Nation briefs 08/09/02

Nixon daughters resolve dispute over $20 million

MIAMI -- Richard Nixon's daughters resolved their three-year fight over how to spend a $20 million bequest to their father's presidential library, attorneys said Thursday.

Tricia Cox and Julie Eisenhower ended two days of court-ordered mediation with a confidential agreement Wednesday, and the five sides involved in the talks agreed to keep details private, said library attorney Jack Falk.

The sisters' relationship had been strained over who would control operations at the Nixon library and birthplace in Yorba Linda, Calif., but they smiled together for a photographer during a break Tuesday on the first day of mediation.

Surgeon who left patient for bank gets suspended

BOSTON -- A surgeon who left a patient anesthetized and with an open incision in his back while he went to a bank several blocks away has had his medical license suspended.

The patient was not harmed, but Dr. David C. Arndt created an immediate threat when he left the patient at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge to go to a bank in Harvard Square, the state Board of Registration in Medicine said Wednesday. It suspended his license indefinitely.

The board said Arndt, a Harvard-trained orthopedic surgeon, was six hours into a spine operation when he told the operating staff he needed to "step out." The board said he returned about 35 minutes later and finished the operation.

Suspect in law school deaths ruled incompetent

GRUNDY, Va. -- A former Appalachian School of Law student accused of killing three people during a campus shooting spree was found incompetent to stand trial after a courtroom rant Thursday in which he blamed federal authorities for his problems.

Buchanan County General District Judge Fred Combs said that Peter Odighizuwa, 43, should be hospitalized for treatment so he can become competent.

Odighizuwa, a native of Nigeria, is accused of gunning down his former dean, a professor and a student at the law school during a shooting spree on Jan. 16.

N.C. lawmakers vote to bar funds for Quran

RALEIGH, N.C. -- A state legislative committee voted to ban the use of public funds for a University of North Carolina reading assignment on the Quran unless other religions get equal time.

The House Appropriations Committee voted Wednesday while it was putting together a $14.3 billion state budget.

"If you stop and think about what 9/11 meant to this country -- homeland security, guards everywhere," said Rep. Wayne Sexton, a Republican from Rockingham.

--From wire reports