Woman falsely claims infant

Police said Friday they found the body of a woman with her hands bound in the apartment of another woman who showed up at a hospital with a newborn she falsely claimed as her own.

The body was found Friday night in the bedroom of 38-year-old Andrea Curry-Demus, Allegheny County Medical Examiner Dr. Karl Williams said. He said the woman had been dead about 24 hours, but that he couldn’t tell if she had recently given birth.

Investigators found the body hours after Curry-Demus was charged with one count of child endangerment and one count of dealing in infant children, a misdemeanor, according to court records.

According to police, Curry-Demus showed up at West Penn Hospital in Pittsburgh on Thursday with a newborn baby that still had its umbilical cord attached. Tests later proved she was not the mother – despite her claims to the contrary, police said.

When questioned, Curry-Demus said she had miscarried in June and didn’t want to upset her mother by telling her she had lost the baby. Curry-Demus said she befriended a pregnant woman and discussed buying her child when it was born, according to the criminal complaint charging her.

Curry-Demus told police she paid a woman named Tina $1,000 for the baby, but authorities have said they don’t know how she got the baby.

Washington

Court ruling keeps whale case alive

A federal appeals court on Friday ruled in favor of environmentalists seeking protection for the endangered North Atlantic right whale, giving those activists a victory in a long-running fight to prevent whale-ship collisions.

The decision, from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, overturns a lower court decision that declined to order the U.S. Coast Guard to perform a review of the ways that cargo-ship traffic might endanger the whales. It marked the latest twist in a years-long battle over whales and ships off the East Coast.

Environmental activists want ships to slow down in areas where whales congregate or go around them. But a proposed rule aimed at setting speed limits in whale areas has been held up by Bush administration officials for more than a year.

Friday’s decision turned on issues of jurisdiction, and it did not formally order the Coast Guard to do anything. Instead, it remanded the matter back to a lower court.

But environmental groups said they were hopeful that the result of the decision would be a Coast Guard review – and, after that, a series of measures intended to protect whales from ships.

Lufkin, Texas

Driver causes two accidents, one fatal

Police say a motorist caused a fatal rollover after an illegal left turn, then started an eight-car pileup four hours later by rear-ending a stopped car.

Authorities said a grand jury will review the fatal crash and a medical advisory board will review whether Isaac Melvin Milstid, 70, of Houston, should have his driver’s license revoked over Wednesday’s crashes.

“To be running at a high rate of speed and not see vehicles stopped in front of him, raises questions on Mr. Milstid’s ability to drive safely,” Diboll Police Chief Kent Havard said.