National Roundup

Utah Legal battle involving Rolling Stones reaches Utah SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - Insurance underwriters involved in a legal battle with the Rolling Stones over a $12.7 million claim have won permission to seek evidence in Utah about the mental health of Mick Jagger's girlfriend before she took her life in March. A federal judge in Utah last month allowed the 12 underwriters to gather testimony and documents from Randall Bambrough of Ogden, the brother of L'Wren Scott. She was a fashion designer and Utah native whose suicide prompted the rock group to postpone a concert tour of Australia and New Zealand and then file a $12.7 claim for losses due to its postponement. Jagger was "diagnosed as suffering from acute traumatic stress disorder" after Scott's death and was advised by doctors not to perform for at least 30 days, according to documents filed in the court case in Utah. Before the tour, the group took out a $23.9 million policy to be paid in the event shows were canceled due to the death of family members or others, including Scott. In denying the claim, underwriters said Scott might have been suffering from a pre-existing mental illness and her death might not be covered under the policy. Underwriters are seeking information from Bambrough about possible illnesses, treatments and the circumstances of her death, The Salt Lake Tribune reported (http://bit.ly/1ozCklv ). Bambrough said Thursday he did not know about the federal court case naming him and had not received a subpoena to provide testimony and documents about his sister. He declined further comment. The Rolling Stones' Los Angeles public relations firm and the underwriters' Utah attorney did not respond to emails seeking comment. After underwriters denied the claim, the Stones sued them in London. The same underwriters petitioned federal court in New York seeking similar information from Scott's former personal assistant, Brittany Penebre, and from the executor of Scott's estate, Adam Glassman. Scott was adopted by Mormon parents and raised in Roy, Utah, which had a population of less than 10,000 at the time. She left home as a teenager to become a model in Paris, then a top Hollywood stylist and finally a high-end fashion designer best known as the girlfriend of Jagger. Scott, whose elegant designs in lush fabrics were favored by celebrities like Madonna, Nicole Kidman, Oprah Winfrey, Penelope Cruz and first lady Michelle Obama, was a fixture on Jagger's arm since she met the Stones frontman in 2001. On red carpets, the striking 6-foot-3 designer towered over her famous 5-foot-10 boyfriend. An autopsy completed on the body of 49-year-old Scott found she died of hanging in her New York City apartment. The underwriters filed a petition in federal court in Utah on Oct. 10, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Brooke Wells granted their request a week later to gather evidence from her brother, The Tribune reported. The Stones began a new tour of Australia and New Zealand in late October. Rhode Island Brown student tests positive for date-rape drug PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - One of two Brown University students who reported rapid intoxication followed by memory loss after drinking punch at a fraternity party tested positive for a date-rape drug, a university official announced in a campus-wide email. The email sent late Saturday by Margaret Klawunn, vice president for campus life and student services at Brown, said tests on the other student remain pending, The Providence Journal reported (http://bit.ly/1snd2T3 ). One of the students also reported being sexually assaulted. The student tested positive for gamma hydroxybutyrate, a date-rape drug also known as GHB, Klawunn wrote. "GHB is a colorless, odorless drug that can be hard to detect in a drink," the email said, "but has a strong sedative effect that is incapacitating." The two students reported they experienced "a rapid onset of intoxication" beyond what they expected from the amount they drank, and "memory loss for a significant period of time" after drinking the punch, Klawunn wrote. University officials suspended the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, which hosted the Oct. 17 event at a residential hall. Members of the fraternity said in a recent letter to The Brown Daily Herald that news involving the two students took them by surprise and they were confident "that in no way did any member of Phi Kappa Psi engage in or perpetrate such atrocious and criminal behavior." They said no members of the fraternity have been accused of or criminally charged with sexual assault. School officials are urging students with information about the date-rape drug or the alleged sexual assault to contact university police. Pennsylvania Retired pastor loses credentials over gay wedding LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) - A retired Mennonite pastor from Pennsylvania who lost his credentials after officiating at his gay son's wedding says he hopes the church will someday be more accepting of gays and lesbians. LNP reports that 96-year-old Chester Wenger of East Lampeter Township wrote in a Mennonite Church USA publication that he happily agreed to officiate at the June 21 wedding. "I know persons will accuse me for my transgression, but my act of love was done on behalf of the church I love, and my conscience is clear," Wenger, former pastor at Blossom Hill Mennonite Church in Manheim Township, wrote in the online commentary. L. Keith Weaver, moderator for the Lancaster Mennonite Conference, said Wenger's retired ministerial credential was terminated Sept. 10 based on church guidelines stating that "pastors holding credentials in a conference of Mennonite Church USA may not perform a same-sex covenant." The credentialing commission's decision followed a review process "that was experienced as mutually gracious and respectful," he said. Wenger's son, Phil, said he would never have requested that his father officiate at the simple backyard wedding if he had foreseen the repercussions. He said his father is worried that Mennonite Church USA may splinter over acceptance of gay members and pastors. "My father's overriding passion has been to speak to his fellow Lancaster Conference Mennonites and to do that with a message of love and a desire to share his perspective after a long life of studying the Bible and looking at this very challenging issue in our community," he said. Chester Wenger and his wife, Sara Jane, were missionaries for 17 years. He founded the Bible Academy in Nazareth, Ethiopia; was the first chairman of Ethiopia's Meserete Kristos Church, now the largest Mennonite church in the world; and later directed home ministries and evangelism for Eastern Mennonite Missions in Salunga, Pennsylvania. Chester Wenger wrote in his commentary that he and his wife "grieved deeply" after a church leader excommunicated his adult son about 35 years ago without talking to him or his parents. After that, he said, he began meeting and reading the Bible with the parents of other gay children. Wenger said he is at peace with the credentialing commission's action, but he prays for greater church acceptance of gays and lesbians. "We invite the church to embrace the missional opportunity to extend the church's blessing of marriage to our homosexual children who desire to live in accountable, covenanted ways," he said. Published: Tue, Nov 11, 2014