Cross Country
Beating a Retreat on the Gulf Coast
State Farm Insurance announced that it would no longer offer property insurance to new homeowners in Mississippi, three weeks after settling a lawsuit from more than 600 people whose Katrina-related claims were denied. State Farm, which was facing the threat of an investigation by the Mississippi attorney general, had agreed to pay about $80 million in settlements and at least $50 million more in other claims.
In Jackson, Attorney General Jim Hood called the firm's decision a "betrayal" and said he would seek legislation to block the move. "They were saying ... that if they were indicted, they would leave the state and all that," Hood said. "The whole reason for reaching a settlement with them was to keep them here."
Many of the disputes centered on the question of whether homes were technically destroyed by wind damage-which policies covered-or water damage, which was not covered. State Farm officials said the move was a simple business decision to avoid further risk in a legal and business environment that had become untenable. The company, which insures nearly 1 in 3 homes in the state, will continue to renew existing policies for now.
No Hard Time for Bay Area Scribes
Two journalists from San Francisco's Chronicle who faced jail time for refusing to reveal their source for federal grand jury testimony won't be going to the slammer after all. In a plea deal with the Justice Department, Colorado lawyer Troy Ellerman admitted that in 2004 he leaked reporters Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada transcripts of the secret testimony, which led to the reporters' stories detailing the use of performance-enhancing drugs by baseball stars, including Barry Bonds. (Bonds testified he never knowingly used the drugs.) Ellerman once represented Victor Conte, founder of BALCO, the Bay Area lab where the drugs were doled out. Ellerman may have gotten the reporters off the hook, but he faces up to two years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Massacre in an Unlikely Place
There are a handful of American cities where, sadly, random violence comes as no surprise. But Salt Lake City isn't one of them. So authorities were left groping for explanations last week after an 18-year-old Bosnian immigrant inexplicably shot five people to death and wounded four others at a shopping mall.
Some searched for clues in a troubled childhood. Sulejman Talovic and his mother fled their Bosnian village after Serbian forces overran it in 1993, and Talovic lived for five years as a refugee. That included a stint in Srebrenica, but he left before an infamous massacre there, and family members disagreed over whether he'd been traumatized by the conflict.
So it may never be known what caused Talovic to show up at Trolley Square shopping center with a .38-caliber pistol and a shotgun and then calmly begin shooting people. Talovic was shot to death by police about six minutes after his shooting spree began.
Grand Plans for Grand Avenue
Long derided as 100 suburbs looking for a city, Los Angeles took a bold stab at mixed-use development downtown when the County Board of Supervisors and City Council backed the grandiose Grand Avenue project. Plans for the project, to be built mostly on public land leased to the developer, include two residential towers to be designed by architect Frank Gehry, entertainment venues, retail space, and a 16-acre park. The site also has access to the city's subway system. "As L.A. grows, we're growing smarter, we're growing more vertical, and creating what some have called 'elegant density,'" Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa told U.S. News. Where the mayor sees elegance, though, critics see overly generous tax breaks coupled with a land giveaway.
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