New England Cable News will host the first televised debate to include all four candidates vying for lieutenant governor tonight at 7 on ``NewsNight with Jim Braude." The hour long debate between Republican Reed Hillman, Democrat Tim Murray, Green-Rainbow Party candidate Martina Robinson, and Independent John Sullivan will cover key issues including crime, taxes, and economic development.
State is sued for radiation experiments
The families of two former residents of the Wrentham State School for people with mental retardation sued the state yesterday, alleging that the women were given radioactive iodine without their knowledge during experiments conducted in 1961 and 1962. A lawyer for Mary R. Barry and the late Rachel Deline said the women were among 170 residents of the school who were given the radiation without their full consent as part of a study into a possible antidote for radiation from a nuclear explosion. The state Department of Mental Retardation has already apologized for the mistreatment of institutionalized children in radiation experiments and paid nearly $2 million to former residents of the Fernald State School in Waltham who took part. But Jeffrey Petrucelly, who filed the lawsuit in Suffolk Superior Court on behalf of Barry and Deline's father, said the state never disclosed the names of the victims in Wrentham and did not notify all victims. If the women's claims are proven, they could be offered settlements similar to other victims of the experiments, said Dick Powers, spokesman for the Department of Mental Retardation.
Steel bridges to get sprucing-up
The state Department of Conservation and Recreation announced a five-year, $7.5 million plan yesterday to paint rusted and corroded steel bridges in Greater Boston. Painting on the Charles Circle ramp, which connects Charles Circle to Storrow Drive westbound, has begun, and the $278,860 project is expected to be complete by Nov. 15. Next spring, the Charles Circle ramp from Storrow Drive to Charles Circle and the pedestrian bridge at Charles Street over Embankment Road is to be painted. The department also began work today to replace the Storrow Drive westbound sidewalk between Longfellow Bridge and the Lower Basin barracks. The new sidewalk is to be completed by Nov. 6.
Belmont
McLean Hospital names new president
McLean Hospital in Belmont, a Harvard Medical School teaching hospital, has hired Dr. Scott Rauch, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital, as its new president. He will replace Dr. Jack Gorman, a prominent New York City psychiatrist who resigned from the job abruptly in June for undisclosed medical and personal reasons. Gorman had been in the job less than six months. McLean trustees voted yesterday to appoint Rauch, 46, effective Nov. 1. Rauch, who has worked at Mass. General for 15 years, holds several administrative positions there, including director of the division of psychiatric neuroscience research and neurotherapeutics. A resident of Melrose, he is a graduate of Amherst College and the University of Cincinnati Medical School.
RUTLAND, Vt.
Assault victim dies; slay charge lodged
A Pittsford man accused in the fatal beating of a man who was found in a vehicle on Proctor Road has been charged with first-degree homicide. Lucas White, 19, initially had been charged with aggravated assault in the beating of Leo John Turer, 30, of Rutland. Police found Turer unconscious on Oct. 2. He was taken to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H., where he died without regaining consciousness on Oct. 11. White was arraigned yesterday in Rutland District Court on the homicide charge. He was ordered held on $500,000 bail. State Police said another man, Greg Colburn, 29, also was charged yesterday as an accessory to felony-robbery in connection with the case. (AP)
AUGUSTA, Maine
State moves closer to decree compliance
The state yesterday began implementing a newly approved plan to deliver mental health services, bringing it closer to full compliance with a court decree, Human Services Commissioner Brenda Harvey said. The 101-page plan was approved Friday by former Maine Chief Justice Daniel Wathen, who is now court master overseeing the state's compliance with a decree that sets guidelines for services for the mentally ill. The 1990 consent decree resulted from a class action suit contending that Maine had failed to provide adequate care for patients at a former state mental hospital in Augusta. (AP)
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