Bribe case not tied to 2 crane failures

NEW YORK - A senior city building inspector took bribes in exchange for falsely reporting that cranes had been inspected and that crane operators had been certified, but his actions did not appear to be connected to two recent crane collapses that killed nine people, authorities said yesterday. Rose Gill Hearn, commissioner of the Department of Investigation, said both were tower cranes, not the mobile cranes at the center of the investigation into James Delayo, acting chief inspector in the cranes and derricks division of Department of Buildings. (AP)

MONTEAGLE - A man suspected of killing a sheriff's deputy and wounding another officer died yesterday morning after shooting himself at the end of a daylong manhunt, authorities said. Kermit Bryson, 29, died around 12:30 a.m. at Erlanger Hospital in Chattanooga, said David Trillet, a supervisor at the hospital. The manhunt began before dawn Thursday morning when three officers went to a Monteagle mobile home to serve Bryson with a warrant for probation violation. Authorities say Bryson shot and killed Grundy County Sheriff's Deputy Shane Tate, 28. Another police officer was grazed by a bullet, but not seriously hurt. (AP)

RICHMOND - A former women's college did not break a contract with female students when it decided to enroll men, a divided Virginia Supreme Court ruled yesterday. In a 5-to-2 decision, the court rejected a lawsuit by nine female students at Randolph College, formerly Randolph-Macon Woman's College, that promotional materials and other publications promised them four years at an all-female institution. (AP)

YPSILANTI - Eastern Michigan University has agreed to pay $350,000 in fines for covering up the rape and killing of a student in her dorm room. The fines are for violating the Clery Act, a federal law requiring schools to accurately disclose campus security information. After 22-year-old Laura Dickinson's body was found in December 2006, university officials told her parents and the news media that she had died of asphyxiation but that there was no sign of foul play, despite evidence to the contrary. Orange Taylor III, 21, was arrested in February 2007, convicted of first-degree murder, and sentenced to life. (AP)