AP PA Headlines

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A former Penn State assistant coach is getting his legal fees paid after winning a whistleblower claim over his treatment by the university after Jerry Sandusky’s child molestation arrest.  Judge Thomas Gavin on Thursday granted Mike McQueary’s lawyers $1.7 million for their work on the case.  That’s on top of the nearly $5 million Gavin awarded to McQueary in November.

The judge’s new order is also giving McQueary $15,000 for a bowl bonus he would have earned if the school hadn’t suspended him from coaching after Sandusky’s arrest in November 2011. Penn State is also being ordered to pay about $34,000 in other legal costs.  A jury previously granted McQueary $7.3 million for defamation and misrepresentation.  Penn State says its lawyers haven’t analyzed the judge’s decision on legal fees.

CAMP HILL, Pa. (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania says he’d support changing Senate rules to bypass Democratic opposition and confirm Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee.  At his Friday appearance at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference, Toomey also said Democrats have never said Judge Neil Gorsuch ignored or misapplied the law in cases before him.

Toomey last year backed a Republican refusal to consider then-President Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to fill the high court opening. But Toomey says this is different.  A Senate confirmation vote is expected late next week.  Unless 60 senators support Gorsuch, Republicans would have to change Senate rules to allow Gorsuch to be confirmed with a simple majority vote in the 100-member Senate. Getting to 60 votes would require six more Democrats to back Gorsuch.

DIMOCK, Pa. (AP) – $4.24M verdict in Pennsylvania drilling lawsuit tossed.   A federal judge has thrown out a $4.24 million jury verdict against a natural gas producer in Pennsylvania and ordered a new trial in a lawsuit alleging Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. contaminated the well water of two families.  U.S. Magistrate Judge Martin Carlson on Friday called evidence presented by the Dimock homeowners “sometimes contradictory, frequently rebutted by other scientific expert testimony” and relying “in some measure upon tenuous inferences.”

The judge also said no evidence was presented that would justify a multi-million dollar award. He declined to decide the case in favor of the company and called for settlement discussions before a new trial.  Dimock residents and their opposition to drilling companies was featured in the 2010 Emmy-winning documentary “Gasland.”

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Oddities & Entertainment

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The feathers were flying in downtown Los Angeles.  Hundreds of people traded soft blows in LA’s Pershing Square in a giant pillow fight that dwarfed even the biggest slumber party slugfests.  Children, teens, adults and seniors swung pillows at one another for over an hour on Saturday.

The annual event is held to celebrate International Pillow Fight Day.  Many wore pajamas, some wore masks and goggles.  By the time it was over the ground was so covered with feathers it looked like it had snowed on a sunny April afternoon.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

Scores & Skeds

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