He was released on his own recognizance and is due back in court next month.
Goetz became a household name as the skinny, bespectacled white man who rose from his seat on the No. 2 train in Manhattan on Dec. 22, 1984, and shot four black teens with an illegal handgun. The teens had sharpened screwdrivers and were asking him for $5. Goetz said it was self-defense and the youths intended to rob him.
Georgia
Police: 10-year-old’s body found in trash can
LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. – The father and stepmother of a 10-year-old girl whose body was found in a trash can at a metro Atlanta apartment complex have been charged with murder.
Gwinnett County police said in a statement that a man called 911 at 3:43 a.m. Saturday and said he was suicidal. He also said his daughter drank some type of chemical and was dead.
The man pointed officers responding to the call to a trash can at the complex, where they found the badly burned body of a child.
The victim has been identified as Emani Moss. The father, Eman Moss, and the stepmother, Tiffany Moss, are both charged with felony murder, cruelty to children in the first degree, and concealing a body.
Both are being held at the Gwinnett County Detention Center.
Associated Press
