Catholic Order Reaches $166 Million Settlement With Sexual Abuse Victims

New York Times

SEATTLE — A Roman Catholic religious order in the Northwest has agreed to pay $166 million to more than 500 victims of sexual abuse, many of whom are American Indians and Alaska Natives who were abused decades ago at Indian boarding schools and in remote villages, lawyers for the plaintiffs said Friday.

The settlement, with the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, known as the Northwest Jesuits, is the largest abuse settlement by far from a Catholic religious order, as opposed to a diocese, and it is one of the largest abuse settlements of any kind by the Catholic Church. The Jesuits are the church’s largest religious order, and their focus is education. The Oregon Province includes Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana and Alaska.

“There is a huge number of victims, in part because these Native American communities were remote and vulnerable, and in part because of a policy by the Jesuits, even though they deny it, of sending problem priests to these far-off regions,” said Terry McKiernan of Bishopaccountability.org, a victims’ advocacy group that tracks abuse cases...[Full Article]

Google Settles Privacy Lawsuit, Offers Users Nothing

Google announced the settlement of a privacy lawsuit Tuesday, and it notified users of their share of the deal: zip.

Last February, Google launched the Buzz service: a Twitter-like offering that lets Gmail users notify their contacts of their recent activity. Shortly after launch, many people were surprised to find that the service lumped all of their contacts together for such notifications -- even people users had written to but hadn't created specific contacts for. And in some cases, those lists were made public.

Many users were promptly displeased, enough so to file a class-action lawsuit. In the settlement, announced via an e-mail to Gmail users Tuesday, the company noted that it had quickly moved to address people's concerns but also announced an $8.5 million commitment to an independent fund that will promote privacy education and policy.

But that money isn't available to individual users, Google stressed...

[Full Article]