Daily News Thread

[lawyerlee]

BTK Suspect's Murder Trial Set to Begin (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050626/ap_on_re_us/btk_killings&printer=1;_ylt=As7w.sCp186DKCrBio4HmNhH2ocA;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-)

By ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press Writer 56 minutes ago
A trial is scheduled to begin Monday for the man accused of being the notorious BTK serial killer, blamed for the killings of 10 people, but no one outside the defense has any idea what's going to happen.

Aside from an early routine defense motion for discovery of evidence, the court record on the case against BTK suspect Dennis Rader has been unusually silent.

None of the typical defense strategies have been filed, said Jim Pratt, a Wichita criminal defense attorney who has watched the case.

No motion for a change of venue is on record in the highly publicized case. There are no motions to suppress evidence or even for a detailed juror questionnaire.

It was only last month that Rader was arraigned, standing mute as District Judge Gregory Waller entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

The judge set trial to begin Monday, but nearly everyone expected that to be postponed given the complexity of the 10-count, first-degree murder case. Getting a continuance would have been easy; all it usually takes in Sedgwick County is a call to the prosecutors and scheduling clerk rather than a formal motion, Pratt said.

But Rader's court-appointed attorneys have not been talking. Their spokesman, Mark Orr, would say only that whatever happens in the case will happen in court. Orr said the defense attorneys had not divulged to him what they planned to do and were not taking calls from reporters.

"It would be very unusual for a jury trial to begin at first setting, but so far everything about this case has been unusual," said Georgia Cole, spokeswoman for the Sedgwick County District Attorney's Office.

All prosecutors know, Cole said, is that some type of court proceeding will be held on Monday.

"Beyond that, I cannot guess," she said.

Prosecutors insisted there had been no plea deal.

Rader, 60, of Park City, is accused of killing 10 people in the Wichita area between 1974 and 1991. The BTK killer — BTK stands for "Bind, Torture, Kill" — taunted media and police with cryptic messages that became increasingly frequent in the months before Rader's arrest.

Despite the notoriety of the case, the court called no additional prospective jurors. Jury clerk Linda Marvin said the usual pool of 120 prospective jurors would be on hand Monday, with the usual 200 extra people on call.

The most Rader could face is a life sentence because Kansas had no death penalty statute on the books when the crimes with which he is charged were committed.

[lawyerlee]

Plane With Knife on Board Returns to Ill. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050626/ap_on_re_us/brf_knife_on_flight&printer=1;_ylt=An4gr19BLbdZp_byTt409kNH2ocA;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-)

An American Airlines flight that had taken off on a flight to Rome returned to O'Hare International Airport because a passenger found a small knife on board, an airline spokeswoman said Sunday.

American Airlines Flight 110 had been in the air for more than an hour Saturday when the passenger found the knife inside an airline-provided package containing a pillow and blanket, American spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan said.

The plane was returned to O'Hare as a security precaution, Fagan said. The Boeing 767-300, which had 199 passengers, landed about 2 1/2 hours after taking off.

Fagan said the airline did not know how the knife got into the plastic-wrapped package. Airline personnel found nothing suspicious on board following the landing.

The federal Transportation Security Administration later cleared the aircraft for takeoff, TSA spokeswoman Jessie Nicholson said.

However, passengers had to spend the night in Chicago because the flight crew had worked too many consecutive hours under federal regulations. The flight left Sunday morning, Fagan said.


Survivors Mourn 178,000 Killed in Tsunami (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050626/ap_on_re_as/tsunami_remembered&printer=1;_ylt=AtPwjAZ34zErRmV3uek3mvn9xg8F;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-)

By KRISHAN FRANCIS, Associated Press Writer 22 minutes ago

Marking the day six months ago that an earthquake and tsunami killed 178,000 people and left another 50,000 missing, volunteers in this Sri Lankan hamlet collected anything left from the rubble for an exhibition meant to help survivors mourn.

School bags, shoes, tea cups, television parts were all brought to a school in Vakarai, about 37 miles northeast of Batticaloa.

"This pair of shoes, my daughter liked most" read an inscription near a shoe.

Elsewhere across Asia, some places held ceremonies Sunday to mourn those lost and mark the day that devastated so many lives.

In India's worst affected area of Nagapattinam, a fisherman burned incense sticks before a coconut sapling planted by the shore. The plant, named after the fisherman Ravi Shankar's niece Nandini K., is among 207 saplings planted in the memory of children who died at the spot.

More than 11,000 people died in India, and fears of another tsunami linger, said Namaswaya, the head of a local fishermen cooperative in Nagapattinam.

"The water is very rough, so people don't want to go. There was also a rumor that there could be another tsunami at 6 a.m. today," he said.

In Indonesia, where people had gathered a day earlier to commemorate the 131,000 killed there, signs of hope mingled with new life as families filled the grounds of the Baiturrahman Grand Mosque in the heart of hardest-hit Banda Aceh and wedding parties were held throughout the provincial capital.

[lawyerlee]

Neo-Nazis outnumbered at historic site (http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/25/neo.nazi.rally/index.html)

YORKTOWN, Virginia (CNN) -- Standing at what was once a U.S. Revolutionary War battlefield, about 125 Neo-Nazis and sympathizers held a rally Saturday while two groups of counter demonstrators protested.

One of the counter demonstrations had about twice as many people.

Some of the Neo-Nazis gathered at Yorktown Battlefield dressed in traditional Nazi garb, with brown shirts and swastika arm bands. Many had shaved heads, and called out "Sieg Heil," a slogan of Nazi Germany.

National Socialist Movement leader Jeff Schoep railed against immigrants, calling them "putrid scum" that are "pouring over our borders, destroying our culture, and robbing us of our heritage."

"We must secure the existence of white people and the future of white children," another speaker said.

In its application for a permit, the movement said it was "inviting the Ku Klux Klan, skinheads, Aryan nations, and any other patriotic groups" to take part.

About a third of the participants in the rally were aligned with the Neo-Nazi movement, while others included skinheads and some Klan members, organizers said.

Some participants waved American flags, while others waved flags with swastikas on them.


U.S. officials: Mosul attacks kill 41 (http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/06/26/iraq.main/index.html)
Baghdad deputy chief of emergency police assassinated

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.S. military officials said four suicide bombs in the Mosul area killed 41 people in 18 hours, while Iraqi police said the toll from the attacks was at least 19 dead and 27 wounded.

The most recent blast took place at 2:45 p.m. (6:45 a.m. ET) Sunday at the security entrance of the emergency room of the Jamahoori Hospital, killing five police officers and wounding six, Iraqi police said. U.S. military officials said three people were killed in the hospital attack.

The officers involved were hospital security personnel, police said.

Earlier a suicide bomber attacked the Kasak Iraqi military base parking lot, killing at least five people and wounding 13 more, police said. U.S. military officials, however, put the death toll at 16.

Police said casualties all were civilian laborers at the base -- which houses an Iraqi army division. U.S. officials said the bomber claimed 16 lives.

Earlier, a bomb hidden in a pickup truck under a pile of watermelons exploded outside an Iraqi police station, killing four police officers who were inside along with an Iraqi civilian, said Iraqi police Gen. Sa'id al-Jubori.

Eight people were wounded in the attack -- which occurred Sunday morning at the main gate of al-Toob police station in western Mosul, al-Jubori said. U.S. military officials said the blast killed 15 people.

The string of bombings began Saturday night. A suicide car bomb -- targeting an Iraqi police convoy -- killed four Iraqi police officers, police said. U.S. military officials said seven people died in the attack.

[lawyerlee]

Euan Blair gets job in US as an intern (http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,1515389,00.html)

Prime minister's eldest son to spend three months in Washington after university working for Republican congressman

Michael White, political editor
Monday June 27, 2005
The Guardian
Euan Blair will be spending three months in Washington working as an unpaid intern for a powerful Republican congressman this summer. But he is also hoping to work for a Democrat as well, Downing Street confirmed yesterday.

The prime minister's eldest son, who is about to graduate from Bristol University, will work for Congressman David Dreier, chairman of the House rules committee as part of preparation for what he hopes will be an MBA course at Harvard, possibly after a gap year.

[lawyerlee]

US accused over Muslim detentions (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4625201.stm) BBC News
The US indefinitely detained some 70 Muslim men after the 11 September attacks on baseless accusations of terrorist links, US rights bodies say.

The US Justice Department held the men under a federal law as witnesses likely to flee, Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union say.

In a new report, the US is criticised for not arresting the men as criminal suspects, and later releasing many.

The Justice Department says the witness ruling is crucial to crime-fighting.

The material witness law was designed to allow the detention of witnesses thought to have information relating to a crime but who might flee.

Judges were willing to co-operate with FBI calls for detentions in the weeks and months after 11 September 2001 as authorities attempted both to investigate the attacks and to prevent fresh strikes.

[lawyerlee]

Wind, heat challenge Southwest fire crews (http://www.usatoday.com/weather/stormcenter/2005-06-26-wildfires_x.htm) USA Today

ST. GEORGE, Utah (AP) — Firefighters battled in hot, dry and windy weather Sunday to contain a nearly 60,000-acre wildfire that prompted evacuations, closed a major highway for hours and covered much of southwest Utah with a dark, smoky haze.

Evacuation orders remained in place Sunday for the small town of Gunlock and the tiny reservation community of Shivwits, home of the Shivwits Band of Paiutes.

Temperatures in the 90s and high wind pushed the fire through grass and brush made thick by winter rainfall.

"It limits our capabilities and makes it hard to get a handle on it," said Brian Cardoza, 32, of the Boise-based Idaho City Hot Shots team, who was starting his fifth day on the fire.

Elsewhere, firefighters confronted blazes in California, Arizona and Nevada that had consumed more than 200,000 acres.

Crews were able to contain about 15% of the 60,000-acre Utah fire Saturday, and fire management officials predicted full containment by late Thursday.

Residents of Gunlock, about 260 miles southwest of Salt Lake City, were told to leave Saturday after the fire edged to within four miles of town. Flames up to 10 feet high were visible Saturday from Interstate 15 just north of St. George before a separate lightning-caused fire jumped the road and closed it for about seven hours during the night.

[lawyerlee]

Rader pleads guilty to BTK murders (http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/06/27/btk.killings.ap/index.html)

Defendant describes for court how he killed

WICHITA, Kansas (AP) -- BTK suspect Dennis Rader pleaded guilty Monday to 10 counts of first-degree murder, admitting in a chillingly matter-of-fact voice to a series of slayings that terrorized the city beginning in the 1970s.

Rader, 60, of Park City, entered the guilty pleas as his trial was scheduled to begin Monday.

"I had never strangled anyone before, so I really didn't know how much pressure you had to put on a person or how long it would take," he told the court in describing his first killings in 1974, a couple and two children.

Prosecutors had said before the hearing that no plea deal had been made. Rader was arrested four months ago.

The onetime president of the church council at Christ Lutheran Church and Boy Scout leader, Rader admitted killing 10 people in the Wichita area between 1974 and 1991. The serial killer known as BTK -- the self-coined nickname that stands for "Bind, Torture, Kill" -- taunted media and police with cryptic messages.

No sentencing date was immediately set. Rader will not face the death penalty because the crimes were committed before the state adopted a new capital punishment law.

Rader, wearing a beige coat and dark tie, told District Judge Gregory Waller that he understood the charges against him and that he was waiving his right to a jury trial.

"The defense worked with me real well," Rader said. "We went over it. I feel like I'm pretty happy with them."

Asked by Waller if he was pleading because he was guilty, Rader answered, "Yes, sir."

The earliest crimes linked to the BTK strangler date to Jan. 15, 1974, when Joseph Otero, 38, and his 34-year-old wife, Julie, and their children Josephine, 11, and Joseph II, 9, were found dead in their home.

"The whole family just panicked on me. I worked pretty quick," he said. "I strangled Mrs. Otero. She passed out. I thought she was dead. I strangled Josephine. She passed out. I thought she was dead. Then I went over and put a bag on Junior's head."

He later said about Mrs. Otero: "I went back and strangled her again."

BTK's next three known victims were young women found strangled in their homes: Kathryn Bright, 21, in April 1974; Shirley Vian, 24, in March 1977; and Nancy Fox, 25, in December 1977.

After years of silence, the killer resurfaced last year with a letter to The Wichita Eagle that included photos of the 1986 strangulation of Vicki Wegerle and a photocopy of her missing driver's license. Her case had not been linked to BTK until then.

The messages became increasingly frequent in the months before Rader's arrest on February 25.

That letter was followed by several other cryptic messages and packages. The break in the case came after a computer diskette the killer had sent was traced to Rader's church.

Rader also is charged with the killings of Marine Hedge, 53, who was abducted from her Park City home on April 27, 1985, and found dead along a dirt road eight days later, and Dolores Davis, 62, who was abducted from her Park City home January 19, 1991. Those deaths were not linked to BTK until Rader's arrest.

[lawyerlee]

Saddam the Novelist (http://www.radaronline.com/the-wire/2005/06/27/index.php#wire_001495) Radar Online

In between Dorito munching and sweaty work-outs, ousted Iraqi dictator and occasional novelist, Saddam Hussein will release his third work of fiction this week in Amman, Jordan. Saddam’s latest novel, “Ekhroj minha ya mak’un,” which translates roughly as “Damned one, Get out of here” (a perhaps not-so-subtle reference to his feelings about the US) was finished a month before the American occupation crushed his regime in April 2003. (Saddam’s previous books, in case you’re looking for some fun summer reading, includes Zabiba and the King and The Impregnable Fortress.)

According to Al Jazeera, the book “tackles the life of a man called Haskeel who moves from his hometown to a city, where he starts making conspiracies to oust the local chief. At the end of the novel, the chief’s daughter, succeeds in kicking Haskeel out of the city with the help of a knight.” But apparently even Saddam had trouble controlling the release of his work: an early unedited copy of the novel, which will be soon made available throughout the Middle East and will eventually be translated into English and French, has been available in Iraq for the past several months without his consent. Hussein’s daughter, Raghd, plays the Dave Eggers role, endorsing the novel with a dedication to her father: “To the maker of heroes and men, to the one who taught us the love of the nation, to my dear father with appreciation and praise.” Now if that isn’t good publicity we don’t know what is. (JB)

[lawyerlee]

Boy critically injured in second shark attack (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8356537/) MSNBC
Rescuer tells of unsuccessfully trying to save girl from shark on Saturday

PENSACOLA, Fla. - A teenage boy was critically injured Monday in the second shark attack in three days along the Florida Panhandle.

The boy, whose age and name were not released, was taken to Bay Medical Center in Panama City. The nature of his injuries was not immediately released.

He was attacked off Cape San Blas, a popular vacation destination about 80 miles southeast of the Destin area where 14-year-old Jamie Marie Daigle of Gonzales, La., was killed by a shark on Saturday.

[lawyerlee]

Canada’s House of Commons OKs gay marriage (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8391828/) MSNBC

Bill grants same-sex couples same legal rights as heterosexual couples

The Associated Press

TORONTO - Canada’s House of Commons passed landmark legislation Tuesday to legalize gay marriage, granting same-sex couples legal rights equal to those in traditional unions between a man and a woman.

The bill passed as expected, despite opposition from Conservatives and religious leaders. The legislation drafted by Prime Minister Paul Martin’s minority Liberal Party government was also expected to easily pass the Senate and become federal law by the end of July.

The Netherlands and Belgium are the only other two nations that allow gay marriage nationwide.

Some of Martin’s Liberal lawmakers voted against the bill and a Cabinet minister resigned Tuesday over the legislation. But enough allies rallied to support the bill that has been debated for months, voting 158 to 133 to approve it.

[lawyerlee]

Ex-HealthSouth CEO found not guilty (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8293846/) MSNBC

Richard Scrushy acquitted on all counts in corporate-fraud trial

The Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - HealthSouth Corp. founder Richard Scrushy walked away a free man Tuesday after a jury cleared him of all charges in a stunning setback for federal prosecutors who sought to add his name to a list of CEOs convicted of fraud.

Scrushy was the first of the high-profile chief executives to escape conviction since a wave of corporate scandals and indictments followed Enron Corp.’s collapse almost four years ago, even though the case against him was widely considered among the strongest.

With all five former CFOs pleading guilty and testifying that Scrushy led a scheme to inflate earnings by $2.7 billion at the rehabilitation and medical services chain, some viewed the government’s case as stronger than in other fraud trials.

Yet when it finished 21 days of deliberations, the last five with an alternate replacing a sick juror, the panel acquited Scrushy of all 36 counts of fraud, false corporate reporting and making false statements to regulators.

Eight jurors who met with reporters after the verdict said key witnesses were not credible and the prosecution failed to present substantial evidence linking the fraud to Scrushy. “The smoking gun wasn’t pointing toward Mr. Scrushy,” said one juror, identified only by court-assigned number and not by name.

As the “not guilty” verdicts were read on count after count, Scrushy started crying, then reached around and hugged his wife, Leslie, in the first row behind the defense table.

“I’m going to go to a church and pray,” Scrushy said as he left the courthouse. “I’m going to be with my family. Thank God for this.”

[lawyerlee]

What will $16 billion buy? A Senate energy plan (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8385903/) MSNBC

Bill passes 85-12, but it differs sharply from House version

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The Senate approved an energy bill Tuesday that was more favorable to conservation, wind farms and ethanol and less kind to oil and gas producers than legislation passed by the House.

Whether the sharp differences can be resolved may depend on how much pressure President Bush can bring to bear. The president urged the lawmakers to resolve their differences quickly and send him a bill before August.

"The administration's attitude is we want a bill," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman told The Associated Press. "I think you will see the president quite proactive on this."

Hard bargaining lies ahead, especially with a pesky issue surrounding the gasoline additive MTBE remaining a potential deal breaker — as it was two years ago.

Dangerous gasoline additive under fire

The House, particularly Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, wants to protect oil companies and refiners who produced MTBE from environmental lawsuits brought by communities whose drinking water has been contaminated by the additive. DeLay said Tuesday an attempt is being made to "come up with a solution" to the MTBE issue, but provided no details.

Supporters of the Senate bill, which has broad bipartisan backing and is silent on MTBE, say such liability protection would trigger a filibuster and send the bill to defeat, as it did in 2003. Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said the House needs to work out a compromise on MTBE that can pass Senate muster.

After finishing all but a final vote on the bill last week, the Senate approved the 1,250-page document Tuesday 85-12. Seven Democrats and five Republicans voted against the bill.

Despite its broad sweep, which would affect virtually every energy industry while boosting energy conservation, lawmakers acknowledged the bill would have little impact on current high gasoline and crude oil prices. Crude oil eclipsed $60 a barrel this week and gasoline averaged $2.22 a gallon nationwide, according to the Energy Department.

Bush said the Senate-passed bill would help U.S. economic growth by addressing the root causes of high energy prices and the nation's growing dependence on foreign supplies. But the bill's critics argued it does little to reduce demand for oil, two-thirds of which goes for transportation, or reduce oil imports, which account for 58 percent of U.S. demand.

More environmentally friendly than the energy bill passed by the House in April, the Senate bill would funnel 40 percent of $18 billion in tax breaks over 10 years to boost renewable energy sources, energy conservation and alternative transportation fuels.

[lawyerlee]

Tobacco giants face $14bn claim (http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1517017,00.html) The Guardian

David Teather in New York
Wednesday June 29, 2005

The US government yesterday said it was seeking $14bn (£7.7bn) in penalties against tobacco companies in a racketeering case that accused the industry of conspiring to hide the risks of smoking.

The sum includes $4bn to fund an anti-smoking education campaign in addition to the $10bn quit smoking programme outlined by government prosecutors in the trial's closing arguments.

The final amount was detailed formally in a motion filed with the court late on Monday. It still however remains significantly below the $130bn, 25-year programme that had been recommended by a government witness.

The sharp reduction in the penalty sought prompted a political row in the US, with Democrats accusing the Bush administration of bending to the demands of the tobacco industry.

The case had initially been filed by the Clinton administration in 1999, and opponents have argued that the present government has little interest in pursuing claims against big business.

The cut caused even the judge trying the case to wonder aloud whether any pressure had been put on prosecutors to lower their demands. The justice department has agreed to launch a formal investigation.

"It is a serious breach of the justice department's responsibility to the American people and an abuse of power on behalf of the tobacco companies," the Massachusetts Democrat Edward Kennedy said in response to the formal motion.

The $4bn education programme would be administered by the American Legacy Foundation, an anti-smoking organisation set up as part of the 1998 settlement with the various US states.

The $10bn quit-smoking programme would fund telephone advice lines, clinics and research over five years.

The government is also seeking a ban on the use of descriptions such as "mild" and "light" and the appointment of an investigations officer with the authority to monitor and investigate tobacco companies and even to remove executives.

The defendants in the suit were Philip Morris, British American Tobacco, RJ Reynolds, Liggett Group, and Lorillard Tobacco. The companies have denied the charge that they illegally conspired to hide the harmful effects of smoking. "Regardless of what the government is asking for, the law and the facts applied to this case have not changed," said a spokeswoman for Philip Morris parent Altria.

The case accuses the tobacco industry of orchestrating a 50-year conspiracy to hide the harmful health effects and addictive nature of cigarettes.

In closing arguments at the end of the eight month trial, prosecutionlawyers said the industry had misled people with "half truths, deceptions and lies that continue to this day".

The case was brought under the civil Racketeer-Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act. There were 44,000 pages of testimony from more than 80 witnesses.

[lawyerlee]

Loren fights to ban party's posters (http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,12576,1516949,00.html) The Guardian

John Hooper in Rome
Wednesday June 29, 2005

The actor Sophia Loren has begun legal action to stop a poster campaign launched by Italy's former neo-fascists that implicitly links foreigners and rapists.

A lawyer for Loren said she was ready to take "any necessary action" to prevent the National Alliance, the second biggest party in Silvio Berlusconi's government, from using a still from one of her films on posters that have begun to appear in Rome. The party's campaign follows outrage over a string of recent sex attacks.

[lawyerlee]

Dairy Industry Sued Over Weight-Loss Claims (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/28/AR2005062800834_pf.html) Washington Post

By Jerry Markon
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 29, 2005; A09

An activist physicians group entered the battle of the bulge yesterday, filing lawsuits in Alexandria that accuse the dairy industry of fraudulently claiming that people can shed pounds by consuming more dairy products.

The two lawsuits by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, filed in Alexandria Circuit Court, contend the industry has promoted the weight-loss notion through a "massive, deceptive advertising campaign." In fact, the committee says, overwhelming scientific evidence shows that dairy products cause weight gain or have no effect on weight.

The sole plaintiff in the suits, Catherine Holmes of Arlington, said in an interview yesterday that she went on the so-called "dairy diet" late last year because she "just wanted to drop a dress size or two." Holmes, 46, said she wound up gaining three pounds.

"I was thinking that I wasn't seeing the fat melting off like all those skinny little girls in the ads," said Holmes, who is 5 feet 5 and weighs 163 pounds. "They need to pull these ads and quit misleading people."

One of the lawsuits seeks an order from a judge halting the dairy industry campaign, and the other lawsuit seeks damages for Holmes. Among the defendants are Kraft Foods Inc., General Mills Inc., the Dannon Co. Inc. and three dairy industry trade groups.

The dairy industry strongly defended the advertising campaign and reiterated its contention that consuming dairy products helps with weight loss when coupled with calorie restriction. One of the groups that was sued yesterday, the National Dairy Council, has spent $200 million promoting the idea since 2003.

[lawyerlee]

New Office to Oversee Intelligence Abroad (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/28/AR2005062801376.html?nav=hcmodule) Washington Post

Change Is Result of Panel Recommendation

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, June 29, 2005; Page A19

The White House has decided to establish an office to manage and coordinate all U.S. human intelligence collection overseas, whether carried out by the CIA, the Pentagon or the FBI, one of dozens of recommendations made in March by a presidential commission on intelligence, according to current and former senior intelligence officials.

The administration is scheduled today to announce the new office and other intelligence changes arising from recommendations by the commission, which was headed by Judge Laurence H. Silberman and former senator Charles S. Robb (D-Va.). The office will be modeled after a commission recommendation to establish a Human Intelligence Directorate within the CIA that would be in a position superior to the Directorate of Operations, which now runs the agency's clandestine operations abroad, officials said.

[lawyerlee]

Critics call for more troops in Iraq (http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/29/bush.speech.ap/index.html) CNN

Some Dems accuse Bush of linking Saddam to 9/11 attacks

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Congressional critics of President Bush's stay-the-course commitment to the war in Iraq argued Wednesday that the administration lacks sufficient troops on the ground to mount a successful counterinsurgency.

And Democrats in particular criticized Bush for again raising the September 11 attacks as a justification for the protracted fight in Iraq after the president proclaimed anew that he plans to keep U.S. forces there as long as necessary to ensure peace.

Urging patience on an American public showing doubts about his Iraq policy, Bush mentioned the deadly 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington five times during a 28-minute address Tuesday night at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Some Democrats quickly accused him of reviving a questionable link to the war in Iraq -- a rationale that Bush originally used to help justify launching strikes against Baghdad in the spring of 2003.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi accused Bush of demonstrating a willingness "exploit the sacred ground of 9/11, knowing that there is no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Wednesday that some of the president's critics are mischaracterizing his remarks. Bush has said there were no ties between al Qaeda and former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, but McClellan said Wednesday that "September 11th changed the equation in terms of how we confront the threats that we face in the 21st century."

Bush first mentioned the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center at the beginning of his speech, delivered at an Army base that has many troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. He acknowledged that Americans are disturbed by frequent deaths of U.S. troops, but tried to persuade an increasingly skeptical public to stick with the mission.

"The war reached our shores on September the 11th, 2001," Bush told a national television audience and 750 soldiers and airmen in dress uniform who mostly listened quietly as they had been asked to do.

"Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war," he continued.

Bush said he understands the public concerns about a 27-month-old war that has killed more than 1,700 Americans and 12,000 Iraqi civilians and cost $200 billion. But he argued that the sacrifice "is worth it."

[lawyerlee]

New WTC tower design made public (http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/29/wtc.tower.redesign/index.html) CNN

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/US/06/29/wtc.tower.redesign/vert.nightview.jpg

From Phil Hirschkorn
CNN New York

NEW YORK (CNN) -- New York officials released the latest design for the signature building at the World Trade Center site Wednesday after revising it to make the tower more secure.

Gov. George Pataki ordered the design changes because police were concerned that the tower's placement adjacent to West Street, a major thoroughfare along the west side of Manhattan, would make it vulnerable to a truck bomb.

Instead of being 25 feet from West Street, the tower will be set back 90 feet, and its 200-foot base will be covered in steel and titanium intended to make it blast-resistant.

"This new design reflects a soaring tribute to freedom and a bedrock commitment to safety and security," Pataki said.

The building, which has been dubbed "The Freedom Tower" by Pataki, will remain 1,776 feet, symbolizing the year the United States declared its independence.

It would be almost 100 feet taller than the Taipei 101 Tower in Taiwan, currently the tallest building in the world.

It also will retain a spire, containing a 400-foot broadcast antenna which will emit light at night and is intended to echo the Statue of Liberty's torch.

The tower will be more slender and occupy a smaller footprint in the northwest corner of the 16 acres where the 110-story twin towers once stood, and it won't be completed until 2010, two years later than the original plan.

[lawyerlee]

Report: Putin pockets Patriots owner's Super Bowl ring (http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/06/29/putin.ring.ap/index.html) CNN

BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin walked off with New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft's diamond-encrusted 2005 Super Bowl ring, but was it a generous gift or a very expensive international misunderstanding?

Following a meeting of American business executives and Putin at Konstantinovsky Palace near St. Petersburg on Saturday, Kraft showed the ring to Putin -- who tried it on, put it in his pocket and left, according to Russian news reports.

It wasn't clear if Kraft, whose business interests include paper and packaging companies and venture capital investments, intended that Putin keep the ring.

Stacey James, a spokesman for the football team, said Wednesday that Kraft was traveling and he hadn't talked to him in four or five days, despite e-mails and calls.

"He's still overseas, I can't even tell you where. ... He's not due back until next week."

"It's an incredible story. I just haven't been able to talk to Robert Kraft to confirm the story," James told The Associated Press.

However, a Kremlin official who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of compromising his position told the AP the ring was a present. "Such a present was made," the official said.

He said Putin had given the ring to the Kremlin library where other foreign gifts are kept.

James said the ring's worth was "substantially more" than $15,000, as the value had been reported. He refused to be specific, but noted that the ring has 124 diamonds.

Kraft handed out Super Bowl rings to players and coaches at his home two weeks ago.

The Patriots have won three of the last four Super Bowls.

[lawyerlee]

Economy's Growth Is Better Than Expected (http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050629/D8B1BAV80.html)

WASHINGTON (AP) - The economy logged a solid 3.8 percent growth rate in the first quarter of 2005, a performance that was better than previously thought and a fresh sign the expansion is on firm footing.

The new reading on gross domestic product, released by the Commerce Department on Wednesday, marked an improvement from the 3.5 percent annual rate estimated for the quarter just a month ago and matched the showing registered in the final quarter of 2004.

GDP, the broadest gauge of the economy's health, measures the value of all goods and services produced within the United States.

Stronger spending on housing projects, more investment by business in equipment and software, and a trade deficit that was less of a drag on economic growth all played a role in the higher first quarter GDP estimate.

The first-quarter's showing was slightly better than the 3.7 percent growth rate that economists were forecasting before the report was released.

"It was a solid quarter, particularly in the face of high and rising energy prices," said Mark Zandi, chief analyst at Economy.com. "It illustrates the resilience of the economy and the durability of the current economic expansion."

On Wall Street, stocks edged up. The Dow Jones industrials were up around 7 points and the Nasdaq was up around 3 points in morning trading.

While Republicans and Democrats might have different takes on how various parts of the economy are faring, the Bush administration pointed to the latest GDP report as evidence that economic activity is improving. "The economy is showing solid and sustained growth and job creation," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "The policies that we have put in place are working. Our economy is growing stronger."

To keep the economy and inflation on an even keel, the Federal Reserve has boosted short-term interest rates eight times - each in quarter-point moves - since June 2004. Another bump-up is expected when the Fed wraps up a two-day meeting on Thursday.

[lawyerlee]

FEC Debates Blog Rules (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160971,00.html) Fox News

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

WASHINGTON — The Federal Election Commission says Web logs just might be a threat to democracy and it's considering whether to police them.

The issue, being discussed during FEC hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday, is whether some Web sites actually provide unregulated benefits to specific political campaigns. The famously free-spirited Web community is fighting back.

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, author of Daily Kos Web Log, or blog, one of the nation's most heavily read political Web sites, says he wants Washington to back off.

"Any regulation presents a potential chilling effect on a medium that is truly the first democratic mass medium in the history of the world," Zuniga said.

Political Web sites like Daily Kos and Wonkette, to name two, have become influential political players by shaping voter perceptions and media coverage. Some also advertise products that benefit a political figure, party or point of view.

"Right now, it is largely a self-regulating community. It is also a pretty small community when you look at the number of people in America versus the number of bloggers. It is a pretty minute proportion," said Wonkette author Ana Marie Cox.

Web sites as political actors became an issue in Republican Sen. John Thune's upset victory over then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle. Thune disclosed after the election that he paid two bloggers $35,000 to support Thune and attack coverage of the race by South Dakota's largest newspaper, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader.

"I do think the other thing that the Thune-bloggers-for-pay, blogolla let's call it, scandal probably did was make people much more weary," Cox said.

It also raised new fears that organizations seeking to lobby Congress or curry favor with politicians could use the Web to circumvent campaign finance laws.

"You don't want to force every blogger to go out and get a lawyer. At the same time, you don't want the Internet to become an avenue by which corporations, labor unions, wealthy individuals can pour a lot of money into political campaigns," said Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.

Historically, the FEC has left the Internet alone, but it is under a federal court order to apply some campaign finance rules to cyberspace. Commissioner Ellen Weintraub said she favors more disclosure of Web site funding sources, but not much more.

"The commission generally is not terribly interested in anything other than a very limited rulemaking in this regard because it is a new technology, because it's still evolving," Weintraub said.

TV networks can broadcast and newspapers can publish hard-charging political editorials without violating campaign finance laws under a journalist exemption. Bloggers want to be included in the exemption, leaving the FEC to decide whether bloggers are journalists.

[lawyerlee]

Hopefully a lot of state legislatures will be looking at this issue, too, though. I know the Kansas Legislature will be. They did last summer, but decided to wait until the Court had ruled in the Kelo case before they took any action.


Pols Seek to Tighten Eminent Domain Rules (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,160973,00.html) Fox News

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

WASHINGTON — Reaction continues to reverberate on Capitol Hill in response to the Supreme Court's ruling that local governments may take private property for private economic development that could benefit the community as a whole.

Lawmakers are considering a new legislative effort to curb some of the effects of that decision.

In a ruling handed down last week, the high court decided that Susette Kelo's (search) home could be seized by the state of Connecticut under the 5th Amendment's "takings clause," which allows the government to seize any private property if it's for "public use" and the landowner receives "fair compensation."

Historically, the government has used that power, commonly referred to as "eminent domain," to acquire land for things like railroads, highways and public hospitals.

But the city of New London wants Kelo's home and a handful of others for a riverfront shopping center and condominiums.

Similar projects are happening in other places, too. The city of St. Louis, Mo., is trying to force 79-year-old Reba Thompson (search) out of her family home to make way for a $40 million shopping center.

In the case decided last week, Kelo argued these business projects don't amount to "public use," but the high court in an opinion authored by Justice John Paul Stevens (search) disagreed, finding the goal of "economic development" can justify these seizures.

"For people that believe in private property, this is a nightmare," said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley.

Four members of the U.S. Supreme Court said the ruling flies in the face of "basic limitations on government power," and the ruling outraged private landowners, prompting cries for legislation to protect them. On Monday, Sen. John Cornyn (search), R-Texas, obliged.

"This power to seize homes, small businesses, and other private property should be reserved only for true public uses. Most importantly, the power of eminent domain should not be used simply to further private economic development," Cornyn said in introducing legislation.

The high court did acknowledge that states are welcome to set tougher standards for government takings than the baseline in the Constitution, emphasizing that "nothing in our opinion precludes any state from placing further restrictions on its exercise of the takings power."

Cornyn's bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Bill Nelson (search), D-Fla., does attempt to encourage states to pass comparable laws if they haven't already done so. A similar bill was introduced in the House on Tuesday by Rep. Dennis Rehberg, R-Mont.

But Turley and others question whether Cornyn's bill, purporting to change the federal law, will really do any good.

"The vast majority of these cases involve local and state officials. They're not federal questions, and Congress cannot restrict the use of eminent domain on a local level," he said.

[lawyerlee]

Scientist Denies Falsifying Yucca Data (http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050629/D8B1CHO80.html)

By ERICA WERNER

WASHINGTON (AP) - A scientist at the center of a controversy over potential falsification of documents about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump insisted before Congress on Wednesday that he did not alter paperwork on the project.

"I have never falsified any documents related to Yucca Mountain or any other project," Joseph Hevesi, a United States Geological Survey hydrologist in Sacramento, told a House Government Reform subcommittee.

The panel is investigating e-mails written by Hevesi and other scientists that, according to critics, seem to suggest they changed work to reach a predetermined conclusion. The existence of the e-mails, written between 1998 and 2000, was made public by the Energy Department in March.

[lawyerlee]

House Votes to Cut Bush's Democracy Plan (http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050629/D8B1DFUG0.html)

By LIZ SIDOTI

WASHINGTON (AP) - Dealing a blow to President Bush a week before the Group of Eight economic summit in Scotland, the House voted to slash money from the assistance program considered a cornerstone of his campaign to spread democracy around the world.

Money for the program, the Millennium Challenge Account, is included in the $20.3 billion foreign aid bill the House approved on a 393-32 vote Tuesday.

Overall, the bill for next year is roughly 11 percent less than the president proposed but nearly 4 percent more than this year's funding. The Senate has yet to write its version of the bill, which provides health, education, counter-narcotics and military assistance to poor nations.

House lawmakers chose to pad several of the president's other proposals with the $1.25 billion they cut from his request for the Millennium Challenge Account, a program that gives countries extra money if they pursue political, economic and human rights reforms.

Among the winners: a fund to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. It's slated to get $2.7 billion, about a half-billion dollars more than this year and $131 million above the president's request.

Bush had asked for $3 billion for the third year of the Millennium Challenge Account, double the current funding level. The House bill would provide only $1.75 billion.

Congress has provided $2.5 billion for the program over the last two years - $1.3 billion less than Bush requested. The corporation overseeing the program has spent only about $4 million of that, says the Congressional Research Service, which writes reports for lawmakers.

House lawmakers emphasized they were providing record funding for the program - roughly $262 million more than Congress provided for the current year - and noted that the corporation hasn't spent most of the money it already has.

[lawyerlee]

Apple Upgrades IPod and ITunes (http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050629/D8B1A60G1.html)

By GREG SANDOVAL

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL) released new software Tuesday designed to make it easier for users to listen to the increasingly popular, but largely unstructured podcast offerings.

Apple, which also announced color screens for its iPod digital music players, said the new iTunes software comes with a podcast directory that lists more than 3,000 free audio programs. It also sports a new menu and the ability to automatically send new episodes of podcasts to the user's computer.

"Podcasting is the next generation of radio," Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in a statement.

Podcasts are downloadable audio files that are often similar to radio programs. They allow anyone to become a Web broadcaster.

On iTunes, podcasts focus on a range of topics from electronic gadgets to movies and astronomy. Shows come from mainstream organizations such as ABC News and Newsweek as well as Web journals, or blogs, like Engadget.

The software is available for both Mac and Windows computers.

Apple also said it is merging its iPod and iPod photo lines, so all models will now have color displays that can view photos and play slideshows.

The 20-gigabyte model can hold about 5,000 songs and costs $299, while the 60-gigabyte version holds 25,000 songs and sells for $399. That means customers will get a photo model for about the same price they previously paid for the standard, black-and-white screen.

[lawyerlee]

Anti-Meth Bill Revised for Retailers (http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050628/D8B0U7K08.html)

By SAM HANANEL

WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawmakers seeking to restrict over-the-counter access to cold medicines used to make methamphetamine presented a revised bill Tuesday that would soften the impact on some retailers that lack a pharmacy.

The measure originally required all stores to sell Sudafed, Nyquil and other medicines containing pseudoephedrine only from behind the pharmacy counter. In makeshift labs across the country, the ingredient is extracted and used to cook meth.

Pressed by retailers concerned about losing sales, lawmakers said they carved out an exception for stores without a pharmacist on duty, such as convenience stores and some grocery chains.

Under the new version, states have the option of working with the Drug Enforcement Administration to license certain employees who are not pharmacists to sell the medicines.

Consumers would have to show a photo ID, sign a log, and be limited to 7.5 grams - or about 250 30-milligram pills - in a 30-day period. Computer tracking would prevent customers from exceeding the limit at other stores.

"One of the things we wanted to do is make certain legitimate consumers who have allergy or other problems can have access to the cold medicines they need," said Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., who sponsored the bill with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

The bill is modeled after an Oklahoma law that took effect last year and has been credited with an 80 percent drop in the number of meth labs seized there. More than a dozen states have enacted similar laws.

Retailers initially resisted the idea of restricting cold medicines, saying it would inconvenience consumers. Now, they seem ready to go along with a federal law in hopes of avoiding a tangle of state regulations. Stores like Wal-Mart and Safeway and the National Association of Chain Drug Stores said Tuesday they have agreed to support the legislation.

A Senate committee plans hearings on the bill this week, and the measure may be ready for a vote in the full Senate next month. Similar legislation is pending in the House.

Feinstein, who has worked to combat meth abuse for a decade, said the measure would dry up the supply of methamphetamine. Other lawmakers stressed the need to stem the problem before it grows even worse.

"We're at the same place now with meth as we were with crack 20 years ago," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., a co-sponsor of the bill.

Other changes to the revised anti-meth bill would:

- Create an exception for stores at airports to sell cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine in single packages.

- Fund a national meth treatment center to research treatments for meth abuse.

- Provide $25 million for local law enforcement and federal prosecutors to target meth manufacturers and dealers.

[lawyerlee]

Police Briefly Evacuate the U.S. Capitol (http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5107918,00.html) The Guardian

Thursday June 30, 2005

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush was hurried from his residence to a safer location Wednesday evening and people were evacuated from the White House and U.S. Capitol when a private plane ventured into restricted airspace.

The all-clear came within minutes when two fighter jets intercepted the small twin-engine propeller-driven plane eight miles northeast of the Capitol. The alert ended before evacuations were complete at the White House.

The White House briefly went to red alert - its highest level, presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said.

The private turboprop entered restricted airspace northeast of Reagan National Airport, according to federal aviation officials. Jets scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base, Md., intercepted the plane and, as of 6:45 p.m. EST, escorted the plane to Winchester, Va., where it landed without incident.

An aircraft could be heard overhead at the Capitol, in an area customarily closed to aircraft.

Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said Capitol Police notified senators' offices: ``This is an emergency message ... Capitol Police are tracking unidentified aircraft.''

At the White House, Bush had left the Oval Office for the day and was in the residence when the alert sounded. ``The president was temporarily relocated,'' McClellan said. Some senior staff also were seen hurrying from the West Wing to the residence area where a bomb shelter is located.

``We started to relocate some staff,'' McClellan said. ``Officers were prepared to activate the (White House-wide) alert system but we received notification from the jets that were scrambled that the plane had turned away from the White House.''

[lawyerlee]

Prisoner Details Bogus Tax-Return Scheme (http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5107914,00.html) The Guardian

Thursday June 30, 2005

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER

AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - A South Carolina prison inmate told a rapt House panel Wednesday about how he defrauded the U.S. government of $3.5 million by filing bogus tax returns.

The man, an anonymous 37-year-old inmate dubbed ``John Doe,'' testified behind a partition to prevent him from being photographed or videotaped during the House Ways and Means subcommittee on oversight hearing.

He said he started out by filing phony returns for 10 inmates in 1991, which netted $4,200 to $5,400. He kept a $1,000 commission on each return.

``Over the years, I filed six to seven hundred returns,'' Doe said. ``The total dollar amount would be approximately $3.5 million, face value,'' of which he netted $600,000 to $700,000.

Doe said inmates spent most of the ill-gotten tax return money to buy illegal drugs.

``The money and drugs eventually lead to beatings, stabbings and extortion,'' he said. ``With the money I personally made, I often looked out for poor or indigent inmates who got no help from home.'' But he conceded he also used the money to buy sneakers, a color TV and ``lots of drugs.''

The Internal Revenue Service estimates that 15 percent of all tax fraud is committed by prison inmates.

[lawyerlee]

Canada to Ban Bulk Export of Rx Drugs (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/29/AR2005062901632_pf.html) Washington Post

By BETH DUFF-BROWN
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 29, 2005

TORONTO -- Canada's health minister threatened Wednesday to overhaul the country's regulations on exporting prescription drugs, saying Canada would no longer be a cheap "drug store for the United States."

Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh said Canada would ban the bulk export of prescription drugs when their supplies were low at home. But he left vague how the ban would be put into place _ and whether it would affect the thousands of individual purchases that take place across the U.S.-Canada border and over the Internet.

The ban is an attempt to head-off an anticipated onslaught of drug demands from Americans if legislation pending in Congress legalizes Internet and bulk import of prescription drugs from Canada.

"Canada cannot be a drug store for the United States of America; 280 million people cannot expect us to supply drugs to them on a continuous, uncontrolled basis," Dosanjh said at a news conference.

Canadians must be assured access to an adequate supply of safe and affordable prescription drugs, Dosanjh said.

Individual sales would not necessarily be affected by the ban, but it could affect drug wholesalers or manufacturers in Canada. They are not permitted to export to the United States under U.S. law, but could do so under the legislation being considered in Congress.

He said he would introduce legislation when the House of Commons reconvenes this fall that would allow for the temporary ban of bulk exports when supplies are running low at home.

Americans pay the highest prescription drug prices in the world, and U.S. lawmakers are pushing to legalize the importation of wholesale prescription drugs as well as Internet purchases from Canada and other countries. Four bills are pending in Congress, but have met with opposition from the pharmaceutical lobby and from the Food and Drug Administration.

[lawyerlee]

Veterans to Get More Health Care Funds (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/29/AR2005062900234_pf.html) Washington Post

By MARY DALRYMPLE
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 29, 2005; 5:41 PM

WASHINGTON -- Moving to minimize political damage, the Bush administration agreed Wednesday to ask Congress for more money to cover a $1 billion shortfall in veterans' health care expenses.

The decision reversed the Department of Veterans Affairs' insistence, a day earlier, that it could manage the shortage by juggling money in its accounts. The administration also sought to squelch escalating demands from Democrats that the GOP take care of veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

"This is just the latest example of how poorly the administration planned for and prepared this nation for what would be required in Iraq and the war on terror," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

The administration's request could come Thursday. Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson was to appear on Capitol Hill to give lawmakers a more precise accounting of health care needs.

The Senate, unwilling to wait for the president's request, readied a $1.5 billion proposal to cover veterans' health care expenses.

"It was a frustration to me and an embarrassment," said the chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho.

[lawyerlee]

Arroyo's Husband to Leave Philippines Amid Scandal (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/29/AR2005062902541_pf.html) Washington Post

By Manny Mogato
Reuters
Thursday, June 30, 2005; A17

MANILA, June 29 -- Seeking to defuse ongoing charges of corruption against her and her family, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo said Wednesday that her husband would leave the country.

"Today, my family is once again called to sacrifice our personal happiness to allow me to serve best as president of our country," Arroyo told a business forum in Manila.

"My husband has volunteered to go abroad. I mention this here today because I want to signal to everyone that nothing can stop my administration from implementing . . . our reform agenda."

Arroyo admitted on Monday to speaking to an election official during presidential vote-counting last year, calling it a lapse in judgment but denying she tried to influence the election's outcome.

She did not say how long her husband, Jose Miguel, known as Mike, would remain abroad or where he would go, but there were reports that he would live in San Francisco.

[camberne]

BTK just creeps me out totally... eww!

Yorktown, VA... I'm so glad that so many protesters showed up for that stupid Nazi thing. I thought it was going to get more press coverage here, but I didn't hear a thing about it!! I heard about it before it happened, and this is the first things I've heard about it since.

As far as the new tower in NY... I think all the publicity surrounding making it "blast-proof" might be considered a challenge to some. That was my first thought reading that article.

[lawyerlee]

Panel Targets More Bases for Closure (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050701/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/base_closings&printer=1;_ylt=Ai_8_aJeAXVfkDwz2x5WloGWwvIE;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-)

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 14 minutes ago
Military bases in Hawaii and California are among several a commission is considering adding to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's list of proposed closures.

In a letter sent Friday to the Pentagon chief, commission Chairman Anthony Principi identified additional bases the commission may recommend closing and seeks explanations for why the Pentagon decided to leave those facilities open.

Specifically, the letter asks why Marine Corps Recruit Depot and the Navy Broadway Complex, both in San Diego, Calif., and the U.S. Naval Shipyard at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, were not slated for closure.

It also questions the Pentagon's decisions to downsize, rather than close, the Naval Air Station in Brunswick, Maine, Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina, and Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota.

And, the letter asks for more explanation about the proposed reorganization of Air National Guard facilities across the country and the downsizing of several other small facilities.

In May, the Pentagon proposed closing or reducing forces at 62 major bases and hundreds of smaller installations to save money and streamline the services. Dozens of other facilities would grow, absorbing troops from domestic and overseas bases slated for closure or downsizing.

The law that authorized the first round of base closings in a decade requires the Pentagon to answer such questions before the commission can consider recommending closing or downsizing a facility that wasn't on Rumsfeld's original list.

The commission will conduct a public hearing on July 19 in Washington to decide whether bases left off the list should be added. It takes seven of nine votes to add a base. Public hearings and base visits would follow.
The Pentagon says it will save $49 billion over 20 years by streamlining services across the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps and shutting down bases deemed inefficient.

[lawyerlee]

AP: Documents Show Gitmo Inmates Defy U.S. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050701/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/guantanamo_prisoners_vs_guards&printer=1;_ylt=AhS40yAYn4QYlwLxhBSHzyqWwvIE;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-)

By BEN FOX, Associated Press Writer
Military authorities have previously disclosed some incidents of guard retaliation at Guantanamo Bay, which resulted in mostly minor disciplinary proceedings. What emerges from 278 pages of documents obtained by The Associated Press is the degree of defiance by the terrorism suspects at Guantanamo.

The prisoners banged on their cells to protest the heat. They doused guards with whatever liquid was handy — from spit to urine. Sometimes they struck their jailers, one swinging a steel chair at a military police officer.

And the American MPs at times retaliated with force — punches, pepper spray and a splash of cleaning fluid in the face, according to the newly released documents that detail military investigations and eyewitness accounts of alleged abuse.

Some prisoners at the U.S. base in eastern Cuba have gone on the attack, as in April 2003 when a detainee got out of his cell during a search for contraband food and knocked out a guard's tooth with a punch to the mouth and bit him before he was subdued by MPs. One soldier delivered two blows to the inmate's head with a handheld radio, the documents show.

"Several guards were trying to hold down the detainee who was putting up heavy resistance," recounted a translator who saw the incident. "The detainee was covered in blood as were some of the guards."

The soldier who struck the inmate, and was dropped in rank to private first class as a result, described it as a close call. "The detainee was fighting as if he really wanted to hurt us. ... We all saved each other's lives in my opinion," he wrote.

The documents, obtained under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by AP, are far from a comprehensive look at Guantanamo and do not provide full details about each incident.

Names and some other identifying details have been blacked out by military censors. Handwriting at times isn't legible and pages appear to be missing or out of sequence. In some cases, it is not possible to decipher who did what to whom. Disciplinary measures against the troops were either relatively minor or unclear in some reports.

The internal investigative reports do, however, provide a snapshot of life behind the wire at Guantanamo, depicting a tense, hostile and sometimes chaotic place.

In one of the more serious incidents described in the documents, detainees told guards that an MP threw the cleaning liquid Pine-Sol in the eyes of a prisoner in the middle of one night in January 2004. In a written statement, another soldier said he came in immediately afterward to find what smelled like cleaning liquid dripping from the cell.

"The detainee could be seen rubbing his eyes intensely and moaning in pain," he said.

Documents show that the guard, from the 661st Military Police Company, did not admit throwing the cleaning fluid when questioned about it that night but did say the detainee had spit on him, and may have thrown urine.

[lawyerlee]

Team of U.S. GIs Missing in Afghanistan (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050701/ap_on_re_as/afghan_us_helicopter_crash&printer=1;_ylt=AqmmBdI8svtCSHEbPz.3Bdj9xg8F;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-)

By DANIEL COONEY, Associated Press Writer 56 minutes ago
U.S. forces desperately scoured rugged Afghan mountains Friday for an elite American military team missing in the same area where a U.S. helicopter was shot down.

A purported Taliban spokesman claimed militants captured one of the men.

In central Afghanistan, Taliban rebels kidnapped and killed Afghan nine tribal leaders and sent a boy to offer to exchange the bodies for those of dead militants, an official said. The tribal leaders were among 25 people killed in three days of fighting in Uruzgan province — yet another troubling sign for a nation hit by an upswing in violence as September elections near.

The loss of the American military team in the remote eastern mountains worsened the already stinging blow suffered by the U.S. military after 16 troops were killed Tuesday aboard the MH-47 Chinook chopper.

[lawyerlee]

Vatican May Declare John Paul II a Martyr (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/john_paul_sainthood&printer=1;_ylt=AgeVgC8ByNk2RWcR1PPcKXRbbBAF;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-)

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press
Vatican officials no longer are dismissing outright the notion that Pope John Paul II could be declared a martyr, a step that could remove the need for a confirmed miracle to beatify the late pontiff and make it easier for him to become a saint.

[lawyerlee]

Al-Jazeera shelves US border film (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4639827.stm) BBC News

The Arabic TV channel al-Jazeera will not film a report about the US-Mexico border after a civilian border patrol group condemned the idea.

The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, an anti-immigration organisation that patrols the border in Arizona, called al-Jazeera a "terrorist TV station".

The group's leader said allowing al-Jazeera to film would be like aiding an enemy scouting mission.

Al-Jazeera said the group's reaction was a blow to press freedom.

A spokesman for the station, Jihad Ballout, said that its original intention was for its Washington bureau to film a report about economic and security issues in the area, but the safety of its staff was its most important consideration.

But he said the project had not been abandoned.

"The topic remains an important one from an editorial perspective, so it's not abandoned as a project," he told Reuters news agency.

"Misconceptions about al-Jazeera are being perpetuated in some quarters to the detriment of not just al-Jazeera but the concept of a free press."

The minutemen, who began patrolling the Arizona section of the frontier in April, vowed to "resist" any filming in the area, al-Jazeera said.

'Insane policy'

The station's proposal to film prompted a complaint to the US Department of Homeland Security, and drew political criticism.

"It is insane policy to allow al-Jazeera to film Arizona's unsecured border with Mexico and then broadcast it to the very people who perpetrated 9/11," said Trent Franks, a Republican Congressman for Arizona.

On its website, the minutemen portrayed the decision to cancel filming as an "anti-terrorism victory".

"The world's most prolific terrorism television network has cancelled its recon operation at the Arizona/Mexico border," the group said in a statement.

Minuteman President Chris Simcox added: "I'll have no part in aiding and abetting the enemy, and will continue to work to protect our country from terrorists who are clearly looking at our unsecured borders as the pathway to destroy America."

[lawyerlee]

Bush: Abortion Won't Decide Court Nominee (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050706/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush&printer=1;_ylt=Am0jVI5zmbAkO_3kQJCBd7sGw_IE;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-)

By DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press Writer
President Bush, shadowed in Europe by a pressing concern back in Washington, said Wednesday he will not select a Supreme Court nominee based on his or her views on abortion or other hot-button political issues.

He urged senators to act "in a dignified way" in what is expected to be a contentious battle over confirming his first nominee to the nation's highest court.

[lawyerlee]

G-8 Leaders Scale Back Goals at Summit (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050706/ap_on_re_eu/summit&printer=1;_ylt=AvfCmMK2jj8UHJw1sB2Etw9bbBAF;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-)

By MARTIN CRUTSINGER, AP Economics Writer
World leaders scaled back goals for relieving African poverty and combatting global warming under U.S. opposition to British Prime Minister Tony Blair's ambitious objectives.

The leaders of the Group of Eight nations began arriving Wednesday at this posh golf resort for three days of discussions. Blair, as the host, was the first to arrive, coming from Singapore where he had engaged in a round of last-minute lobbying on London's successful bid to serve as host for the summer Olympics in 2012.

Speaking to reporters shortly after London was awarded the games, Blair called the decision a "momentous day" and acknowledged he was having trouble concentrating on the G-8 agenda.

"I've been trying to work on the G-8 stuff, but I have to say that my mind has been in two places today," Blair said.

President Bush and his wife arrived in Scotland aboard Air Force One a few hours before the summit was to begin with a dinner among G-8 leaders hosted by Britain's Queen Elizabeth.

Thousands of protesters took the streets in Auchterarder, a village near the resort. They were led by a bagpiper dressed in a traditional Scottish kilt and chanted "Power to the people."

Scottish police at first called off the march because they said public safety could not be guaranteed after a smaller band of 100 protesters smashed car windows, threw rocks and attempted to block one of the main roads leading to the resort. However, the police relented and allowed the march to proceed after organizers complained that their free speech rights were being denied.

Leaders' aides, meanwhile, met behind closed doors on the two issues Blair has made the main focus of this year's meeting — support for Africa, the globe's poorest continent, and increasing efforts to deal with the pollution that scientists believe is linked to planet warming.

Blair challenged G-8 countries to double aid to Africa from a current total of $25 billion to $50 billion by 2010 and to increase giving for all foreign aid to the equivalent of 0.7 percent of national incomes by 2015.

Bush, after initially resisting Blair's call, announced last Thursday that he would seek to double U.S. aid by 2010, to $8.6 billion from $4.3 billion in 2004. But Bush opposes the 0.7 percent target. Anti-poverty activists said that Bush's goal of $8.6 billion fell about $6 billion short of what was needed from the United States to meet Blair's $50 billion target.

As a consequence, the final communique was expected to drop any reference to a $50 billion goal in favor of talk more generally of a "doubling" of assistance.

Bush, stopping in Denmark on the way to Scotland, warned he would emphasize the need for African nations to commit to good governance in order to get increased support.

"I don't know how we can look our taxpayers in the eye and say, this is a good deal to give money to countries that are corrupt," he said. "We want to make sure that the governments invest in their people, invest in the health of their people, the education of their people, and fight corruption."

The differences were even starker on global warming. Blair wanted a plan to curb emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. But U.S. officials lobbied to prevent the inclusion in the G-8 communique of any specific reduction targets as called for in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. The United States is the only G-8 country that has refused to ratify the Kyoto treaty, with Bush saying that doing so would have "wrecked" the U.S. economy.

Sir Michael Jay, Blair's representative in the discussions, called the negotiations on global warming "pretty intense." He predicted the G-8 would reach an accord that recognized the problem and the need to combat it without mentioning specific targets.

[lawyerlee]

Activists Plan 'Final Push' to Pressure G-8 (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-summit6jul06,1,5114580,print.story?coll=la-headlines-world&ctrack=1&cset=true) LA Times
The diverse coalition hopes another concert and a march will get world leaders to address poverty in Africa and climate change.

By John Daniszewski
Times Staff Writer

July 6, 2005
EDINBURGH, Scotland — Activists who have converged on this Scottish capital for the Group of 8 summit said Tuesday that they were hopeful that a worldwide clamor for action would compel President Bush and the leaders of seven other industrialized nations to take firm steps to aid Africa and protect the climate for future generations.

On the eve of the three-day meeting in nearby Gleneagles, a diverse coalition was promising a "final push" to put pressure on the leaders, following a series of 10 concerts around the globe Saturday that attracted nearly 1 million people and aimed to raise awareness about fighting poverty in Africa.

The activists in Edinburgh were planning another concert and a mass march to the meeting site, to press the leaders to double assistance to Africa, relieve African debt and ease trade barriers, as well as take meaningful steps to combat global warming.

The flurry of activity "shows you that people are passionate about ending poverty," said Elaine VanCleave, a selfdescribed "soccer mom" from Birmingham, Ala., whose organization Bread for the World belongs to the coalition of American groups working to influence the world leaders. She arrived here with about 150 activists from the anti-poverty One Campaign in the United States.

"They'll do crazy things, like travel across the Atlantic Ocean, or ride a train from Italy and sleep in a tent. I mean, we're passionate about this, and we believe we can do it," VanCleave said.

Raising the stakes, Irish rock singer Bob Geldof, the lead organizer for Britain's Make Poverty History campaign, said activists would hold the politicians accountable if they did not heed the global push against poverty.

"Believe you me, if they fail [to use] the mandate that we collected on Saturday … then we will ensure as much as possible that they too will fail the next time they stand before the ballot box," Geldof said in an interview with the BBC, referring to the Live 8 concerts held last weekend.

Police were braced for a massive security operation to prevent demonstrators from disrupting the meeting of the leaders from the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia, who are to begin assembling at the Perthshire golf resort about 40 miles northwest of Edinburgh starting this morning.

As part of the preparations, authorities have built a 5-mile-long fence, dubbed the "ring of steel," around the resort. Checkpoints were put up on the main road leading to Gleneagles from Edinburgh, with officials saying that only 5,000 demonstrators would be allowed to reach the gates of the resort.

A total of 10,600 officers drawn from all over Britain have been brought to Scotland to provide security, said John Vine, the local chief constable.

In his interview, Geldof condemned the anarchists and anti-globalization protesters who clashed with police in Edinburgh on Monday, calling them "a bunch of losers" whose antics detracted from the serious purpose of the campaign to reduce poverty. About 100 protesters appeared in court here Tuesday. Most of them were charged with being a public nuisance.

[lawyerlee]

Reporters Face Jail in Fight Over Sources (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050706/ap_on_re_us/reporters_contempt&printer=1;_ylt=AjD0T6jPw45y1guGwVR49ehH2ocA;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-)

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
In a high-stakes battle over press freedom, two reporters face jail, possibly as early as Wednesday, for refusing to divulge their sources to a prosecutor investigating the Bush administration's leak of a CIA officer's identity.

"Journalists are not entitled to promise complete confidentiality — no one in America is," Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald told a judge.

In court papers, Fitzgerald said the source of Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Judith Miller of The New York Times has waived confidentiality, giving the reporters permission to reveal where they got their information.

The prosecutor did not identify the reporters' source, nor did he specify whether the source of each reporter was the same person.

U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan held the reporters in civil contempt of court in October, rejecting their argument that the First Amendment shielded them from revealing their sources. Hogan was conducting a hearing on the matter Wednesday, at which time he could order the reporters jailed.

The reporters might decide to talk if they are sent to prison, the prosecutor said.

Cooper and Miller seek home confinement, but that would make it easier for them to continue to defy a court order to testify, the prosecutor said.

Cooper has said it is duplicative and unnecessary for him to testify because his employer, Time Inc., on Friday provided Fitzgerald records, notes and e-mail traffic from inside the company.

"By Cooper's own account, his source's confidentiality has been mooted by the production of relevant documents by Time Inc.," the prosecutor said, insisting that Cooper still must testify.

Without elaboration, Fitzgerald said Miller's source "has been identified and has waived confidentiality."

Miller's attorney, Robert Bennett, said he hopes that Time magazine's disclosures "will eliminate the need for Judy's testimony and this crisis can be ended."

In arguing that Miller be jailed, Fitzgerald said other reporters in the case had complied with court orders and that Time Inc.'s editor-in-chief, Norman Pearlstine, had said last Thursday, "I feel we are not above the law." Pearlstine made the comment in explaining why he had turned over documents to the prosecutor.

Columnist Robert Novak revealed in July 2003 that the wife of former U.S. ambassador Joe Wilson was a CIA officer, days after Wilson publicly impugned President Bush's justification for invading Iraq. Revealing the name is a possible federal crime.

[keska]

Russia: Prison Director Sacked After Hundreds of Cases of Self-Mutilation (http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/07/0186377d-1840-415f-8e01-614af7841063.html)

Hundreds of inmates have slashed their bodies with razor blades to protest mistreatment and beatings by guards at a prison camp in the city of Lgov, 500 kilometers south of Moscow. The prison director and his two deputies were sacked on 4 July after an investigation backed the inmates' claims of abuse. The unprecedented mass mutilation has outraged human rights groups and drawn attention to the nightmarish conditions that plague many Russian prisons.

Moscow, 6 July 2005 (RFE/RL) -- During the night of 26 to 27 June, hundreds of inmates at the Lgov jail slashed their wrists, stomachs, necks, and limbs with razor blades. Some of them swallowed blades and metal hooks. The mass mutilation was followed by a hunger strike.

Mutilation and hunger strikes are not rare in Russian prisons -- inmates often have to resort to desperate actions to make their protests heard."The conditions in Russian prisons and preliminary detention centers are monstrous.... Conditions are changing very slowly and remain close to torture."

But the scale of this mutilation is unprecedented in Russia. While the authorities say some 300 inmates inflicted wounds on themselves, human rights groups put this figure at around 800.

Aleksandr Malygin, 23, was among those who slashed their bodies, although he then had only three more days to serve. Speaking to reporters in Moscow this week, he said the rebellion broke out when some inmates were beaten up for refusing to become members of special units responsible for helping guards enforce order in the prison.

"Of course, the guys started to refuse," Malygin said. "They were then beaten up, three of them straight away. They began cutting their veins. No one was brought from the medical unit, they were all sent to the solitary confinement cell. They cut their bellies, their necks, their arms. People say there were 200, 300 hundred of them? More than 800 people slashed themselves there, and 1,300 are on hunger strike. They drove nails into their lungs, some swallowed blades, others swallowed hooks."

Malygin showed reporters several cuts on his forearms and stomach. Although the cuts appeared to be deep, they had not been closed with stitches.

An investigation into the incident confirmed that inmates had been beaten up by prison guards. On 4 July, the prison director, Yuri Bushin, was sacked together with his two deputies.

For Human Rights, a rights group that has actively helped the Lgov inmates, has hailed the dismissals as a small victory.

But this has done little to appease the families of the inmates, many of whom are still without news from their imprisoned relatives.

Representatives of For Human Rights say dozens of prisoners have been taken to unknown destinations.

Tatyana Nikitina's son Nikolai was transferred to the Lgov jail in early June. She has managed to see him since the start of the protest, but she says he had severe wounds and was not receiving any medical care.

"He showed his hand to me, his left hand was cut in five places, two cuts were very deep and still bleeding," she said. "No treatment had been given. I asked: 'Kolya, why did you cut yourself?' He said: 'I have very strong stomach pains, we are on hunger strike.' I started crying and said: 'Kolya, for God's sake, stop the hunger strike.' He answered: 'Mom, I can't. We won't stop until they get rid of Bushin.'"

Lev Ponomarev is the executive director of For Human Rights in Moscow. He says his group has received hundreds of letters from inmates describing how prison staff beat and humilate them.

Ponomarev says cases have been reported to his organization where inmates were forced to march and sing at the sound of drums and undress collectively to undergo humiliating body searches.

According to him, it is not rare that bodies of inmates who allegedly committed suicide are returned to their relatives with contusions and broken limbs.

"The conditions in Russian prisons and preliminary detention centers are monstrous," Ponomarev said. "Recently I saw a report on a detention center which has three times more people than it should. People have to take turns to sleep. Conditions are changing very slowly and remain close to torture."

The mass mutilation that took place in Lgov has created outrage in Russia. And Ponomarev said it is now threatening to spark similar violent protests in other Russian prisons: "Our employees are in a state of panic. People are calling from everywhere to say: 'Should we also slash ourselves so that you come and restore order? A similar sadist heads our prison, we are beaten up.' Our phones are simply jammed [with complaints]."

Russian and foreign rights groups regularly criticize Russia over the dire conditions in its prisons. Despite recent progress, many Russian jails remain overcrowded and disease-ridden, with soaring HIV and tuberculosis infection rates.

[lawyerlee]

Dennis reaches hurricane strength (http://www.cnn.com/2005/WEATHER/07/06/tropical.weather/index.html) CNN

Cindy downgraded to tropical depression

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Tropical Storm Dennis became the first Atlantic hurricane of the 2005 season Wednesday evening after an Air Force reconnaissance plane clocked sustained winds of nearly 80 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.

Meanwhile, Cindy shrank to a tropical depression as it dumped heavy rain across Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.

At 6 p.m. ET, Dennis' center was located about 315 miles east-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, moving west-northwest at 14 mph, the National Hurricane Center in Miami reported.

The storm was expected to approach Jamaica early Thursday, forecasters said.

Hurricane warnings were posted for Jamaica and the southwestern peninsula of Haiti, where more than 3,000 people died in flooding and landslides after Tropical Storm Jeanne hit the impoverished country in 2004. (Full story)

A tropical storm warning was issued for the southern coast of the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti. Hurricane watches were posted for the Cayman Islands and central and eastern Cuba.

The storm appeared poised to scoot between Jamaica and the southern coast of Cuba.

Forecasters said Dennis was likely to increase its intensity as it crosses the Gulf of Mexico later in the week -- possibly developing into a Category 3 storm with winds faster than 115 mph.

[lawyerlee]

Hurricane victims asked to refund $27 million (http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/07/04/fema.payments.ap/index.html) CNN

FEMA says Floridians got overpayments

FORT MYERS, Florida (AP) -- The Federal Emergency Management Agency has asked thousands of Floridians whose homes were damaged by last summer's four hurricanes to give back more than $27 million in aid overpayments.

FEMA earlier this year began mailing letters to residents in efforts to recoup the overpayments from people who received federal aid after Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne hit Florida last August and September.

According to data supplied to The News-Press of Fort Myers through a Freedom of Information Act request, the agency detailed 6,579 cases in which they say people owe a total of $27.2 million.

Many of the problems stem from FEMA providing money for items that were later covered by property insurance policies, more than one person from the same household applying for benefits or from processing errors.

Nicol Andrews, a FEMA spokeswoman in Washington, pointed out that the $27 million is less than 1 percent of the more than $5 billion FEMA has committed to Florida's hurricane recovery.

"Our mission is to get in there and help out and address immediate needs -- food, shelter clothing," Andrews said on Sunday. "Months after or quite a while after, we go back and, as is our obligation to the taxpayers, we try to recoup funds that were distributed in error."

Andrews said those who are asked to repay have the option to appeal.

FEMA is asking one Escambia County household to return $50,723, saying the award was made for a home that was not a primary residence. An additional 63 households owe more than $20,000 each, the newspaper reported.

[lawyerlee]

Study: DNA evidence underutilized (http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/07/04/untested.dna.ap/index.html) CNN

Researchers find reluctance on many fronts

PULLMAN, Washington (AP) -- Ophelia McKnight was last seen alive on January 5, 1988, in downtown Seattle. Her body was found a month later.

In June, 17 years after the crime, DNA evidence prompted 47-year old Joseph Tice to confess to killing her.

Such outcomes could be much more common, but a new study by researchers at Washington State University finds that forensic DNA analysis is woefully underused in the United States.

The study estimated that 250,000 unsolved rapes and homicides in the United States since 1982 -- more than half of such crimes -- have yet to be subjected to DNA testing.

"The effectiveness of forensic DNA has created a tremendous testing demand that is not met by the available supply," said Travis Pratt, a criminal justice professor at WSU.

The reasons for low usage include lack of money, trained personnel and other resources for performing the complicated tests. The researchers' survey also found that some law enforcement agencies were reluctant to take and store DNA evidence.

Pratt and his fellow researchers from WSU gathered numbers from 120 crime labs and about 3,400 law enforcement agencies in all 50 states, using a grant from the National Institute of Justice, a government research agency.

They found that some law enforcement agencies still are reluctant to use DNA testing because it is expensive and requires more training, researcher Michael J. Gaffney said.

"We heard from agencies that had never submitted a DNA sample for testing," Gaffney said.

The researchers found that most law enforcement agencies still view DNA evidence as supplemental evidence, more useful to prosecutors in obtaining a conviction than to investigators in identifying the perpetrator.

Many law enforcement agencies were still unaware of the existence of the national DNA database, the study found.

[lawyerlee]

Court revives youth nudist camp lawsuit (http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/07/06/nudist.camp.ap/index.html) CNN

RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) -- A federal appeals court has reinstated a lawsuit challenging a 2004 Virginia law requiring parental supervision at a nudist camp for juveniles.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the American Association for Nude Recreation can pursue its claim that the law violates its free speech rights, crimping its ability to spread its nudism philosophy.

The organization claims it had to cancel last summer's camp because only 11 of the 35 youths who signed up would have been able to bring a parent.

"A regulation that reduces the size of a speaker's audience can constitute an invasion of a legally protected interest," Judge William B. Traxler Jr. wrote in the unanimous ruling.

[lawyerlee]

Mother: Nichols reveals role in bombing (http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/07/03/nichols.mother.ap/index.html) CNN

Form of autism made conspirator easily manipulated, she says

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Bombing conspirator Terry Nichols has been meeting with the FBI and has revealed additional details about his involvement in the 1995 attack that destroyed the Oklahoma City federal building, his mother said Sunday.

Nichols, serving life in prison on federal and state convictions for the bombing that killed 168 people, acknowledged that he helped Timothy McVeigh acquire ammonium nitrate fertilizer and racing fuel that were combined to make the explosive, and helped assemble the bomb components, said Nichols' mother, Joyce Wilt of Lapeer, Michigan.

"That's the extent of it," Wilt said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "From there on, he had no knowledge."

McVeigh was convicted of federal conspiracy and murder charges in the bombing and was executed on June 11, 2001.

Prosecutors have contended that Nichols willingly helped McVeigh plan and carry out the bombing. Wilt said she believes others were involved in the bombing and that the FBI is hiding it.

Wilt contends her son suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism that allowed him to be easily manipulated by others. She said McVeigh took advantage of Nichols to get him to help with the bombing preparations and that he threatened to harm Nichols and his family if he didn't comply.

"Terry was just being protective of all of us," Wilt said. "It just breaks my heart, because he was a good kid. He got out in the world and people started taking advantage of him."

[lawyerlee]

UN troops storm Haiti shanty town (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4658413.stm) BBC News

UN peacekeepers in Haiti have stormed a slum in the capital, Port-au-Prince, killing armed gang members loyal to the country's ousted president.

At least two men were killed during several hours of gunfights between the 350 peacekeepers and armed men.

A powerful gang leader and supporter of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was reported to be among the dead.

The raid of the Cite Soleil shanty town, on the edge of the island, was the second slum offensive in two weeks.

Struggle

Haitian police chief Leon Charles said he was quite sure that gang leader Emmanuel Wilmey, known as "Dread Wilmey", had been killed.

"We are not able to give a death toll at this time but we are 80% sure he was killed in the operation," Mr Charles told Agence France Presse.

Haitian authorities say Mr Wilmey is behind a surge in violence in the capital.

A 7,000-strong contingent of UN peacekeepers has struggled to maintain order in Haiti since Mr Aristide's ouster.

Last week, UN peacekeepers stormed the slum of Bel Air, shooting dead six suspected gang members and freeing a kidnapped Red Cross worker who was being held there.

Haiti is scheduled to hold elections later this year, though correspondents say these might be delayed because of the unrest.

Official statistics show that just 200,000 of the country's eligible 4.5 million voters - less than 5% - have registered to vote.

[lawyerlee]

Japan 'war orphans' lose case (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4654681.stm) BBC News
A Japanese court has ruled that 32 Japanese citizens abandoned as children in China at the end of World War II are not entitled to compensation.

Their parents were killed or forced to abandon them when they fled China for Japan at the end of the war in 1945.

The plaintiffs said Japan failed to repatriate them early enough and that they are now entitled to compensation.

But an Osaka court has ruled that it had no obligation to help the former orphans achieve financial independence.

Thousands of Japanese children were left behind in north-east China amid the fighting and confusion of the war's end.

They were looked after by Chinese parents and grew up as though Chinese nationals, before the Japanese government started repatriating them in the 1980s.

Wednesday's court decision was the first ruling in a series of lawsuits brought by the repatriated individuals.

It affected 32 of 111 plaintiffs who brought a 2003 case before the Osaka court.

[lawyerlee]

Climate change tops full G8 talks (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4658427.stm) BBC News

Climate change and global trade will top Thursday's agenda when G8 leaders get down to business in earnest.

The first full day of the G8 summit will be dominated by the environment, an issue which could expose fault lines between the US and other countries.

President Bush has made it clear he will not sign up to Kyoto-style limits on greenhouse gas emissions.

The UK is trying to reach a compromise by stressing commitment to eco-friendly technology to cut greenhouse gases.

Police will be braced for further protests across Scotland after a series of demonstrations on Wednesday resulted in more than 160 arrests.

More than 100 arrests were made near the town of Auchterarder after demonstrators left the agreed route of a march and attempted to penetrate the security cordon around the Gleneagles Hotel.

With up to 4,000 police on duty, the summit is at the centre of the biggest security operation in UK history.

For many protesters and observers, the G8 summit is a defining moment in current world politics, amid increased calls for the world's richest countries to act now to help the world's poorest.

Climate divisions

Thursday will see the leaders of the world's richest nations - the United Kingdom, United States, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan and Canada - involved in back-to-back meetings, including a working lunch and dinner.

The leaders of China, India, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa, the world's five emerging economies, will join the discussion on climate change while the International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization and World Bank will also be represented.

This should focus on developing fuel-efficient technology and exploring alternative sources of energy.

"President Bush has made a statement saying he accepts global warming is a problem, he accepts that it is partly man-made," Mr Brown told ITV's News at Ten.

"What I think will happen is that the World Bank will be asked to bring together not just America and Europe but the developing countries, particularly China and India."

Trade concessions

Another key area of discussion will be the state of the world economy, particularly efforts to reduce global trade barriers.

Anti-poverty campaigners are hopeful the US may make some concessions in this area, curbing cotton and sugar subsidies which critics claim distort world prices and harm producers in developing countries.

However, President Bush has said that reform of US farm subsidies has to be tied to an overhaul of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy.

The G8 leaders will also discuss a range of foreign policy issues including Iraq and the Middle East peace process.

[lawyerlee]

Man Charged With Stealing Wi-Fi Signal (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/techbits_wi_fi_theft&printer=1;_ylt=Atn4C0kEOT5LNMOlvF2fOldk24cA;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-) AP

Police have arrested a man for using someone else's wireless Internet network in one of the first criminal cases involving this fairly common practice.

Benjamin Smith III, 41, faces a pretrial hearing this month following his April arrest on charges of unauthorized access to a computer network, a third-degree felony.

Police say Smith admitted using the Wi-Fi signal from the home of Richard Dinon, who had noticed Smith sitting in an SUV outside Dinon's house using a laptop computer.

The practice is so new that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement doesn't even keep statistics, according to the St. Petersburg Times, which reported Smith's arrest this week.

Innocuous use of other people's unsecured Wi-Fi networks is common, though experts say that plenty of illegal use also goes undetected: such as people sneaking on others' networks to traffic in child pornography, steal credit card information and send death threats.

Security experts say people can prevent such access by turning on encryption or requiring passwords, but few bother or are unsure how to do so.

Wi-Fi, short for Wireless Fidelity, has enjoyed prolific growth since 2000. Millions of households have set up wireless home networks that give people like Dinon the ability to use the Web from their backyards but also reach the house next door or down the street.

It's not clear why Smith was using Dinon's network. Prosecutors declined to comment, and a working phone number could not be located for Smith.

[lawyerlee]

Army gives $5 bln of work to Halliburton (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/iraq_halliburton_dc&printer=1;_ylt=Ar1WGXXAKJuAfQWGr2.lGeYb.3QA;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-) Reuters

By Sue Pleming

The U.S. military has signed on Halliburton to do nearly $5 billion in new work in Iraq under a giant logistics contract that has so far earned the Texas-based firm $9.1 billion, the Army said on Wednesday.

Linda Theis, a spokeswoman for U.S. Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Illinois, said the military signed the work order with Halliburton unit Kellogg Brown and Root in May.

The new deal, worth $4.97 billion over the next year, was not made public when it was signed because the Army did not consider such an announcement necessary, she said.

"We did not announce this task order as this is really not something we ever really thought about doing," said Theis.

Halliburton, which was run by Vice President Dick Cheney from 1995-2000, has been under scrutiny for its contracts in Iraq and several U.S. government agencies are looking into whether it overcharged for some work.

A Halliburton spokeswoman said the new spending package was approved by the Army after the company submitted estimated costs for the year based on services requested.

The $4.97 billion figure represented the maximum under the contract, and the actual amount could be lower since the Army doled out the work on an incremental basis, she said.

The new contract is about $1 billion more than the company earned under last year's services contract.

[lawyerlee]

Police Called to O.J. Simpson's Fla. Home (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050707/ap_on_re_us/oj_dispute&printer=1;_ylt=ApdUHC8yDg3wXYcP25FoA1FH2ocA;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-) AP

By LISA ORKIN EMMANUEL, Associated Press Writer

A neighbor who went to O.J. Simpson's home on the Fourth of July to perform a favor ended up calling police to report a fight. Police responded, but said no one was arrested and no charges will be filed.

Simpson was at his suburban Miami house with girlfriend Christie Prody when he asked the neighbor, Steve Dockendorf, to come over and jump start Prody's car.

Dockendorf said he summoned police because Prody was beating him and Simpson.

"I figured if I called the police, at least he has a record" of the disturbance, Dockendorf said Wednesday. "He said he should have done that with Nicole."

[lawyerlee]

Judge Tosses Bid to Revive Reparation Suit (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050707/ap_on_re_us/slave_reparations&printer=1;_ylt=AqAEWfpiuzNL3LYR4FUVdGNH2ocA;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-) AP

By MIKE ROBINSON, Associated Press Writer

An effort by slave descendants to gain reparations from corporations that allegedly benefited from slavery was dismissed Wednesday by a federal judge.

Judge Charles R. Norgle characterized the issue as basically political, and said it should be decided by the legislative or executive branch.

He added that the plaintiffs have failed to show a link between themselves and the 17 corporations named as defendants, and that the statute of limitations rules out damages for wrongs committed before slavery was abolished in 1868.

It was the second time Norgle dismissed a version of the slave reparations suit and this time he did it with prejudice — meaning that any hopes of reviving it at the District Court level most likely are dead.

Norgle based his decision partly on "the long-standing" doctrine that political issues should be resolved in the Congress or the executive branch, and noted that slavery reparations issues historically have been fought there rather than the courts.

Attorney Benjamin Obi Nwoye said he and other lawyers who have worked on the suit planned to appeal.

"We don't agree with his reasoning," he said. "We are hopeful that we will get justices who are fair-minded so the descendants of slaves can be repaid for the work of their forefathers."

Attorneys for the slave descendants say they want to use any damages to create a fund to help correct problems in the black community.

[lawyerlee]

'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Case in Court (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050707/ap_on_re_us/military_gays&printer=1;_ylt=AurTY_SfgmC8U7lM.4MVRZtH2ocA;_ylu=X 3oDMTA3MXN1bHE0BHNlYwN0bWE-)

By DENISE LAVOIE, Associated Press Writer

During her first five years in the Navy, Jen Kopfstein avoided conversations about her personal life, taking the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy seriously.

"I felt like I was being forced to lie and having to be dishonest," Kopfstein said. "I could never share anything about my family or my home life or even say what I did on the weekend. It is hurtful to do that."

After she finally wrote a letter to her commanding officer telling him she was a lesbian, she was discharged.

Now she and 11 other former servicemembers are challenging the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, arguing in a federal lawsuit that it violates their constitutional rights. The Bush administration is asking a federal judge to dismiss the lawsuit in a motion to be heard Friday.

"It's a terrible policy," said Kopfstein, 30, of San Diego. "It's very detrimental to morale. It turns people into second-class citizens.

Established in 1993 under the Clinton administration, "don't ask, don't tell" prohibits the military from asking about the sexual orientation of service members but requires discharge of those who acknowledge being gay or engaging in homosexual activity.

More than 9,400 troops have been discharged since the policy was implemented, a number critics call astonishing with the country at war and recruitment lagging.

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Report: Drug firms spend most on lobbying (http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/07/health.politics.reut/index.html) CNN

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The pharmaceutical industry spent a record $128 million last year trying to win over U.S. politicians, more than any other business sector, according to a report released Thursday.

That exceeds the more than $116 million on lobbying efforts and campaign donations in 2003, one of the busiest health-care political years when Congress passed a new Medicare law, the Center for Public Integrity report said.

The nonprofit public policy research group analyzed millions of campaign finance records, lobbyist disclosure forms, Securities and Exchanges Commission filings and other public records.

Larger drug makers spent the most on lobbying efforts, the report said. Pfizer Inc. donated $1.6 million to political candidates and causes, followed by GlaxoSmithKline Plc with $1.09 million.

Even though lobbying politicians is legal, Center for Public Integrity officials questioned how such close ties can impact average Americans.

"Drug prices soared at the same time that the drug industry emerged as one of the most powerful organized interests in Washington," said Executive Director Roberta Baskin.

She also questioned the number of former members of Congress and other federal workers who then work as lobbyists.

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Dino track found in Denali National Park (http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/07/06/denali.park.dino.ap/index.html) CNN

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- A track from a three-toed dinosaur believed to be about 70 million years old has been discovered in Denali National Park, the first evidence that the animals roamed there, scientists said.

The footprint was found June 27 by a University of Alaska Fairbanks student taking a geology field course.

The fossil is 9 inches long and 6 inches wide, officials said.

The discovery's importance was its location in Interior Alaska, far from the coastline where other tracks have been found, said Anthony Fiorillo, curator of earth sciences at the Dallas Museum of Natural History.

"It's not necessarily the track itself that's significant," he said. "It's where it is that's got us all excited."

From the size of the track, he estimates the meat-eater was 9 to 13 feet long.

"You are looking at a very large, birdlike animal except it has teeth and a tail and instead of wings, it has arms," he said. A rough comparison, he said, would be a scaled-down Tyrannosaurus rex.

[lawyerlee]

Calif. man faints, dies after seeing epidural (http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=918236) ABC News

Reuters
Jul. 7, 2005 - A California woman is suing a hospital for wrongful death because her husband fainted and suffered a fatal injury after helping delivery room staff give her a pain-killing injection.

Jeanette Passalaqua, 32, filed the suit against Kaiser Foundation Hospitals and Southern California Permanente Medical Group Inc. in San Bernardino County state court last week.

In June 2004, Passalaqua's husband, Steven Passalaqua, was asked by Kaiser staff to hold and steady his wife while an employee inserted an epidural needle into her back, court papers said.

The sight of the needle caused Steven Passalaqua, 33, to faint and he fell backward, striking his head on an aluminum cap molding at the base of the wall.

Jeanette Passalaqua delivered the couple's second child, a boy, later that day. Steven Passalaqua, however, suffered a brain hemorrhage as a result of his fall and died two days later, the lawsuit said.

[lawyerlee]

High-Speed Internet Use Rises 34 Percent (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=917864) ABC News

High-Speed Internet Use by U.S. Businesses and Households Rises 34 Percent to 37.9 Million Lines

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON Jul 7, 2005 — High-speed Internet use by U.S. businesses and households rose 34 percent in 2004 to 37.9 million lines, the Federal Communications Commission said Thursday.

The figures were cited by the agency's chairman as proof that the FCC's broadband policy is working.

Digital subscriber line, or DSL, service increased 45 percent last year to 13.8 million lines. Cable modem use climbed 30 percent to 21.4 million lines.

[lawyerlee]

Sprint Rolls Out Wireless Internet Plan (http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=918092) ABC News

Sprint Announces New High-Speed Wireless Internet Service, 1 1/2 Years After Verizon Wireless

By BILL DRAPER
The Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. Jul 7, 2005 — Sprint Corp. announced its arrival onto the wireless broadband scene on Thursday, more than a year and a half after one of its top rivals, Verizon Wireless, started offering broadband Internet service.

Sprint Corp. plans to provide mobile broadband service to about 150 million people by early next year. The service, using EV-DO (Evolution Data Optimized) technology, will be available in business districts and airports in 34 markets by the end of this month. It already came online this month in 17 of those markets, including Kansas City.

The Overland Park, Kan.-based company said rates will start at $40 per month for a limited-access plan, and unlimited access will cost business customers about $80 a month.

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Memo: U.S., UK plan to reduce troops in Iraq (http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/7/10/worldupdates/2005-07-10T094113Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_-208822-1&sec=Worldupdates) Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - A leaked document from Britain's Defence Ministry says the British and U.S. governments are planning to reduce their troop levels in Iraq by more than half by mid-2006, the Mail on Sunday reported.
The memo, reported to have been written by Defence Minister John Reid, said Britain would reduce its troop numbers to 3,000 from 8,500 by the middle of next year.

"We have a commitment to hand over to Iraqi control in Al Muthanna and Maysan provinces (two of the four provinces under British control in southern Iraq) in October 2005 and in the other two, Dhi Qar and Basra, in April 2006," the memo was reported to have said.

The memo said Washington planned to cut its forces to 66,000 from about