Michigan State fraternity scholarship will honor slain chapter president
A Michigan State University fraternity announced a new scholarship to honor its late chapter president, who died in last week’s on-campus mass shooting.
Brian Fraser was one of three MSU students killed in the Feb. 13 rampage, which also left five students wounded.
The Brian Fraser Presidential Memorial Scholarship aims to help future presidents of the university’s Phi Delta Theta chapter fund their educations, the fraternity said Tuesday. The fraternity raised more than $100,000 and continues to accept donations for the campaign, which Phi Delta Theta says it created with Fraser’s parents.
“It is our hope at Phi Delta Theta and the hope of Brian’s parents that each Phi who receives this scholarship will embody Brian’s charismatic, contagious smile and caring, loyal energy,” Phi Delta Theta said.
Police identified the shooter as Anthony McRae and say he killed himself about four miles from the campus in East Lansing following a manhunt. Arielle Anderson, 19, and Alexandria Verner, 20, also died in the shooting.
MSU resumed classes Monday, a week after the massacre. A funeral for Fraser, 20, took place Saturday in Grosse Pointe Farms, a suburb of Detroit.
—New York Daily News
S. Korea court recognizes health care rights of same-sex couple
A South Korean court on Tuesday recognized the legal rights of a same-sex couple for the first time, in a move celebrated by human rights advocates as a major victory for the country’s LGBTQ community.
The country’s high court sided with So Seong-uk, 32, who sued the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) in 2021 after the agency kicked his partner, Kim Yong-min, out of his plan.
Even though same-sex marriages or civil unions are not legal in South Korea, So and Kim held a ceremony in 2019 to celebrate their love and commitment to one another. They have since lived together as a married couple.
So added Kim to his health insurance as a dependent, but NHIS canceled his status about eight months later.
The couple sued, and last year a lower court sided with the agency. But on Tuesday, the High Court overturned that decision and ordered the agency to resume the coverage of Kim as So’s dependent.
The ruling was hailed as “an important decision that moves South Korea closer to achieving marriage equality,” Amnesty International’s East Asia researcher Boram Jang said in a statement.
—New York Daily News
Idaho health system wants Ammon Bundy held in contempt of court
BOISE, Idaho — St. Luke’s Health System has filed paperwork asking an Ada County judge to consider holding far-right leader Ammon Bundy in contempt of court — again.
In court documents filed by Holland & Hart attorney Erik Stidham, St. Luke’s alleged that Bundy violated Fourth District Judge Lynn Norton’s protective order by failing to remove “defamatory statements” on the People’s Rights Network — a far-right group started by Bundy — about St. Luke’s President and CEO Chris Roth.
“A finding of contempt are needed here as Bundy disregards and disrespects the court and continues to disrupt plaintiff’s lives and livelihoods,” according to the memorandum. “Absent a finding of contempt, there is no doubt that Bundy will continue to defy the court.”
Norton also issued an order allowing St. Luke’s to seek punitive damages that amount to at least $7.5 million.
In early 2022, local law enforcement agencies took the then-10-month-old grandson of Rodriguez to St. Luke’s Meridian over concerns about his welfare. Bundy led protests outside St. Luke’s hospitals in Meridian and Boise. A March protest outside of the Meridian hospital blocked the ambulance bay and forced ambulances to be diverted to other locations and hospitals, Owyhee County Prosecutor Chris Topmiller said.
Bundy was arrested and later, in a rare move, pleaded guilty to trespassing at the hospital in what he called a “peace offering.” He’s previously gone to trial twice for trespassing charges in 2021 and 2022.
—The Idaho Statesman
NC lawmakers work to expedite Billy Graham statue at US Capitol
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The Rev. Billy Graham had to die before his statue could be placed in the U.S. Capitol, but on the fifth anniversary of his death his memorial still hasn’t made it into the Statuary Hall collection.
The North Carolina General Assembly approved in 2015 a statue of Graham to replace, in the Capitol, one of Charles Aycock, a former North Carolina governor and a known white supremacist.
Graham, born to dairy farmers near Charlotte, made it his mission to reach with the gospel as many people as he could — including presidents of both parties. His sermons reached 200 countries before his death, at 99, in Montreat.
But now, five years to the day after Graham’s death, Aycock’s statue remains and Graham’s remains unapproved by the joint committee on the Library of Congress.
Rep. Patrick McHenry, a Republican from Lincoln County, introduced a resolution Friday that if passed could lead to decisions about Graham’s statue taking place within 90 days after the bill’s approval.
The 100-statue collection honors two people from each state.
—The Charlotte Observer
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