American Scene

DELAWARE

Transgender patients topless at beach

REHOBOTH BEACH — Rehoboth Beach isn’t a topless beach, but a few transgender patients caused a stir by treating it like one.

Police said passers-by complained after they removed their tops and revealed their surgically enhanced breasts over Memorial Day weekend. A lifeguard asked them to put their tops back on. They initially refused, but covered up before police arrived.

Even if they hadn’t, Police Chief Keith Banks noted they were doing nothing illegal. Since they have male genitalia, they can’t be charged with indecent exposure for showing their breasts. Chief Banks said there’s no need for a specific law to address the issue.

Rehoboth Beach Commissioner Kathy McGuiness said the matter will be discussed at a town hall meeting next week.

IDAHO

ACLU, state settle prison suit

BOISE — The American Civil Liberties Union has reached a settlement with the Idaho Department of Correction in a lawsuit over violence at a privately run prison near Boise.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit against Corrections Corporation of America and the state earlier this year, saying the Idaho Correctional Center is so violent that inmates refer to it as “gladiator school” and that guards deliberately expose prisoners to brutal beatings from other inmates.

The ACLU’s lawsuit against CCA still stands.

CCA has said the prison meets the highest professional standards.

Under the agreement, the Idaho Department of Correction agrees to oversee compliance with any orders a federal judge makes regarding CCA in connection with the lawsuit.

NEW YORK

Rue McClanahan, ’Golden Girl,’ dies

NEW YORK — Rue McClanahan, the Emmy-winning actress who brought the sexually liberated Southern belle Blanche Devereaux to life on the hit TV series “The Golden Girls,” has died. She was 76.

Her manager, Barbara Lawrence, said Ms. McClanahan died Thursday at 1 a.m. at New York-Presbyterian Hospital of a brain hemorrhage.

She had undergone treatment for breast cancer in 1997 and later lectured to cancer support groups on “aging gracefully.” In 2009, she had heart bypass surgery.

Ms. McClanahan had an active career in off-Broadway and regional stages in the 1960s before she was tapped for TV in the 1970s for the key best-friend character on the hit series “Maude,” starring Beatrice Arthur. After that series ended in 1978, Ms. McClanahan landed the role as Aunt Fran on “Mama’s Family” in 1983.

But her most loved role came in 1985 when she co-starred with Ms. Arthur, Betty White and Estelle Getty in “The Golden Girls,” a runaway hit that broke the sitcom mold by focusing on the foibles of four aging, and frequently eccentric, women living together in Miami.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Police: Black man fatally shot, dragged

NEWBERRY — The shooting death of a black man whose body was dragged for several miles is being investigated as a possible hate crime after the arrest of a white man he worked with, South Carolina’s state police chief said.

Gregory Collins, 19, is charged with murder and made his first court appearance Thursday. No bond was set and he did not have an attorney, Newberry County Magistrate Ron Halfacre said.

The FBI was in Newberry County in central South Carolina on Wednesday assisting in the investigation of the shooting death of Anthony Hill, 30, state law enforcement division Director Reggie Lloyd told the State newspaper.

“We don’t yet have a definitive motive for all this,” Mr. Lloyd said.

Mr. Hill’s body was found about 4:30 a.m. Wednesday on U.S. Highway 176. Newberry County sheriff’s deputies followed a trail of blood from Mr. Hill’s body back to Mr. Collins’ mobile home.

VERMONT

Girl, lesbian mom may have fled U.S.

MONTPELIER — An 8-year-old girl at the heart of a long-running child custody fight between former lesbian partners may have fled to Central America with her birth mother, a lawyer for one of the women said.

The girl, Isabella Miller-Jenkins, and her birth mother, Lisa Miller, failed to appear for a court-ordered custody swap in January and are believed to have flown to El Salvador last September, said attorney Sarah Star, who represents former partner Janet Jenkins.

Miss Star said a Virginia police officer told her that Miss Miller and the girl flew to El Salvador’s capital, San Salvador, from Juarez, Mexico, which is across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas.

“This is obviously horrifying,” Miss Star said Thursday. “Isabella’s not in school. She’s most likely in a country that is not as developed as the U.S., and [Miss Jenkins is] worried about her. She’s worried she’s not in a safe environment. As far as we know, Lisa Miller doesn’t even speak Spanish.”

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has turned its attention to Central America, distributing photos and information about Isabella to news outlets throughout the region, apparently thinking she and her birth mother moved there, Miss Star said Thursday.

• From wire dispatches and staff reports