(Reuters) – Vermont on Monday became the fourth U.S. state to end legal penalties for doctors who prescribe medication to terminally ill patients seeking to end their own lives.

The law, which includes a number of safeguards over the next three years as the state adapts, marked the first time a U.S. state has used the legislative process to make assisted suicide legal. Oregon and Washington have similar laws passed through ballot measures and a Montana court authorized the practice in 2009.

“Vermonters who face terminal illness and are in excruciating pain at the end of their lives now have control over their destinies. This is the right thing to do,” said Governor Peter Shumlin, a Democrat, who signed the law on Monday.

Supporters of the practice are hoping Vermont’s law will lend momentum in other states, such as Connecticut and New Jersey, that have considered similar legislation. A bill legalizing the practice failed in Massachusetts last year.

The law allows physicians to prescribe death-inducing medications, which terminally ill patients wishing to commit suicide could then administer to themselves. It limits the prescriptions to residents of the state.

“Vermont’s law reflects another normalization of the practice of aid in dying in the practice of medicine,” said Kathryn Tucker, director of legal affairs at Compassion and Choices, a group that backed the Vermont law. “Support for patients to be empowered and choose aid and dying is growing. So I think this is an important step in moving that forward.”

The Vermont bill is more sweeping than the initiatives passed in Oregon or Washington. As in those two states, it provides a number of safeguards – though the Vermont bill calls for these to expire in 2016.

During the first three years, the law requires ailing patients to make three requests for death-inducing drugs. Both the patient’s primary physician and a consulting doctor must agree the patient is suffering from a terminal illness and is capable of making an informed decision to request death-inducing drugs.

After July 1, 2016, the practice of prescribing life-ending medication will be overseen by professional practice standards that govern physician conduct in other aspects of medicine.

The two-tiered approach was instituted as a compromise between legislators who preferred Oregon’s model of legal safeguards and others who objected to what they saw as government interference in end-of-life decisions.

Advocates of assisted suicide say the practice can save years of suffering for patients of painful terminal illnesses, such as bone cancer. Opponents warn that measures allowing it may encourage people to take their own lives at the behest of potential heirs or because they fear they are imposing a burden on family.

True Dignity Vermont, a group that opposed the Vermont law, said it would work with a network of health care providers to help support alternatives to the terminally ill.

“We now have state-sanctioned suicide in Vermont,” said Edward Mahoney, president of the group, in a statement. “If the state won’t protect Vermonters, we will try.”

(Reporting by Jason McLure in Littleton, New Hampshire; Editing by Scott Malone and Nick Zieminski)

Cleaveland and a group of friends took to the streets with pocketfuls of change and began shadowing the city’s three parking enforcement officers, stuffing coins in expired meters before they could issue $5 tickets.

They call their practice “Robin Hooding,” and in just over four months, the group claims to have spared motorists more than 2,000 tickets in the city of some 23,000.

“It’s my philosophy,” said Cleaveland, 26, a member of a group called Free Keene, which subscribes to the libertarian principle of smaller government.

“I could go talk to the city council at every meeting but to me, actions speak louder than words. I can go out and try to save people and reduce the number of tickets.”

The southern New Hampshire city’s government does not share Cleaveland’s view. This month it filed suit in state court against him and five others seeking a restraining order to keep them at least 50 feet from parking enforcement officers.

The suit accuses Cleaveland and five others of videotaping, taunting and intimidating its parking meter personnel.

The alleged behavior includes chasing officers on bicycles, shouting insults and accusing them of stealing people’s money. One officer became so stressed that he complained of heart palpitations and began having nightmares about the group, according to court papers.

“It’s affecting the employees and it’s taking a lot of time and energy to deal with it, and so the city’s intent was to try to establish some clear boundaries and a little breathing room,” said James Duffy, a member of the Keene City Council.

“We’re not saying you can’t complain about the meters or plug them, it’s just how that’s done.”

Cleaveland has vowed to continue. He said he knows each parking attendant by name.

“I don’t follow them home or try to find them off duty,” he said. “They always use the excuse ‘I’m just doing my job.’ I always say ‘I’m just doing my activity too.’”

CALLING CARD

The Free Keene movement is part of the Free State Project, a group that has sought to get 20,000 libertarians to settle in New Hampshire, a state already known for its limited government and which has no sales or income tax.

The Keene chapter’s prior actions included publicly smoking marijuana in the city’s central square to protest drug laws, and holding a protest against gun restrictions that featured a half-nude woman armed with a holstered handgun walking through downtown.

Cleaveland’s compatriot Garrett Ean, 24, said he feeds meters up to five days a week in three- to four-hour shifts during the 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. period when motorists must pay to park downtown.

He said he spends less than $15 a day since some of Keene’s meters cost as little as 10 cents for 30 minutes of parking.

Like Cleaveland, he leaves a card on the windshield of each “saved” car that says: “Your Meter Expired! However we saved you from the king’s tariff! – Robin Hood & The Merry Men.”

The card leaves an address for an activists’ center and encourages motorists to send a donation.

The group sometimes receives handwritten thank-you notes in addition to donations, which are sometimes enough not only to cover the costs of feeding meters but also to allow the group to pay the activists a small amount, said Cleaveland.

City Councilor Duffy said the city, home to Keene State College, is a progressive community whose tolerance is sometimes stretched by the group’s scrutiny of even the most minor actions of local government.

“In many ways this is a progressive community and also a tolerant one, but it’s been going on long enough,” he said. “This won’t be the last issue.”

(Editing by Scott Malone and Xavier Briand)

The conviction and sentencing of the man, Steven Kamberidis, was the result of years of negotiation between the Federal Bureau of Investigation — which knew the man was in Greece — and Greek authorities, FBI officials said.

Kamberidis, formerly of Nashua, New Hampshire, had been released on $50,000 bail during his May 1991 trial in state court for the beating death of the boy, James Chartier. He disappeared on the jury’s first day of deliberation, and was convicted the next day despite his absence from court. He was later sentenced in absentia to 30-years to life in a New Hampshire prison.

The FBI had been aware for years that Kamberidis was living with family members in Thessaloniki, Greece, where the family owns businesses including a carpet and rug store. Greece does not typically extradite its own citizens to the United States, said Kieran Ramsey, the supervisory agent in the FBI’s New Hampshire office.

Kamberidis was arrested in Greece in February and sentenced on April 29, the result of an agreement that allowed the court in Athens to use records of testimony from his U.S. trial, Ramsey said.

U.S. officials did not announce the conviction until now because of a lengthy diplomatic process to affirm the result, Ramsey said.

“What resulted was a consolation prize and a very positive result,” Ramsey, said in a phone interview. “They decided to arrest him, try him and convict him there, which essentially reaffirmed the New Hampshire state conviction.”

Daniel Chartier, the young victim’s uncle, told the Nashua Telegraph newspaper that the family was “very relieved” at the news. Other family members of the murdered child could not be reached for comment.

As part of his bail terms during his 1991 New Hampshire trial, Kamberidis was ordered to live with his parents in Manchester, New Hampshire. After he escaped, family members told the local sheriff’s office that he disappeared during his normal evening walk. Authorities soon suspected he had fled the country.

Kamberidis’s parents later returned to Thessaloniki, after forfeiting their home to cover their son’s bail.

“International fugitive cases can be very complicated,” Ramsey said, before thanking Greek law enforcement. “They did give us an extremely favorable outcome and they did give us some measure of justice for the family and the poor 2-year-old boy who was killed.”

(Editing by Scott Malone and Bob Burgdorfer)

Representative Peter Hansen was responding to fellow Republican Representative Steve Vaillancourt, who had urged repeal of the state’s Stand Your Ground law. The 2011 law allows use of deadly force even if people could safely retreat from a threatening situation.

“What could possibly be missing from those factual tales of successful retreat in VT (Vermont), Germany and the bowels of Amsterdam,” Hansen wrote in an email to the 400-member House of Representatives in response to a speech by Vaillancourt.

“Why children and vagina’s (sic) of course. While the tales relate the actions of a solitary male the outcome cannot relate to similar situations where children and women and mothers are the potential victims.”

The April 1 email drew widespread condemnation from both Democrats and Republicans after it was republished on Monday on a state political blog called Susan the Bruce.

NARAL Pro-Choice New Hampshire, an abortion rights group, called on Hansen to resign. “New Hampshire citizens expect civil behavior from our elected officials and we will not tolerate behavior that serves only to degrade women,” it said in a statement on Wednesday.

Jennifer Horn, chairman of the state Republican Party, said Hansen’s comments “are crude, offensive and have no place in public discourse.”

Hansen, who initially defended the email, issued a full apology on Wednesday.

“I want to apologize to my constituents, my colleagues and women, especially those in my life, for the blatantly offensive, insensitive and, frankly, stupid language I used in my email with House members regarding the Stand Your Ground legislation,” Hansen wrote in an emailed statement.

“I am embarrassed, to say the least. There is no place or need in the public discourse for the words I used. The people and the process deserve better than that.”

The Democrat-controlled House voted to repeal Stand Your Ground on March 27. The bill faces an uncertain future in the state’s Republican-controlled Senate.

Hansen’s comments especially stand out in New Hampshire, which has a female governor and an all-female delegation to Congress. The House speaker and chief justice of the Supreme Court are also women.

“It just seemed outrageous because it was going out to all 400 representatives,” said Democratic Representative Rick Watrous. “Usually we use the term ‘women’ when we’re talking about women.”

(Reporting by Jason McLure; Editing by Ian Simpson, Greg McCune and Steve Orlofsky)

Following a three-month trial, jurors deliberated less than two hours before finding that the world’s largest publicly traded oil company acted negligently in contaminating the groundwater with the additive MTBE, said Jessica Grant, a lawyer who represented the state.

“We’re very pleased that the jury held Exxon accountable for the harm its defective product caused to the state’s groundwater resources and that they also held Exxon responsible for its negligence,” she said.

Originally filed in New Hampshire court in 2003, the state charged that Exxon and other major oil companies knew that MTBE was likely to contaminate groundwater and was more difficult to clean up than other pollutants. Some damages from the suit will help pay for the costs of testing and cleaning affected water supplies.

Exxon vowed to appeal.

“MTBE worked as intended to improve our air quality and the benefits of its use substantially outweighed the known risks,” said spokeswoman Rachael Moore. “MTBE contamination in New Hampshire is rapidly decreasing and the state’s current system for cleaning up gasoline spills ensures safe drinking water.”

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today considers MTBE a potential human carcinogen, though much of the research on the chemical has focused on the health effects of inhaling it rather than drinking it. New Hampshire banned MTBE in the state in 2007.

Exxon was the only one of the 22 original defendants in the original suit to go to trial. Other defendants either had the suits against them dismissed or agreed to settlements.

Those included Canada-based Irving Oil Co, which agreed to pay $57 million last year, and Venezuela’s state-owned Citgo Petroleum Corp, which struck a $16 million agreement as the trial began.

The three-month trial on the suit, filed in state court, was moved to the state’s federal courthouse in Concord to accommodate the large number of witnesses, lawyers and exhibits. The jury found that MTBE contamination had caused $816 million in damages in the state. Exxon’s market share of 29 percent was used to compute damages, Grant said.

(Reporting by Jason McLure; Editing by Scott Malone and Tim Dobbyn)

The National Rifle Association and gun rights supporters had campaigned to defeat the bill repealing the state’s “Stand Your Ground” law, arguing the change would embolden criminals and lead to greater violence against women.

The bill passed by a roll call vote of 189-184 after a heated debate. The proposed change may face tougher odds in the state Senate, which is narrowly controlled by Republicans.

If repealed, the state would return to the so-called “castle doctrine” under which there is a duty to retreat from a threatening situation unless it occurs inside a person’s home.

So-called Stand Your Ground laws have come under scrutiny in a number of states since the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a Florida teenager, by a man who told police he felt threatened by the unarmed 17-year-old. George Zimmerman, the Florida neighborhood watch volunteer who killed Martin, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the case

Florida and New Hampshire are among more than 20 states that have such laws, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

New Hampshire passed a number of laws loosening control on gun usage in 2011, when Republicans commanded large majorities in both chambers. Since regaining control of the House, Democrats have sought to push back on some of these measures.

The debate on how to regulate ownership of guns, a right protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, has flared in the wake of a mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 27 people dead including 20 young children.

“I ask you to oppose this law for the women in my life, the women that I care about,” said Republican state Representative Leon Rideout, during the debate over the bill. “If they do get attacked, I believe they should have all means of defense against their attackers.”

Supporters of the New Hampshire bill argued that repealing Stand Your Ground was necessary to reduce the risk that conflicts would end in armed shoot-outs between citizens, and they criticized the role of the NRA.

New Hampshire’s 2011 gun control law was passed over the veto of former Democratic Governor John Lynch. The Stand Your Ground portion allows people to use deadly force to protect themselves or another person when threatened anywhere including in situations where they could safely retreat.

(Editing by Scott Malone and Bob Burgdorfer)

Michael and Tammy Austin had sought unspecified damages from the district in Concord, New Hampshire, which they say failed to provide a safe environment for their son, who had been bullied leading up to the May 2010 incident.

The Austins’ son, a 14-year-old freshman with learning disabilities enrolled at Concord High School, was taken to a house near the school and held in the basement against his will. There two of the older boys took turns tattooing the words “Poop Dick” on his buttocks, according to the Austins’ complaint, which was filed in state court in September 2011.

The victim’s name was withheld due to his young age.

Stephen Duggan, an attorney for the Austins, said he hopes to reach a settlement with the district in the next few months. A lawyer for the district did not return telephone calls.

The victim, who had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, suffered further emotional distress after the other students took pictures of the tattoo and circulated them on cell phones. He was also subject to bullying on Facebook after the incident, the complaint said.

The suit said school officials failed to fulfill a promise to provide chaperones for the boy, who had a history of skipping classes, to make sure he got from one class to the next.

The school district has responded that it acted properly and that the students who participated in the tattooing, who were enrolled in a program for troubled youth, were at fault.

Donald Wyman, then 21, Blake Vannest, then 19, and two minors bullied the Austin’s son for months prior to the incident, calling him “faggot” and “Spider man,” the complaint said.

In 2010 all four pleaded guilty to criminal charges stemming from the tattoo incident and were sentenced to serve between three days and six months in jail.

(Editing by Scott Malone, Greg McCune and Dan Grebler)

Under the proposed law, individual districts would have been required to decide whether to allow school employees who are licensed to carry a concealed weapon to do so on campus.

The bill had been submitted in January, weeks after a gunman armed with a semi-automatic assault rifle attacked a grammar school in Newtown, Connecticut, a brazen assault that left 26 people dead, including 20 children ages 6 and 7.

In the wake of that incident, the head of the National Rifle Association lobby proposed putting armed guards in schools who would have the ability to fight off future attackers.

While New Hampshire, whose motto is “Live Free or Die,” has some of the least restrictive gun laws of any state in the northeast, the suggestion of arming school staff ran into opposition. The bill was defeated on Wednesday by a voice vote.

“It was just a bad, bad bill,” said Representative Steve Shurtleff, majority leader of the Democratic-controlled House, in a Thursday interview. “The idea of arming teachers, it takes care of the symptom but doesn’t go to the cause of the problem itself.”

Proponents of the measure argued that arming teachers and staff would help prevent future mass shootings.

“The one thing we know is gun-free zones don’t make people safe,” said Representative Daniel Itse, a Republican who sponsored the bill. “It’s created a discussion. When you’re changing the paradigm, these things seldom happen on the first time out. You’ve got to make your case. You’ve got to change minds.”

The United States has seen an intense debate on guns in the wake of the Newtown shooting, with gun-control advocates arguing more restrictions are needed to promote public safety, and proponents of gun rights arguing that restrictions on legal gun ownership will not prevent criminal use.

The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution enshrines the right to bear arms.

South Dakota last week passed a similar law, which would have allowed its school districts to arm teachers, staff or recruit volunteers to stand as armed sentinels.

Other communities have taken more symbolic measures. The town of Byron, Maine, last week voted against a symbolic proposal that would have required every household in the small rural town to own a gun.

New Hampshire, which neighbors Maine, does not have a firearms registry or require a permit or license to own guns. Though it requires a permit to carry a concealed handgun, loaded guns are allowed to be carried openly in most public places without a license, including banks, bars and hospitals.

State law bans firearms in the courtroom and loaded rifles and shotguns from being carried in vehicles, while federal laws bar the public from carrying weapons within 1,000 feet of a school and federal buildings.

In 2011, New Hampshire’s then-Republican-controlled legislature voted to allow carrying weapons in the state’s legislative chambers, a measure that was repealed earlier this year by a new Democratic majority.

Democrats are also pushing a bill to repeal the state’s 2011 “Stand Your Ground” law, which allows those who believe they are threatened by another to use deadly force to protect themselves—even if they could safely retreat from the situation.

(Editing by Scott Malone, Cynthia Johnston and Nick Zieminski)

At a meeting in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the New England Fishery Management Council voted to slash the legal harvest of cod in the Gulf of Maine by 77 percent to 1,550 metric tons for the fishing season beginning May 1, said Pat Fiorelli, a spokeswoman for the council.

“It’s really grim,” said Fiorelli. “These stocks are in real decline and questions were raised about whether they’ll ever come back.”

It also cut the quota for cod caught on Georges Bank, an area stretching east of Cape Cod, by 55 percent to 2,002 metric tons. The new quotas will be in effect until 2016.

The limits highlight the disappearance of a fish species that helped draw settlers to North America from Europe 500 years ago.

This year’s quotas are equivalent to about 6 percent of the landings of Georges Bank and Gulf of Maine cod in 1981. Researchers at the University of New Hampshire estimate that cod stocks have declined by about 90 percent in the last 50 years due to overfishing and other changes to marine ecosystems.

In September the Commerce Department issued a disaster declaration for the fishery, a move that set the stage for emergency relief funding from Congress.

A total of $150 million in relief for the New England and two other fishing areas was included in an early version of the Hurricane Sandy relief bill that passed earlier this month, but was removed from the final version of the law.

“There are a lot of scared fishermen figuring out what their future is going to look like and a lot of people scared about what the ecosystem looks like,” said Ben Martens, director of the Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association, which represents 35 fishermen.

The council considered and rejected a motion to close the fisheries completely in order to give the fish populations a better chance to recover, though that did little to cheer the industry, said Martens. Fishermen who made 100 trips to sea last year will likely make between 15 and 30 this year, he said.

“We’ve got a lot of guys who have been working very hard to create businesses that are solvent and this cut is going to be really hard on them,” Martens said.

(Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Eric Walsh)

The project by Norway’s Statoil, the company that
seeks to expand testing of a new technology to allow wind power
to be generated in deep oceanic waters, would provide enough
power for about 7,000 Maine homes.

The move by the state utilities commission is a first but
important step in a lengthy approval process not expected to
conclude until 2014. If all goes smoothly, electricity from the
windmills could be generated as soon as 2016, the company said.

“Whatever the outcome of the Statoil project and whatever
the future for high-wind technology in broader applications, I
have no doubt the pilot itself will bring substantial knowledge
and experience in offshore development to Maine,” said Thomas
Welch, chairman of the Maine Public Utilities Commission.

Located 12 miles (19 kilometers) offshore, each of the
236-foot (72 meter) high towers would hold three 166-foot (51
meter) long blades, and would float in water about 500 feet (152
meters) deep.

Maine’s Republican Governor, Paul LePage, blasted the move,
saying it would raise the cost of electricity in the state.
“This vote will exacerbate our economic challenges, and it
compounds Maine’s competitive disadvantages,” LePage said in a
statement.

An undersea cable would transmit electricity from the
turbines to the coast of Maine. The company has tested a single
prototype of the floating windmill, known as Hywind, for three
years in Norway and considers it an engineering success.

Statoil has applied to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management
for a lease over 22-square miles (57-square kilometers) of
federal waters in the Gulf of Maine near the town of Boothbay.

The area is suitable for the pilot program because of
favorable wind conditions and water depths as well as proximity
to electricity markets in the Northeast, which could be tapped
in the future if the project is a success.

Each of the three-megawatt windmills would sit atop a
vertical floating tube that would extend 260 feet (79 meters)
below the surface of the sea. The bottom of each tube would be
filled with ballast and anchored to the seafloor by three
cables.