Hurricane Evacuees Charged in Murder of Samaritan

HOUSTON CHRONICLE, Oct. 30 — Three Hurricane Katrina evacuees were charged with the murder of Betty Blair, an active member of St. Pius V Catholic Church in Pasadena, Texas, who attempted to help the evacuees by paying them to do work on her property, reported the Chronicle.

Blair, 77, was the mother of three daughters and the widow of former Pasadena school board president Robert Blair. Jimmy Hoang Lee, Stephanie Jacobo, and Roosevelt Smith Jr. of Louisiana were charged with strangling Blair during a robbery at her home Oct. 28.

“It appears that those she tried to help were the ones that murdered her,” said Vance Mitchell, Pasadena Police Department spokesman. They were arrested Oct. 28 driving Blair's vehicle.

Blair was chairwoman of the church's extraordinary ministers of Communion and had served at the church as a teacher.

Catholic School Tells Students: Thou Shall Not Blog

NEW YORK POST, Oct. 26 — Pope John XXIII Regional High School in Sparta, N.J., ordered students to remove personal blogs from the Internet, said the Post.

Students, the majority of whom protested the rule, were told to dismantle existing accounts on MySpace.com and similar sites, even if they were posted from students’ home computers. Free speech advocates argue that the move oversteps individuals’ rights.

“It would be better if they taught students what they should and shouldn't do online rather than take away the primary communication tool of their generation,” said Kurt Opsahl, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

But the school's principal said the new rule was designed to protect students from online predators.

“I don't see this as censorship,” said Father Kieran McHugh. “If this protects one child from being near-abducted or harassed or preyed upon, I make no apologies for this stance.”

Arizona Court Says a Fertilized Egg Isn't a Person

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Oct. 29 — According to an Arizona Court of Appeals, a days-old human embryo preserved outside of the womb isn't a person, reported the Associated Press.

The ruling resulted from a lawsuit filed by a Phoenix couple who accused the Mayo Clinic of losing or destroying some of their fertilized eggs. The couple had asked the Court of Appeals to expand the definition of “person” under the state's wrongful-death statute to include viable embryos.

The court used the term “pre-embryo” to describe the days-old embryo, saying that calling fertilized eggs “embryos” could imply that the egg was a person.

The court said that it's a matter for the Legislature to decide.