Request for Station fire choppers not heeded, Times investigation shows

"Fire has spotted below the road, about five acres. Order one helitanker, three airtankers, any type. . . . Have them over the fire by 0700 hours."

But the airtankers were canceled and the helitanker was significantly delayed, according to dispatch logs, deployment reports and interviews. The Times obtained the logs, reports and volumes of other documents through the federal Freedom of Information Act.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/12/request-for-station-fire-choppers-not-heeded-times-investigation-shows.html#more

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Supervisor calls for federal probe of Station fire operations after Times report raises questions

Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich has called for a congressional inquiry into the U.S. Forest Service's response to the Station fire in the wake of a Times report that a heavy attack with water-dropping aircraft was canceled on the critical second day of the blaze.

The Forest Service's own records contradict the agency's position that helicopters and tanker planes were withheld because the fire was burning in an Angeles National Forest canyon too steep for ground crews to take advantage of water dumps.

What's needed is a congressional investigation into the false reports by the Forest Service and its failure to stop the fire before it spread,” Antonovich said in a statement. He asked for the investigation in a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Two officers responsible for directing the Day 2 firefight on the ground and from the sky made separate requests for aircraft during a six-and-a-half-hour period, according to records and interviews. An order for three airtankers that morning was canceled and a helitanker reached the scene an hour or so after its scheduled arrival, the records and interviews show.

The blaze killed two county firefighters, destroyed about 90 dwellings and blackened 250 square miles of the forest. It was the largest fire in county history. 

In an interview, Antonovich said a Forest Service review last month that blamed the terrain for not deploying tankers and choppers sooner should have addressed the officers' efforts to launch an air assault.

“Did the members of the investigative committee have access to this information? If they did, they are responsible for misleading the public,” he said. “As a result of the (Forest Service) leadership's failure … we lost two fine, brave firefighters.”

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Rep. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) said in a statement that he is “reviewing all information related to the Station fire, including today's L.A. Times report.”

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/12/federal-probe-sought-into-how-station-fire-was-fought.html#more

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Appeals court denies Roman Polanski's bid to throw out sex case

A state appellate court has denied Roman Polanski's attempt to have his three-decade-old child sex case thrown out on the grounds of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct.

In a unanimous decision, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeal 2nd District said a lower court judge did not err a year ago when he ruled that the acclaimed director, then a fugitive in France, had to surrender to U.S. authorities before pursuing the misconduct claims.

Lawyers for Polanski, now under house arrest in Switzerland pending possible extradition to Los Angeles, had argued earlier this month that the "fugitive disentitlement doctrine" cited by Superior Court Judge Peter Espinoza did not apply to the filmmaker because of the egregiousness of the misconduct alleged. But in a decision today, the justices disagreed. 

"We conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion in applying the fugitive disentitlement doctrine and refusing to consider dismissing the action," Justice Laurie D. Zelon wrote.

But referring to Polanski's claims of backroom dealings and other improprieties by the original trial judge, now deceased, and a prosecutor, she added, "We do not disregard the extremely serious allegations of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct that have been brought forward, but urge the parties to take steps to investigate and to respond to the claims."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/12/appeals-court-denies-roman-polanskis-bid-to-throw-out-sex-case.html#more

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A life saved from the shadows

Glenn Harrington, addled by drugs and grief, had moved into the tunnels below Las Vegas. He joined hundreds of homeless people hiding from their demons and sometimes the law.

by Ashley Powers

December 22, 2009

Reporting from Las Vegas

He already lived in the shadows, if you could call it living.

Most days, for nearly four years, Glenn Harrington foraged for money, smoked marijuana and methamphetamine, and searched for somewhere to crash: a buddy's couch, a deck chair at the Tropicana pool, behind a sign advertising the airport. Last year, after police rousted him and a friend from the sign, they ran into a homeless guy who directed them to the tunnels.

Beneath the glossy Strip and a vast expanse of suburbs in the arid Las Vegas Valley are hundreds of miles of crisscrossing flood-control tunnels that stay dry most of the year. The tunnels are thought to shelter about 300 vagabonds from the Mojave Desert's unrelenting weather.

The pitch-black passages breed mosquitoes and, where shallow pools of water collect, even crayfish. They reek of sodden trash and urine.

But in the tunnels, you can disappear. And for a time, Harrington desperately wanted to disappear.

So, last fall, he and his friend Thomas Kruse headed over to a culvert west of the Strip leading into the tunnels. For a few nights they slumbered outside. They started plying the handful of tunnel residents with weed and, eventually, were given the OK to move in.

Harrington paid two guys $20 each to lug a red leather couch from a nearby apartment complex into an offshoot of the main corridor, nicknamed the Caesars tunnel. His new neighbors included a man who decorated the concrete walls with pages torn from nudie magazines and a couple who had hauled in a studio apartment's worth of furniture.

Harrington waded into the darkness. He squinted. At the time, he couldn't see any clear way out.

The vast majority of the Las Vegas region's homeless population, estimated at more than 13,000, favors the typical homeless haunts -- cars, abandoned buildings, parks. They find tunnel-dwellers disquieting: What drives someone underground?

Some stay awhile, then struggle to get out. Some never leave.

Harrington, 44, is a slight, affable man with brown eyes, receding dark hair and a nervous laugh. The youngest of eight kids in Buffalo, N.Y., he joined his mom and a sister here almost three decades ago. He worked at casinos and once was promoted to assistant food and beverage manager. He had a girlfriend and a daughter, Caylee, and liked the desert's ceaseless sunshine.

But the relationship was tempestuous. Money was tight: For years, Harrington had taken and quit jobs -- and occasionally left town -- on a whim. He often ended up on the couch of a sister, playing both the kind uncle her kids adored and the wayward soul who pleaded for money, then vanished.

As he tells it, his girlfriend, who was wrestling with her own addictions, left him and their daughter; her mother eventually took Caylee, then 3, with her back to Montana. He went there to fight for custody, but lost, and returned to Vegas a woeful man. He started blowing money on drugs and slot machines and eventually ended up on the streets.

Other residents of the tunnels tell similarly glum stories, if they share them at all. Part of the tunnels' appeal is a tacit code that your past sins may remain unspoken.

The passageways begin in a number of low-lying spots around town, including near the iconic "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign. Many tunnels are the size of hallways, with cobwebbed ceilings and the occasional pool of ankle-deep water. Las Vegas averages only 4 inches of rain a year, but floodwater can blast through so quickly that, when storm clouds loom, some residents temporarily clear out.

The labyrinthine corridors are eerily hushed. Your conversation will arrive at the end of a tunnel far before you do, which offers residents some peace of mind. Approaching footsteps can stir panic: Is it the police? A drug dealer with a grudge?

Encampments are sometimes littered with the plastic bags and party balloons synonymous with meth and cocaine. The only light comes from flashlights or the sun streaming through street grates.

The light that sneaks through illuminates walls inked with graffiti: bubble letters, bare-chested women, thoughts morose and poetic. In the Caesars tunnel, someone scrawled: Thank you for the knowledge of heartbreak .

Most days, after Harrington and the others woke up, they made their way into the blinding sun and hustled for dope and food -- usually, by "silver-mining." They hovered at casinos, hoping slot players left them credits to play or winnings to cash. Back in the tunnel, Harrington couldn't bear the shame of stealing or, even worse, the fading memories of Caylee, whom he hadn't spoken to in years. So he smoked his troubles away. Or tried to.

He slept fitfully, wracked by fears: surging storm water, bugs inching across his face, a fellow itinerant stealing the black duffel bag with his sole change of clothes. After a few months, he started squabbling with tunnel neighbors. Survival was so much harder here.

He wasn't worried about interlopers, at least. They rarely braved the concrete maze.

But a few years back, journalists Matthew O'Brien and Joshua Ellis had written about the storm-drain society for the local alternative weekly CityLife. O'Brien expanded the stories into a book, "Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas," which caught the attention of homeless outreach workers at the nonprofit HELP of Southern Nevada.

This March, they intensified their efforts in the tunnels. Several times a month, former corrections Sgt. Rich Penska and others headed underground, armed with flashlights and offers of housing and medical help (a potentially fatal staph infection named MRSA was common in the tunnels).

It was grueling work. Once, Penska had nearly persuaded a woman to leave when her dope supplier showed up. Another time, a heroin addict charged at him with a syringe. But since March, the group has coaxed about 18 people out of the tunnels, each success prodding the team to return.

In recent months, they visited the Caesars tunnel repeatedly and often chatted with Steve and Kathryn, an amiable couple who'd survived underground for more than a year. The pair showed off their living quarters: a hotel-size bed, a flowered bedspread, sheets swiped from a laundry service. Dean Koontz books. Perfume bottles. Discarded tickets for shows Kathryn dreamed of seeing, including Terry Fator, a ventriloquist at the Mirage.

The outreach team's pleas to Steve and Kathryn pinged off walls, and Harrington found himself listening. He grew more and more intrigued.

On a sweltering afternoon in June, Harrington planted himself outside the Caesars tunnel, waiting for Penska, duffel bag in hand. His neighbors had been mocking him: Why was he leaving? Was he too good for the tunnels now?

A few days before, Harrington had approached Penska during one of the team's visits, convinced they truly wanted to help. Get me out of here, Harrington begged.

Penska, 49 and the father of two adult sons, also grew up in Buffalo. He has blue eyes, an offensive lineman's build and an office lined with scuba-diving pictures. He juggles more than 20 clients and can switch between brusque and kind, though it's obvious he prefers the latter.

He sized up Harrington, who initially swore he wasn't using drugs. Penska assumed -- correctly -- that was bunk, but that didn't mean Harrington's plea wasn't sincere.

Harrington's friend Kruse, 52, had recently accepted help from the group after getting sloshed, falling down a hill and breaking his right ankle. Another man from the Caesars tunnel had moved out, too. Penska realized Harrington was struggling far more than Steve and Kathryn, who made subsistence living look oddly effortless.

Yes, Penska thought, this guy wants to go.

That summer afternoon, Penska shuttled Harrington to Deer Valley Recovery, where he bunked with seven men and got intensive counseling -- the first time his sister could remember him seeking help.

While some homeless are slowly weaned off their addictions, Harrington was deemed ready to quit everything at once. For weeks, he tossed and turned instead of sleeping, with melancholy thoughts overwhelming his mind and no meth to shoo them away.

Each morning, sunlight startled him.

Penska figured living aboveground would be tough for Harrington. He was reminded of how much each time he returned to the tunnels. One day, Penska, O'Brien and HELP co-worker Louis Lacey visited Steve and Kathryn, who promised they hadn't been using drugs.

Penska mentioned how well Harrington and Kruse were doing. Kathryn, with blue eyes and a pixie's build, wore a red hoodie, pink shorts and an expression indicating she wasn't swayed.

Steve faced arrest warrants related to drug charges, and the couple feared that, should they accept housing, he'd be locked up. (That's also why they asked their last names not be used.) Didn't matter that, during a recent storm, an ankle-deep torrent had ripped through the tunnels. They rode it out, Kathryn said, by playing Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit atop the bed.

Back at Deer Valley, his head clearing, Harrington started to catalog the things his old neighbors were missing. A refrigerator. Old Spice deodorant. Hot food, hot showers, hot coffee. The sense of dignity that came with it all.

He ultimately moved to a two-man room, with a twin bed, two pillows and an entire drawer of socks. He sometimes visited Kruse, who had moved into his own apartment.

Harrington also warily reconnected with family. Another of his sisters, who had called jails and hospitals looking for him and considered filing a missing persons report, drove over packs of Gold Coast 100 cigarettes.

His new routine: making sure his housemates finished their chores, and counting down the days until Penska and other counselors determined that Harrington, too, was ready for his own place.

He occasionally talked to Caylee, now 9, who still lives with her grandma in Montana. She told him she likes Scooby-Doo and SpongeBob SquarePants. He decorated his half of the room with e-mailed pictures of her, smiling and in a pink princess dress.

He never could have hung them on tunnel walls.

One windy October morning, Penska pulled up to Deer Valley Recovery in his silver Hyundai Santa Fe to take Harrington to his new apartment. Harrington stood outside, beaming.

The facility door had been propped open with phone books, and Harrington zipped in and out with garbage bags of stuff. He tossed his duffel bag into the vehicle and hugged his housemates goodbye.

He hadn't called any place his own in almost five years. But now a county program run through HELP of Southern Nevada will help him cover $650 a month in rent and utilities, though Harrington was eager to start looking for restaurant work.

He and Penska pulled up to the beige stucco complex with huge palms, azure pools and, at some doors, welcome mats. In the office, the manager smiled warmly as she handed Harrington a checklist explaining the complex's rules. He clenched it as if it might blow away. She handed him a roll of toilet paper and a box of Chocolate Parfait Nips tied with a white ribbon. She handed him the keys. He shook them ever so slightly. He exhaled. They were real.

Across the complex, he opened the door to Apartment No. 44. He opened the refrigerator. He opened the freezer and touched the ice cube trays. His surroundings were austere: dark brown carpet, a bed with no frame, a TV with no stand and a musty odor.

But Penska, who also received a key, had set the round table with a pair of white plates and cups, and that small gesture made Harrington feel at home.

Penska knew so many things could go wrong. Harrington could suffer tragedy and seek solace in meth; he could start feeling euphoric and crack open some beers. He could balk at his new responsibilities and slide back onto the streets.

Kruse, who had been living at the complex for some time, came by. For Penska, it was an affecting scene: The old neighbors sat on Harrington's black couch, laughing, their faces warm with sunlight. The tunnels seemed a long time ago.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-tunnel22-2009dec22,0,1279887,print.story

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MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

Staged photos of slain drug lord stir controversy

Images of Arturo Beltran Leyva's corpse covered with blood-stained peso notes and jewelry raise concerns that law enforcement is adopting the tactics of hit men. An inquiry is underway.

by Ken Ellingwood

December 22, 2009

Reporting from Mexico City

The dead drug lord lay on his back, blood-soaked jeans yanked down to the knees. Mexican peso notes carpeted his bullet-torn body, and U.S. $100 bills formed neat rows next to his bared belly.

The gory photograph of Arturo Beltran Leyva, one of Mexico's most wanted kingpins, was among those widely published here during the last few days following his death in a shootout Wednesday with Mexican marines in Cuernavaca, capital of the central state of Morelos.

Even in a country where pictures of gruesome crime scenes routinely show up on the front pages of newspapers, the Beltran Leyva images have stirred controversy over who staged the tableau and whether Mexican authorities did so to send a taunting message to the rest of his powerful drug trafficking gang.

Several commentators said the photos, some of which showed religious jewelry laid across Beltran Leyva's stomach, were evidence that the government had adopted the macabre public-relations methods used by hit men. Gang members often line their victims' bodies along the roadside or hang them from bridges, leaving menacing, handwritten messages to scare foes.

The federal government, locked in a violent 3-year-old crackdown on drug cartels, has denied any responsibility for the photographs, calling the images "pernicious" and "reprehensible."

"The Mexican government fulfills its duty to halt organized-crime activity, but it does not get into personal humiliation," Interior Minister Fernando Gomez Mont said in a television interview.

But that has not laid the doubts to rest.

"Photographs of a corpse: law or vengeance?" the Excelsior newspaper asked in a headline over the weekend.

"The humiliated corpse, with its pants lowered, covered with bloody bills in one photo and religious objects in another, showed the typical modus operandi of narco-traffickers," security analyst Jorge Chabat wrote Monday in El Universal newspaper, which earlier ran a version of the photograph on its front page. "The only thing missing was a sign saying 'so that you learn to respect' to confirm the unmistakable stamp of an act of narco revenge.

"The problem is much deeper: It has to do with the absolute lack of democratic culture and respect for human rights in our country."

Among the main questions was who took the time to cover Beltran Leyva from neck to knees with blood-smeared bills, apparently to publicize the scene. Most of the bills appeared to be 500-peso notes, which are worth about $39 each. Another image, taken without the bills, showed Beltran Leyva's face disfigured by bullets.

Beltran Leyva, who called himself the "boss of bosses" and headed a family-run gang based in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, was killed when marines stormed an upscale apartment complex Wednesday. Six bodyguards and one commando also died.

Gomez Mont said the marine commandos, who are part of the Mexican navy, left the crime scene in the hands of coroner specialists from Morelos. He said federal officials would help state authorities try to figure out how the photographs were taken and distributed.

Morelos officials said Monday that they had opened an investigation.

El Universal published a series of photographs Sunday showing three people in civilian clothes, with faces digitally blurred, lifting Beltran Leyva's body by the arms and belted pants. Pictures showed gloved hands handling the bloodied bills and then portrayed the body covered with them.

The case sparked debate among journalists over newsworthiness of the photographs, which were credited to Mexican newspapers and wire services. But mainly it had people wondering whether the drug war, with 15,000 dead in three years, had both sides adhering to the same vicious rules.

"It is the state forces that adopted the basic language of the narco," columnist Luis Petersen Farah wrote in the Milenio newspaper. " 'There's your money,' the photograph seems to say. It's the language of war."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-mexico-druglord22-2009dec22,0,4948665,print.story

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EMTs suspended, accused of refusing to help

The New York fire department suspends two emergency medical technicians who allegedly wouldn't help a pregnant woman who collapsed. The woman later died.

Associated Press

December 22, 2009

New York

Two emergency medical technicians accused of refusing to help a pregnant woman who collapsed in the coffee shop where they were taking a break were suspended Monday, and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg called their behavior inexcusable.

The woman died at a hospital after the Dec. 9 incident.

The Fire Department of New York suspended Jason Green, a six-year veteran, and Melissa Jackson, a four-year veteran, without pay during the investigation, spokesman Steve Ritea said.

Witnesses, first speaking to the New York Post, said the EMTs told employees at the Brooklyn eatery to call 911, and left when they were asked to help Eutisha Revee Rennix, an employee who had collapsed.

An ambulance was called, and Rennix, 25, was taken to a hospital, where she died a short time later. Her baby girl was too premature to survive.

Ritea said all FDNY members "take an oath to assist others whenever they're in need of emergency medical care. It's their sworn duty."

A union spokesman, Robert Ungar, said it was waiting for the results of the Fire Department's investigation but did not condone behavior that could harm the public.

On Monday, Bloomberg repeated comments he made over the weekend, saying that refusing to help goes against human decency.

"There's no excuse whatsoever," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-emt22-2009dec22,0,5182160,print.story

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Snowballs vs. gun?

Hundreds converge in Washington to take advantage of a winter storm. Their projectiles hit a Hummer, whose driver -- an off-duty plainclothes policeman -- allegedly draws his weapon.

by Matt Zapotosky

December 21, 2009

Reporting from Washington

The call went out on a website and over Twitter, and hundreds of 20- and 30-somethings, tired of being cooped up, gathered in Washington's northwest quadrant Saturday for a little restless indulgence.

Snowball fight!

People squealed as they hurled balls of snow across the largely deserted road. Then, a snowball or two slammed into a Hummer.

The driver, a plainclothes police detective whom Washington police refused to identify, got out, drew his gun and exchanged angry words with revelers, according to video footage and witnesses.

Police said initially that the detective had not flashed his weapon. On Sunday, the officer was placed on desk duty after Twitter, blogs and YouTube appeared to show otherwise.

If the final investigation shows that the officer pulled his weapon after being pelted with snowballs, Assistant Chief Pete Newsham said, that "would not be a situation in which a member [of the force] would be justified."

"We have to see what the entire circumstance was," Newsham said Sunday. "But just a snowball fight, not in my mind, that doesn't seem a situation where we would pull out a service weapon."

The origin of the snowball fight is unclear, but according to some participants, a website emerged sometime on the evening of the snowstorm, advertising what it called "DC SNOWPOCALYPSE GUERRILLA SNOWBALL FIGHT 2009!!"

Soon the event was making the cyber rounds. Even the Department of Transportation seemed to embrace it, tweeting on Saturday soon after the fight began: "SNOW UPDATE as advertised, there is a large snowball battle at 14th and U. Keep it safe."

According to Washington Post editorial aide Stephen Lowman and other witnesses, the detective's burgundy Hummer got stuck in the snow at the battleground for the snowball fight.

The detective got out of the vehicle, Lowman said, and he and the Hummer faced a mini-barrage of snowballs. That's when he "kind of shows he has a gun," Lowman said.

Witness Lacy MacAuley said she was "having fun with all the other revelers" when a friend yelled, "Oh my God, that guy has a gun!"

She turned to see a man standing near a Hummer with a gun drawn at his side.

MacAuley said she and others tried to halt the snowball fight, but someone still pegged the man.

Soon he began yelling and shoving people, warning revelers: "You all do not throw snowballs at my car."

According to Newsham, the detective approached the group of snowball fighters and had "some kind of interaction" with them.

"I think what probably happens is somebody probably saw his gun and called the police," Newsham said.

A patrol officer who responded to the call approached with his gun drawn, Newsham said, but when he realized that the man with a gun was a police detective, he holstered his weapon.

As the detective walked away, MacAuley said, someone hit him with another snowball, prompting the officer to charge into the crowd and briefly detain the man he thought was the culprit.

Although he was released, some revelers remain unsatisfied.

"It was actually kind of just fun and games until all of this happened," MacAuley said. "I feel that this is just an example of people asserting our basic right to have fun, and the police not being OK with that."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-snow-cop21-2009dec21,0,3431061,print.story

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Detective work yields a suspect in LAX bomb threats

FBI agents look for patterns, even when no explosives are found. The search for details led agents back to the airport and ultimately to an arrest.

by Scott Glover

December 20, 2009

The husky-voiced caller warned police that LAX travelers were in grave danger: "There's a bomb. . . . You need to find it or people will die."

It was the second such threat directed at Los Angeles International Airport that day -- June 22 -- and the fourth in less than two weeks.

Each time, cops, federal agents and bomb-sniffing dogs scoured the terminal. Each time, they came up empty-handed: no suspects, no explosives.

In fact, the vast majority of bomb threat cases go unsolved, according to local and federal officials.

John Karle, a lieutenant with the Los Angeles Police Department's Criminal Conspiracy Section, said his detectives receive about 200 cases a year but make arrests in only about 30%. The Justice Department prosecutes about 150 explosives-related cases a year but does not separate threat cases from those in which a device was planted or detonated.

Karle said investigations in threat case are "complicated, time consuming and labor intensive," often requiring multiple search warrants to pierce the veil of secrecy many callers have constructed to mask their identities.

Motives he's seen -- or suspected -- over the years include business disputes, extortion, relationships gone awry and "psychological issues."

"Somebody's late for a flight so they call in a bomb threat. Some kid doesn't want to take a test so he threatens to blow up the school. You get a senior citizen who's 'had enough' and he's [ticked] off. It runs the gamut," Karle said.

Even though there is no bomb, threats can wreak havoc, particularly if they are aimed at a busy public place like LAX, where scares have shut down terminals and caused chain-reaction delays backing up travelers from L.A. to New York to Tokyo, officials said. And then there's the draw on police manpower, sometimes resulting in overtime if the threat is made during a shift change or at off hours.

All threats are taken seriously, Karle said, both before police know whether there is really a bomb and after.

One case that illustrates the need for vigilance, he said, is that of Richard Andrew Broker. He said Broker, known at the time as Richard Lee Daggett, called in a bomb threat to LAX in November 2008. Though Broker did not use his name during the call, detectives were able to identify him and launched a broader investigation into his activities.

Broker was subsequently arrested by federal authorities in Nevada and charged with possessing Molotov cocktails. Karle said he suspects Broker intended to use the devices to make good on his threat to LAX. Broker has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial in federal court in Las Vegas.

Steve Gomez, who heads the counter-terrorism division for the FBI in Los Angeles, said there are several factors involved in scrutinizing a threat.

"Is this a diversion or a dry run? Is somebody watching to see how we respond?" Gomez said. "In addition to addressing the immediate threat, these are things we have to consider."

Gomez said the circumstances of threats nationwide are fed into a computer at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., where analysts look for patterns that might identify those responsible.

"We're always looking for lessons to be learned," he said.

In the rash of LAX bomb scares over the summer, investigators had become convinced that the calls were all made by the same person, almost certainly an airport employee.

In July they called a meeting with airport management and support staff to discuss the problem and ask for help in identifying the culprit. Among those present were Marco Ortiz and his son, Carlos, supervisors for a janitorial crew at the airport.

The elder Ortiz listened as FBI agent Michael Hess played recordings of the four 911 calls in which the threats were made, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The caller sounded like his son, who was sitting a few feet away.

The father took his son into the parking lot and confronted him. The young Ortiz confessed, telling his father he was "sick," according to the complaint.

The father called agent Hess and told him his son made the calls and wanted to confess, the complaint states.

Carlos Orlando Ortiz has since been charged with four counts of making false threats to kill or injure someone or destroy a building by means of an explosive. If convicted, he faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison.

He told Hess he was "crazy in the head" and that his mind was "blank" while making the threats, according to the criminal complaint. But he acknowledged driving to Artesia to make the final threat from a pay phone there, in part to throw investigators off his tracks, the complaint states.

Ortiz's attorney, deputy federal public defender John Littrell, said he would be pursuing an insanity defense on behalf of his client.

Littrell said Ortiz had been struggling to come to grips with an undisclosed childhood trauma and was deeply depressed. He said he was taken into custody earlier this year after he threatened to kill himself in a sheriff's station parking lot.

"It's sort of a classic cry for help in his case," Littrell said. "I don't believe he knew what he was doing because he was so upset."

The case is expected to go to trial earl next year.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-hoax20-2009dec20,0,6759478,print.story

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From the Daily News

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Removing obstacles for the disabled

Hizella Martinez felt too wobbly to walk, too scared to join her mom at the market and too awkward in her blindness to have any friends.

But it was all smiles after the Van Nuys toddler discovered the Therapeutic Living Centers for the Blind.

"Sing a song, Hizella," urged TLC teacher Anne Bell as the beaming youngster two-stepped to a guitar. "You have a beautiful voice, so beautiful."

For nearly 35 years, the nonprofit centers in Reseda have been a pillar of support for disabled blind residents and their families.

Founded in 1975 by eight families frustrated by a lack of services, the agency known as TLC became the first in California to serve blind clients with a mental disability, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, autism and other complex impairments.

To encourage independence, the Therapeutic Learning Centers not only hosts 11 group homes for adults, its two-acre complex offers tender loving care to 180 children and adults in its specially designed classrooms, garden and aquatic center.

This year, the TLC launched an early intervention program to help children like 3-year-old Hizella learn to live with blindness at home.

And the TLC is raising funds to build a $4.7 million Children's Center where she and other blind-disabled kids can also attend school.

"I feel very lucky to be a part of this," said Executive Director Ford Neal, a TLC veteran of 17 years, who works with 170 teachers, therapists, nurses and support staff. "We can't do more with less.

"If we can help more people when they're younger, the changes throughout their lives can be profound."

Neal walks by a swimming center with wheelchair lifts and ramps, then points out a balance-skills exercise. Passing the cafeteria, where clients learn living skills such as making toast, he hails artists painting snowmen murals.

He looks in as adults fill holiday gift baskets with tangerines from the garden and a group of severely disabled residents listen to a recording of "Little Red Riding Hood."

And then he stops at a computer room for the blind.

"Ford, Merry Christmas! Happy New Year to you!" said Matthew Delacorte, 61, a Brooklyn native who lives in a TLC group home, sporting a dark pair of shades and a cane. "Ford, try not to eat too much candy, OK?"

But it is at a small room nearby where a young mother swells with pride at the glee of a pigtailed Hizella.

Because of early enrichment care from TLC, the once kicking and screaming toddler with Leber syndrome - among the most common of genetic eye disorders causing total or nearly total blindness beginning at birth or soon after - now scurries on her "move-about" at home, around the market and with eager new-found friends.

"She does fantastic," said Children's Program Director Diana Dennis, clasping the little girl's hands. "In six months, she's a different child ... She's absolutely thriving."

"I'm so proud," added Reyna Martinez, of Van Nuys, through a translator. "I've not only seen physical change in my daughter, but spiritual changes as well. I was told I couldn't have children, but my daughter is a blessing.

"I thank God for Diana and all the other teachers in her life."

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_14042752

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From the Washington Times

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EDITORIAL

Not going postal

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Last-minute shoppers, beware. If you are running behind in mailing Christmas gifts to loved ones, and you absolutely, positively need your packages to arrive on time, it's safest to avoid the post office. The U.S. Postal Service is so slow that even a fruit cake could decompose before making it to its intended recipient.

The Postal Service is overburdened and cannot handle its responsibilities. Last week, it was discovered that two post offices in Connecticut were hiding mail in closets to avoid processing the Christmas rush of business. Some packages have been stamped "return to sender" for purportedly having the wrong address even though the addresses were correct. Across the country, there are instances of mail being destroyed or thrown in the garbage.

This is government bureaucracy at its worst. The Postal Service cannot compete with private rivals FedEx or UPS despite having nearly 700,000 subsidized employees, a monopoly on first-class mail and the sole right to use every Americans' mailbox. Over the past two years, the Postal Service has posted net losses of more than $6.6 billion and predicts at least $7.8 billion in more red ink next year. These losses come in the face of declining volume as customers flee to private carriers. This year alone, mail volume plummeted by 25 billion pieces, or 12.5 percent of its total business, compared to 2008.

Ask colleagues and friends about their recent experience with the post office, and you're likely to get an earful. The anecdotal evidence of incompetence and poor management is scarier than the post office's own statistics. For example, on a recent Saturday in December, an Arlington branch only had one employee working the counter. During lunch hour last week, a post office in Alexandria had only two people working the counter. In both cases, lines were backed up out the door during what would be busy times on any normal week. But in the run-up to Christmas during the post office's busiest month, such nonsensical staffing makes for a madhouse. Rather than any sympathy or pretense to customer service, all exasperated patrons receive from postal workers is a roll of the eyes and the phone number for a complaint line.

The post office doesn't even pretend to be able to accomplish the services it peddles. In the deficient department, consider the priority mailing option, which costs a premium over regular first-class mail. A doting mother recently paid $26 to send a birthday care package to her hardworking journalist son in Washington. Clerks at the counter and signs in the store all trumpeted that priority mail would deliver the box in two to three days, max. Despite paying extra for priority mail, the package took six days to arrive at its destination.

A clerk admitted there actually is no guarantee for on-time delivery - even when one pays extra for priority mail - and recommended the mailer phone the complaint line, where the caller was put on hold for 30 minutes before the line was cut off. Appropriately enough, that is the same thing that happened to The Washington Times when we sought comment for this article.

One hundred and fifty years ago, mail could get from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific in 10 days, largely on horseback and by stagecoach. Before the inaugural ride of the Pony Express in 1860, the guarantee was made: "Neither storms, fatigue, darkness, mountains and Indians, burning sands or snow must stop the precious bags. The mail must go through." Today, if you send your precious package via the U.S. Postal Service, you're lucky if it arrives at all.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/dec/22/not-going-postal//print/

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From the Wall Street Journal

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Mexico Ramps Up Drug War With a Surge on Rio Grande

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico—A few weeks ago, Army Captain Ramón Velásquez got his introduction to Ciudad Juárez, ground zero in Mexico's war against violent drug cartels.

A stocky man with round glasses, Capt. Velásquez led a 10-man patrol in midday traffic on one of the city's major boulevards. Suddenly, gunmen with automatic rifles opened up on a taxi stuck at a traffic light about three blocks away, killing two men and a woman.

Capt. Velásquez scrambled to the site of the killings, where the gunmen had already vanished. He and his men yelled questions at dozens of eyewitnesses: How many killers were there, what kind of car did they drive? "Not one person said a word. Not even what direction they had gone," says Capt. Velásquez, 42. "Executions here happen at any time, at any place. That terrifies the population. They don't trust anybody. And they don't talk."

For two years, the center of Mexico's bloody drug war has been this gritty city of 1.5 million people across the river from El Paso, Texas. Two of Mexico's most powerful gangs are battling for control of the city, a gateway for drugs going to the U.S. as well as a growing local drug market.

In response, President Felipe Calderón has sent 7,000 soldiers and 2,000 federal police to stem the violence —so far, unsuccessfully. In 2008, 1,600 people were killed in drug-related hits. This year, more than 2,500 have died. By some estimates, Juárez's approximately 165 deaths per 100,000 residents make it the murder capital of the world. That compares with 48 violent deaths per 100,000 residents of Baghdad.

The chaos in Ciudad Juárez has snared Mexico's army, the country's most respected institution, in what may be a no-win situation. Even as the violence rises, so do allegations of human-rights abuses by the army. The failure to pacify Ciudad Juárez has put Mr. Calderón's antidrug strategy—based largely on using the military to retake control of the country from drug cartels that have corrupted local police and politicians—on embarrassing public display.

"The assassins have won," says Bernardo Garcia, the white haired owner of a tiny tortilla factory. His brother Refugio, a clothes vendor, was killed two weeks ago as he left a church service with his daughter by a drug gang who wanted to extort him. "Only God can help us now," he says.

Mr. Calderón's war on drug gangs has defined his presidency so far. Within months of his 2006 inauguration, he dispatched the army to states where drug-related violence was on the rise, calling powerful drug cartels a threat to national security. Three years later, some 45,000 troops—about a quarter of the army—patrol areas ranging from Ciudad Juárez to Mr. Calderón's home state of Michoacán.

The conservative has won praise in many quarters, including Washington, for squarely taking on the drug gangs. Mr. Calderón has extradited dozens of traffickers wanted in the U.S. Last week, elite Navy troops killed Arturo Beltrán Leyva, one of Mexico's most powerful drug lords, in a four-hour battle at a luxury condominium complex in the resort city of Cuernavaca.

But in weary Ciudad Juárez, he is blamed for having gone to war without a comprehensive victory strategy. Since first sending troops to Ciudad Juárez in March 2008, Mr. Calderon has only made two fleeting visits to the city. He hasn't engaged residents on the violence consuming the city. "He stays for two hours and he's gone," says Daniel Murgía, president of the local Chamber of Commerce. "They've left Ciudad Juárez totally alone. There is a total absence of authority."

Mr. Murgía and other business leaders last month called for the United Nations to send peacekeepers to tame the city's violence. Mr. Murgía went further and breached a Mexican taboo when he asked that the U.S. send military police to help. In early December, 3,000 Juárez citizens staged a protest march. Some carried placards asking the army and federal police to leave.

Jorge Tello, Mexico's National Security adviser, says the government has devoted more resources to fighting drugs and violence in Ciudad Juárez than any other place in Mexico. "We are doing everything we can," said Mr. Tello, who travels monthly to the city, but he acknowledges: "We need better results."

Ciudad Juárez has the look and feel of an occupied city. Soldiers, their faces covered with black balaclavas and manning automatic rifles or 50 caliber machine guns, constantly crisscross Ciudad Juárez in open-backed SUVs.

In some ways, Capt. Velásquez and the Mexican army in Ciudad Juárez are in a similar situation to U.S. soldiers when they first occupied Baghdad after ousting Saddam Hussein. The U.S. had overwhelming superiority in troop strength and firepower, but its conventional forces were soon bogged down in a guerrilla war with an enemy that ambushed U.S. troops with devastating results. Lacking good intelligence, the U.S. could neither protect the general Iraqi population nor effectively strike back at its guerrilla tormentors.

While Ciudad Juárez' drug dealers and hit men aren't guerrillas or suicide bombers—largely they are trying to kill each other instead of Mexican soldiers—they do use the hit-and-run tactics of guerrillas, melting back into the population and making it difficult to tell who is who. As in Iraq, ordinary citizens are afraid to provide information to the authorities. On their daily rounds, Capt. Velásquez and his men are also under constant surveillance from young boys working for the drug gangs who inform their bosses of his patrol's every movement.

"There are many people who watch us all the time," says Capt. Velásquez, an artilleryman who, like most soldiers here, is on a two-month rotation. "They control time and place. It's the same rule anywhere: He who knows the terrain has superiority."

Ciudad Juárez's troubles began in January 2008, when Mexico's most notorious drug lord, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzman, tried to take over the city's drug trade from the local Juárez Cartel, which was itself backed by a cadre of corrupt cops and ex-cops called La Linea, or The Line. Mr. Guzman recruited two local gangs—the Artistic Assassins and the Mexicles—to take on the Aztecas, another gang in the service of the hometown La Linea, according to the city's mayor and other officials.

The confrontation has reshaped life in Ciudad Juárez. At times, hit men from both sides have broken into hospitals to finish off wounded victims, so now, people wounded by assassins are only taken in at three city hospitals which have extra security. Funeral corteges are also targets, so funeral masses are shorter and also have special security.

Drivers in the morning rush hour have sometimes been greeted with the grisly sight of dismembered bodies. One favorite dumping ground is a highway overpass known as the Rotary Bridge in honor of the city's Rotary club. Authorities say women are taking up the assassin's trade, and they can be as cold-blooded as the men. It was a woman who walked up to another woman dropping off a friend at the city's largest hospital and shot her dead two weeks ago in the middle of the day.

The drug gangs have branched out into extortion. On a recent patrol, Capt. Velásquez' convoy stopped at a modest strip mall, where a woman swept out the broken glass from a small restaurant. The previous night, three gunmen in a beat-up Nissan Sentra, who had been demanding protection money, drove by and shot up the place. Extortionists had driven out 14 out of the mall's 18 clients.

The landlord, a lanky, leathery-faced man wearing a blue jean jacket, said he'd cut the restaurant's rent by half, to $350 a month, because the violence has driven many clients away. "Anybody who has any money is leaving for the other side of the border," he said. "You can't live here anymore."

The extortion wave has spread to funeral homes. Last month, an assassin and his driver parked in front of the Funeraria del Refugio, a squat, yellow building on a crowded street. The killer walked in, interrupting a funeral, and locked mourners in the bathroom, yelling that he had come to collect a protection payment. He then executed the funeral home's manager, police and eyewitnesses say. The next day, the men returned and burned down the funeral home.

In March, 2008, soon after the troubles began, Mr. Calderón dispatched 2,000 troops. As the violence rose, he ordered a surge of an additional 5,000 troops and 2,000 federal police in April of this year. Both times, the murder rate fell sharply after the troops arrived. But the drop-off in killings lasted a few weeks. As soon as the drug gangs figured out the new patterns of army and police patrolling, they resumed killing.

Some experts say the Mexican army needs to adopt the style of the counter-insurgency tactics used by the U.S. military in the Iraq war. That strategy got American soldiers out of large bases and forced them to interact with the population and get intelligence. "They have to co-mingle with the locals and find out who's who in the zoo. Find out where the bad guys are, and preempt them," says a former U.S. military officer with knowledge of the Mexican army. But, the official says, the Mexican army, which is made up of conscripts, isn't trained on how to interact with the community. The result: a lot of patrolling that's good for show but bad for results.

In Ciudad Juárez, soldiers generally are on patrol or back at a local army base or other temporary housing, including abandoned factory buildings. One reason: the high command fears that contact with the city's drug traffickers could induce desertions to the dark side.

It has happened before. In 1997, about 30 defectors from an elite army unit went to work for the Gulf Cartel. These former soldiers, known as "Zetas," became the Gulf Cartel's enforcers, deploying tactics such as decapitations to terrorize rival cartels and law enforcement.

Manuel Aponte, a former army lieutenant who deserted in 2004, has become the right hand man of Joaquin Guzman, the cartel leader, and is leading the Sinaloa cartel's assault on Ciudad Juárez, according to a recent Mexican intelligence document viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Soldiers aren't considered to be remotely as corrupt as Mexico's notorious police forces. But the army has a questionable record. A decade ago, Mexico was deeply embarrassed when its newly named drug czar, army Gen. Jesús Gutíerrez Rebollo, was arrested for being in the pay of a drug lord.

The army says it is slowly turning things around in Juárez. In the past year, it has arrested the vast majority of the 5,518 people detained for alleged drug trafficking and weapons violations, according to Enrique Torres, a spokesman for the joint army and police operation.

Two weeks ago, the army held a news conference to display five handcuffed men, whom they introduced as members of the Azteca gang. The five are alleged to have quickly admitted to taking part in or ordering 268 killings. Mr. Torres says the army has arrested 60 people responsible for more than 1,000 killings.

Others in Ciudad Juárez doubt such claims. Mexican authorities, be they army or police, have little capacity to investigate crimes. Many people here believe that the authorities resort to torture or beatings to wring confessions out of suspects. "So what does the army do? They find a guy, and they hang 30 murders on him!" says Hernán Ortiz, a professor and civic activist. "Does anyone believe these cases were investigated?"

Another problem is mounting allegations of human rights abuses that could hurt the army's image. Since its incursion, the army has been accused not only of beatings and looting homes, but also, in more than 20 cases, of disappearing people and conducting extrajudicial killings.

One such case concerns two brothers, Carlos Guzmán, 28, and José Luis Guzmán, 27. The two worked at a shop run by their father, Javier, that sells everything from old sewing machines to used typewriters. Both sons were detained in a raid by soldiers and federal police on Nov. 14, 2008. A federal police report says the two were detained by the army, which took them to a nearby base. They haven't been seen again.

For a year, the army denied it had anything to do with the case. "We protested, but the army has always denied it took them," says the elder Mr. Guzmán, 56, wearing a baseball cap as he stands by a stack of old radios. But on Dec. 2, Mr. Guzman met with three army lawyers who told him they would investigate.

"They say the last thing that dies is hope," says Mr. Guzman. "But a year has passed and you imagine the worst. Every 15 days I go to the morgue to see if my sons have turned up."

The army largely dismisses complaints of abuses as the work of people allied with drug traffickers who want to drive the soldiers out of the city. "Many times they make human rights complaints because they want to limit our capacity for action and besmirch the institution," says Brigadier General Jesús Hernández Pérez, commander of the 4th Artillery Regiment, and Capt. Velásquez' commanding officer.

Mr. Guzman says he was happy the soldiers had arrived to clean up Ciudad Juárez. "Not all the military are bad," he says. "Some do their job right. But the ones I got were bad."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126143123803700665.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories#printMode

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Cyber Chief Selected by Obama

The Obama administration is expected Tuesday to make a long-awaited announcement naming a former eBay Inc. and Microsoft Corp. security official to be the White House cybersecurity chief, an administration official said.

Howard Schmidt will be named as White House cybersecurity coordinator after a search that began in May, when President Barack Obama announced the creation of the new post.

Mr. Schmidt is president of a nonprofit computer security group, the Information Security Forum. He has held previous government posts at the White House, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Air Force, and he served on several government cybersecurity boards.

"After an extensive search, the president chose Schmidt because of his unique background and skill sets," an Obama administration official said, adding that the president was personally involved in Mr. Schmidt's selection. The new adviser will "have regular access to the president," the official said, and report to the assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

Mr. Schmidt will be charged with setting computer security policy and providing budget guidance across the government. Among his top challenges will be tapping the cyberdefense capabilities at the National Security Agency while ensuring adequate privacy protections for activities in the civilian sector.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126144898382701109.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStories#printMode

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Crime Fell in First Half, FBI Says

WASHINGTON--Crime fell across the country in the first half of the year, with murder and manslaughter down 10% from a year earlier, according to preliminary figures from the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

"That's a remarkable decline, given the economic conditions,'' said Richard Rosenfeld, a sociologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis who has studied crime trends. He said that past recessions stretching back to the 1950s have boosted crime rates.

Overall, property crimes fell by 6.1%, and violent crimes by 4.4%, according to the data collected by the FBI. Crime rates haven't been this low since the 1960s, and are nowhere near the peak reached in the early 1990s.

Mr. Rosenfeld said he didn't expect the 10% drop in killings to be sustained over the entire year, as more data is reported. But he said the broad declines were exceptional.

He cited several possible explanations, including that extended unemployment benefits, food stamps, and other government-driven economic stimulus "have cushioned and delayed for many people the big blows that come from a recession.''

Those benefits will have to run out eventually, he cautioned.

Another possible factor is that with more people home from work, it is harder for burglars to break into a home or apartment unnoticed by neighbors, he said. Mr. Rosenfeld said another possibility was that because big cities tend to have a large impact on national crime figures, those cities' technology-driven, "smart policing'' efforts were driving down national rates.

The new figures show car thefts also dropped significantly, falling nearly 19% and continuing a sharp downward trend in that category. Some believe that big drop in car theft is largely because of the security locking systems installed on most models, as well as more high-tech deterrents like car recovery devices that use the Global Positioning System.

James Alan Fox, a criminal-justice professor at Northeastern University, said he wasn't surprised by the overall downward trends. "The popular wisdom is wrong,'' Mr. Fox said. "If a law-abiding citizen loses their job, they don't typically go on a crime spree.''

Mr. Fox argued the decline was partly because of the graying of America. As the over-50 population grows, he said, crime goes down, even while other social costs, like health care, go up.

Like Mr. Rosenfeld, Mr. Fox also doubted that big changes--like a 10% drop in murders--were sustainable.

The figures are based on data supplied to the FBI by more than 11,700 police and law-enforcement agencies. They compare reported crimes in the first six months of this year with the first six months of last year. Separate statistics compiled by the Justice Department measure both reported and unreported crimes.

The early 2009 data suggest the crime-dropping trend of 2008 is not just continuing but accelerating. In 2008, the same data showed a nearly 4% drop in murder and manslaughter, and an overall drop in violent crime of 1.9% from 2007 to 2008.

According to the FBI figures, reports of violent crime fell about 7% in cities with one million or more people. But in towns with 10,000 to 25,000 people, violent crime ticked up slightly by 1.7%.

Nationwide, rape fell by 3.3%, and robbery by 6.5%. Arsons, which are subject to a variety of reporting standards, declined more than 8%.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126143414518300679.html#printMode

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Pennsylvania to Send Prisoners to Michigan, Virginia

The state of Pennsylvania said Monday it will send 2,000 inmates from its prisons to be housed in underused facilities in Michigan and Virginia to address overcrowding in its correctional system.

Pennsylvania's Department of Corrections will send 1,000 prisoners to each state, with transfers beginning in early February, according to a spokeswoman for the department. 

It will pay $62 per prisoner per day – or about $22.6 million a year – to each state, a spokeswoman said.  In exchange for the revenue, both Michigan and Virginia agreed to pay to have inmates transferred to them.  Pennsylvania will break even on the deal, a spokeswoman said.

Michigan, which faces a multibillion dollar budget deficit, has been aggressively courting other states in hopes of luring inmates to fill prisons slated to close and preserve corrections jobs in the state. Despite some local reservations, the federal government considered Standish, Mich., to house terrorism suspects from Guantanamo Bay, but ultimately chose a facility in Illinois instead. California, which also has overcrowded prisons, rejected overtures from the state earlier this year.

A spokesman for Michigan's Department of Corrections said Pennsylvania's decision will help the state preserve more than 200 jobs at the Muskegon Correctional Facility, where the out-of-state prisoners will be housed.

"It's very good news," said Russ Marlan, "and we're going to make some money."

A spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections said the prisoners Pennsylvania sent to that state would go to the Green Rock Correctional Center near Chatham, Va. He couldn't immediately provide other details.

Pennsylvania is looking to house the inmates out of state while it completes an $800 million construction project that will create four new medium- and maximum-security correctional facilities.  The project, which has not yet broken ground, will take approximately three years to complete.

The commonwealth's prison population currently stands at more than 51,000, but its current facilities were built to house just 43,222 inmates. Pennsylvania's correctional department has been considering what to do about overcrowding in its facilities since this summer.  In addition to Michigan and Virginia, it garnered formal offers from Kansas, Minnesota, Nevada and Oklahoma.

Sue Bensinger, deputy press secretary for the department, said Michigan and Virginia were the best fit for Pennsylvania because their facilities operate in the most similar fashion.

"We felt they most closely matched what we do," said Ms. Bensinger. "We wanted to make the transition for the inmates as seamless as possible, so there's not a big change in correctional philosophy."

The prisoners from Pennsylvania will stay out of state for three years, and will all be serving sentences at least that long.  All will be medium-security prisoners who receive few if any visitors, and none will have medical or mental-health issues.

"They haven't been problematic inmates as far as behavioral issues," said Ms. Bensinger, "but as far as offense, it could run the gamut."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126142565219800641.html#printMode

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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Gobble, Gobble: TSA Helpful Holiday Travel Tips

Is this all a bit too much to remember? Print out this handy dandy checklist (PDF) so you don't forget anything.

For a complete rundown, check out our “ What to Know before You Go” blog post. It has everything broken down by category.

Also, we're going to be Tweeting a TSA Holiday Travel Tip every day, so follow us on Twitter @tsablogteam for travel tips, blog post announcements, and other useful information.

Thanks,

Blogger Bob
TSA Blog Team

http://www.dhs.gov/journal/theblog/2009/12/gobble-gobble-tsa-helpful-holiday.html

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From the FBI

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CRIME RATES FALL In the First Half of 2009
12/21/09
- View the Preliminary Crime Statistics For the third year in a row, our Preliminary Semiannual Uniform Crime Report shows that violent crime, property crime, and arson have decreased. The latest report compares January-June 2009 figures with the same time period in 2008. Crimes reported to our Uniform Crime Program are down collectively: violent crime overall decreased 4.4 percent, property crime is down 6.1 percent, and arson fell 8.2 percent. Individual crimes are also decreasing across the board:   Murder (down 10.0 percent); Forcible rape (down 3.3 percent); Robbery (down 6.5 percent); Aggravated assault (down 3.2 percent); Burglary (down 2.5 percent); Larceny-theft (down 5.3 percent); and Motor vehicle theft (down 18.7 percent). The 2009 crime statistics are preliminary; the final report will be issued next year. Past full-year reports: 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005  | More - More About the Uniform Crime Reports (Statistics) - Frequently Asked Questions Other interesting highlights : Murder was lower in all four regions of the country, with the largest decreases in the Northeast (13.7 percent) and the West (13.3 percent). Motor vehicle thefts decreased significantly in all four regions of the country (Northeast, 19.3 percent; Midwest, 21.4 percent; South, 17.8 percent; and West, 18.2 percent). While violent crime and aggravated assault were down in cities of more than 1 million people (7.0 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively), in cities of populations between 10,000 and 24,999, violent crime rose 1.7 percent and aggravated assault rose 3.8 percent. While both metropolitan areas and non-metropolitan areas experienced decreases in violent crime and property crime in general, non-metropolitan counties saw increases in robbery (3.8 percent) and arson (1.2 percent). On a regional basis, the only uptick in any crime was a slight increase in burglaries in the South (up 0.7 percent) Developing this national view of crime is a collective effort of the FBI and the thousands of city, university/college, county, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement agencies that submit the data to us. Participating agencies throughout the country voluntarily provide reports on crimes known to police and on persons arrested. The data has become a source of information used widely by police administrators, government policy makers, social science researchers, the media, and others concerned about the impact of crime in our communities. We do, however, caution against drawing conclusions from our data by making direct comparisons between law enforcement agencies—valid assessments are possible ONLY with careful study and analysis of the range of unique conditions affecting each local law enforcement jurisdiction. The FBI has been collecting crime data from our law enforcement partners since the 1930s. Over the years, the scope of the program has expanded in response to suggestions from law enforcement advisory groups or to comply with federal mandates. Today, the culmination of this national data collection is three annual publications: Crime in the United States, Hate Crime Statistics, and Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, as well as semiannual reports like this one. The full 2009 Crime in the U.S. report will be released later next year.

http://www.fbi.gov/page2/dec09/crimestats_122109.html

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