Jaycee Dugard

The California Assembly on Thursday passed a bill appropriating $20 million to the kidnapping victim to settle her claims against the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, according to the chief clerk's office.

Dugard vanished in 1991 at the age of 11. She was found in August 2009, living in a shed in the Antioch, California, backyard of Phillip Garrido, a registered sex offender who had been on parole since January 1988. Investigators said Garrido fathered two children with Dugard during her captivity.

He and his wife, Nancy, are charged with 29 felony counts in the case. Both have pleaded not guilty.

In a report issued in November, the state inspector general's office found the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation failed to keep tabs on Garrido properly or properly supervise the officers assigned to his case.

According to CNN affiliate KCRA-TV in Sacramento, corrections officials entered into the settlement with Dugard, now 30. The settlement process was "pretty much unprecedented," said Jeff Long, spokesman for Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes, who sponsored the bill.

CNN: California lawmakers approve $20 million to settle Dugard claims

Andrea Cabral

The sheriff of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, says that, to keep people from returning to prison, they need vocational and educational skills and the health care that they were not getting before they were incarcerated.

In November 2002, Cabral became the first female in the commonwealth's history and also the first African-American in the county to hold the position. She is responsible for both the jail and the prison in the county - which means more than 1,000 corrections officers, investigators, educators, health care providers, caseworkers, managers and administrative staff who watch over some 2,700 offenders who are in the system on any given day.

Cabral is scheduled as one of the featured speakers at the 2010 National Organization for Women Conference beginning Friday in Boston, Massachusetts. Cabral told CNN on Thursday that she'll focus her remarks on the issues that are unique to women in prison.

"I see a lot of women who have experienced domestic violence. Everything from their self-esteem to the way they raise their children to the way they act out criminally is very much related to the violence in their own lives," she said. "We have gender-specific programs that deal specifically with the trauma that these women have experienced. We help them understand it and the relationship between the trauma and their own self-destructive and criminal behavior."

Suffolk County Sheriff's Department: Cabral's bio

National Organization for Women website

Anne Gehman

The "medium" has a special gift: She says she can communicate with the spirits of those who have transcended into the spiritual realm.

For 40 years, Gehman has spent summers in Lily Dale, New York, 60 miles south of Buffalo. The Victorian-style village is home to the world's largest community of mediums who are visited each year by thousands of people who want their services.

Gehman, founder and pastor of the Center for Spiritual Enlightenment in Falls Church, Virginia, told CNN on Thursday that she began having psychic experiences as a child. At 17, she became the youngest person to be certified by the National Spiritual Association of Churches. Since 1968, she also has been working with police forces and government agencies to help solve crimes.

"It's not my favorite work," she said, "but do it when called upon."

Gehman is featured in the HBO documentary "No One Dies in Lily Dale," which premieres Monday on HBO. CNN and HBO are owned by Time Warner.

When skeptics question her gift, she said she simply asks them to be open-minded.

"I am never concerned about trying to convince someone of the reality of the continuity at life," Gehman said. "I believe when they are ready, they will find it."

HBO: 'No One Dies in Lily Dale'

Anne Gehman's website

Michael Mann

A panel of top academics has cleared the controversial Penn State University climate scientist of research misconduct and wrongdoing following a four-month internal investigation by the university.

Penn State officials, in a statement, said Mann was under investigation for allegations of research impropriety that surfaced last year after thousands of e-mails were stolen from computer servers at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in England.

The panel of tenured professors at Penn State investigated whether or not Mann, a leading climate change researcher, had "engaged in, directly or indirectly, any actions that seriously deviated from accepted practices within the academic community for proposing, conducting or reporting research or other scholarly activities."

The New York Times reports that Mann was pleased by this second Penn State report clearing his reputation.

"I'm aware, and many researchers now are keenly aware, of the depths to which the climate-change disinformation movement is willing to sink, to the point where they're willing to criminally break into a university server and steal people's personal e-mail messages," Mann said in an interview.

According to the newspaper, the Virginia attorney general is still investigating Mann for research he did at the University of Virginia.

The New York Times: Climate scientist cleared of altering data

Penn State Live: Investigation of climate scientist at Penn State complete

CNN: Opinion: Attack on climate scientist just latest in a long line

Gary Parker

The advertising and corporate magazine photographer has spent 18 years photographing America's little people. He has taken tens of thousands of images of people who were born with various types of dwarfism.

Parker, a former photojournalist who works in San Jose, California, said he has made it his mission to post images on his website of every kind of dwarfism there is in the world.

He told CNN on Thursday, "Familiarity breeds acceptance. Once people can actually see that little people are happy, upbeat individuals, it helps spread the idea that they are not mystical characters or sad people who live their lives in hospitals."

Parker's website has received as many as 10 million hits per year. He said he has received personal e-mail from parents all over the world, thanking him for posting the images.

He said, "They write to me something like, 'I had a little child. I have been crying ever since, thinking my child has no future. As soon as I saw your website, my tears of agony turned into tears of joy.' "

When he gets these e-mails, he immediately connects these parents with the Little People of America, a nonprofit organization that is holding its national convention in Nashville, Tennessee, beginning Friday.

In 2009, Parker - who stands at 6 feet, 1 inch - was named an honorary lifetime member of the organization.

Gary Parker Photography: Dwarfism project

Little People of America website