New York
King papers go for more than $130K
NEW YORK — Some civil rights movement history went up for sale Thursday, as papers from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., including speech outlines and letters, brought in more than $130,000 at auction.
They were sold by 88-year-old Maude Ballou, who worked as King’s secretary from 1955 to 1960, through the New York office of Texas-based Heritage Auctions.
A series of handwritten notes outlining one of King’s speeches, his farewell address when he left the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., was the top lot. It sold for $31,250. Two letters King wrote to Ballou from India sold for $18,750 and $17,500. More than 100 items were up for auction. The prices include a 25 percent commission.
One item originally marked for sale was pulled from the auction just before it started. The page was believed to have been from King’s “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington, but Sandra Palomino, director of historical manuscripts for Heritage Auctions, said there was some question of whether it was actually part of another speech, so it was pulled. The page was sent to Ballou on Jan. 31, 1968, weeks before King was assassinated, by Lillie Hunter, bookkeeper for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
King’s estate sued the secretary’s son, Howard Ballou, in federal court in Jackson, Miss., in 2011 in a bid to take possession of the items. U.S. District Judge Tom Lee dismissed the lawsuit in March, saying there was nothing to contradict Maude Ballou’s testimony that King gave her the material and that the statute of limitations had passed. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans upheld the decision based on the statute of limitations.
King’s estate, operated as a private company by his children, is known to fight for control of the King brand. Harry Belafonte sued the estate this week in Manhattan federal court over the fate of three documents he tried to sell at auction.
Ballou, of Ridgeland, Miss., told The Associated Press last month that selling her collection was bittersweet. She said a portion of the proceeds would be used to establish an education fund at Alabama State University.
New York
Police: Teen girls had human remains in bag
NEW YORK — A security guard on the lookout for shoplifters searched two teenage girls as they left a Manhattan lingerie shop Thursday afternoon, and discovered one of them was carrying what appeared to be a fetus in her bag, police said.
Both girls are 17. One was hospitalized and the other was being questioned at a police precinct, authorities said. The medical examiner’s office was performing an autopsy on the apparent human remains found inside the bag.
The girls were shopping at a Victoria’s Secret lingerie store in midtown Manhattan, said police, who were called to the scene. Authorities are trying to determine if one girl gave birth in the store, or if she had been carrying the remains with her. She apparently told detectives she delivered a day earlier, but didn’t know what to do with the remains, police said. It wasn’t clear whether the fetus was alive or dead when delivered.
Victoria’s Secret is owned by Columbus, Ohio-based Limited Brands. A spokeswoman for the company referred calls to the NYPD.
Police are also investigating whether the girls had actually stolen anything from the store. It wasn’t clear whether they will face criminal charges.
The store remained open for business and was filled with customers from around world. An NYPD crime scene unit spent a few hours gathering evidence inside the store before leaving shortly before 5 p.m. A single marked police car remained at the front entrance that faces Herald Square at 34th Street.
California
Character actor
Ed Lauter dies at 74
LOS ANGELES — Veteran character actor Ed Lauter, whose long, angular face and stern bearing made him an instantly recognizable figure in scores of movies and TV shows during a career that stretched across five decades, died Wednesday. He was 74.
Lauter died of mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer most commonly caused by asbestos exposure, said his publicist, Edward Lozzi.
Whether he was an irascible authority figure, a brutal thug or a conniving con man, Lauter’s presence made him all but impossible to miss in any film he was in. That was so even on those occasions when he was playing a character more bumbling than menacing, although menacing was clearly his forte.
He was the brutal prison guard who was Burt Reynolds’ nemesis in the 1974 comedy-drama “The Longest Yard” and the sleazy gas station attendant in Alfred Hitchcock’s last film, “The Family Plot.” In “Death Wish 3,” he was the violent cop who teams with Charles Bronson’s vigilante to rid New York City’s streets of criminals, not by incarcerating them but by killing them. More recently he was the butler to Berenice Bejo’s French ingenue in the 2011 Oscar-winning film “The Artist.”
Lauter described himself in a 2010 interview with Cinema Shock magazine as a “turn” actor, someone who shows up at some point in the film and suddenly turns the plot in a different direction.
He credited the cast of real-life characters he grew up observing in his native Long Beach, New York, as inspiring many of the characters he would go on to portray.
He laughed at being someone frequently recognized in public for his roles.
“But sometimes people don’t know my name,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘Oh, yeah! There’s that guy! You were in ... you were in ... .”
He was in “Trouble With the Curve” in 2011 with Clint Eastwood and in “Born on the Fourth of July” with Tom Cruise. He was also in “The New Centurions” with George C. Scott and in “My Blue Heaven,” ‘’Revenge of the Nerds 2” and “Not Another Teenage Movie,” among many other films.
TV appearances included “The Office,” ‘’ER,” ‘’Murder, She Wrote” and “The Rockford Files.”
Among his favorite roles, he said in 2010, was “The Longest Yard.”
He recalled that director Robert Aldrich told him he didn’t have to read for the part but would have to accompany Aldrich to a nearby park so the director could ensure that he could throw a football like a quarterback would. When he hit former NFL receiver Pat Studstill, who was a stuntman in the movie, right in his jersey number with the first pass, Lauter said Aldrich told him he had the job.
Lauter, who continued to work until a few months ago, had completed roles in several films still to be released.
California
Study: Good night’s sleep cleans brain
LOS ANGELES — Here’s a reason to get some shuteye: A new study suggests our brains go on a cleaning spree during sleep, flushing out gunk that builds up while we’re awake.
Though the cleaning was observed in mice, scientists think it happens in people too. The findings were reported in Friday’s issue of the journal Science and may provide new clues to treat Alzheimer’s and other brain diseases.
People who are sleep-deprived have trouble learning and making decisions. But despite decades of research, scientists can’t agree on the basic purpose of sleep.
For the study, researchers led by the University of Rochester Medical Center observed the brains of mice while awake and asleep. They found cellular waste flowed faster out of the brains of sleeping mice than awake mice.
Arkansas
Man with knife forces way onto school bus
JACKSONVILLE — Authorities say a man armed with a knife forced his way onto a school bus as it picked up children in central Arkansas, then drove it several miles during a police pursuit.
Police say 11 children and the driver were aboard when 22-year-old Nicholas John Miller got onto the bus Thursday morning in Jacksonville, a Little Rock suburb. Jacksonville police spokeswoman April Kiser says Miller was armed with a knife and pulled over only after seeing police spike strips on the road.
Kiser says no one was injured. She says it’s unclear why Miller boarded the bus.
Miller was arrested on charges of vehicle piracy, kidnapping and aggravated assault. He hadn’t been booked in the county jail by Thursday afternoon, and it wasn’t immediately clear if he had an attorney.
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