8.8-magnitude quake rocks Chile, sets off tsunami

The government reports 76 dead and warns that the toll will rise. The jolt flattens buildings, downs phone lines and creates a "state of catastrophe" in central Chile.

From the Associated Press

February 27, 2010

SANTIAGO, Chile — A massive 8.8-magnitude earthquake struck Chile early Saturday, collapsing buildings, killing at least 76 people and downing phone lines. President Michele Bachelet declared a "state of catastrophe" in central Chile and said the death toll was rising.

Tsunami warnings were issued over a wide area, including Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Antarctica and Australia.

"We have had a huge earthquake, with some aftershocks," Bachelet said, appealing from an emergency response center for Chileans to remain calm. "Despite this, the system is functioning. People should remain calm. We're doing everything we can with all the forces we have. Any information we will share immediately."

Chile's government said 76 people are confirmed dead.

She urged people to avoid traveling in the dark, since traffic lights are down, to avoid causing more fatalities.

The quake hit 200 miles (325 kilometers) southwest of the capital, Santiago, at a depth of 22 miles (35 kilometers) at 3:34 a.m. (0634 GMT; 1:34 a.m. EST), the U.S. Geological Survey reported.

The epicenter was just 70 miles (115 kilometers) from Concepcion, Chile's second-largest city, where more than 200,000 people live along the Bio Bio river, and 60 miles from the ski town of Chillan, a gateway to Andean ski resorts that was destroyed in a 1939 earthquake.

In Santiago, the capital, modern buildings are built to withstand earthquakes, but many older ones were heavily damaged, including the Nuestra Senora de la Providencia church, whose bell tower collapsed. An apartment building's two-level parking lot also flattened onto the ground floor, smashing about 50 cars whose alarms and horns rang incessantly. A bridge just outside the capital also collapsed, and at least one car flipped upside down.

In the coastal city of Vina del Mar, the earthquake struck just as people were leaving a disco, Julio Alvarez told Radio Cooperativa in Santiago. "It was very bad, people were screaming, some people were running, others appeared paralyzed. I was one of them."

Bachelet said she was declaring a "state of catastrophe" in 3 central regions of the country, and that while emergency responders were waiting for first light to get details, it was evident that damage was extensive.

Several hospitals have been evacuated due to earthquake damage, she said, and communications with the city of Concepcion remained down. She planned to tour the affected region as quickly as possible to get a better idea of the damage.

A huge wave reached a populated area in the Robinson Crusoe Islands, 410 miles (660 kilometers) off the Chilean coast, Bachelet said. There were no immediate reports of major damage there, she added.

"Sea level readings indicate a tsunami was generated. It may have been destructive along coasts near the earthquake epicenter and could also be a threat to more distant coasts," the warning center said. It did not expect a tsunami along the west of the U.S. or Canada but was continuing to monitor the situation.

The largest earthquake ever recorded struck the same area of Chile on May 22, 1960. The magnitude-9.5 quake killed 1,655 people and left 2 million homeless. The tsunami that it caused killed people in Hawaii, Japan and the Philippines and caused damage to the west coast of the United States.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fgw-chile-quake27-2010feb27,0,1259,print.story

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Asia braces for tsunami after Chile quake

Officials say waves are likely to hit Asian, Australian and New Zealand shores within 24 hours.

From the Associated Press

February 27, 2010

TOKYO — Wide swaths of the south Pacific, Asia and Australia braced for a tsunami after a devastating earthquake hit the coast of Chile on Saturday.

Officials in Japan and Australia warned a tsunami from the earthquake was likely to hit Asian, Australian and New Zealand shores within 24 hours. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii issued a tsunami warning that included the Philippines, Taiwan, Indonesia, and many island nations in the Pacific. A lower-level advisory that a tsunami was possible was issued for northern Pacific locations, including the U.S. West Coast and Alaska.

"Sea-level readings confirm that a tsunami has been generated which could cause widespread damage," the center said in a bulletin after the magnitude-8.8 quake. "Authorities should take appropriate action to respond to this threat."

The center noted that the first waves after a quake are not necessarily the largest and said tsunami wave heights are difficult to predict because they can vary significantly along a coast due to the local topography.

Earthquakes across the Pacific have had deadly effects on Asia in the past.

A tsunami after a magnitude-9.5 quake that struck Chile in 1960, the largest earthquake ever recorded, killed about 140 people in Japan, 61 in Hawaii and 32 in the Philippines. That tsunami was about 3.3 to 13 feet in height, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.

The tsunami from Saturday's quake was likely to be much smaller because the quake itself was not as strong.

Japanese public broadcaster NHK quoted earthquake experts as saying the tsunami would likely be tens of inches high and reach Japan in about 22 hours. A tsunami of 11 inches was recorded after a magnitude-8.4 earthquake near Chile in 2001.

The Meteorological Agency said it was still investigating the likelihood of a tsunami from the magnitude-8.8 quake and did not issue a formal coastal warning.

Australia, meanwhile, was put on a tsunami watch.

The Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Center issued a warning for a "potential tsunami threat" to New South Wales state, Queensland state, Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island. Any potential wave would not hit Australia until Sunday morning local time, it said.

The Philippine Institute of Vulcanology and Seismology issued a low-level alert saying people should await further notice of a possible tsunami. It did not recommend evacuations.

The earthquake that struck early Saturday in central Chile shook the capital for a minute and a half.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fgw-quake-tsunami28-2010feb28,0,2880270,print.story

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Magnitude 6.9 earthquake strikes off Japan's coast

From the Associated Press

February 26, 2010

Tokyo

A magnitude 6.9 earthquake hit off Japan's southern coast early Saturday, shaking Okinawa and nearby islands, where a tsunami warning was briefly issued, Japan's Meteorological Agency said.

The quake occurred off the coast of the island of Okinawa at a depth of 6.2 miles at 5:31 a.m. Saturday (2031 GMT Friday), the agency said.

There have been no reports of major damage or casualties so far, except for reports of ruptured water pipes in two locations, Okinawa police official Noritomi Kikuzato said.

The Meteorological Agency had initially predicted a tsunami up to 6 feet near the Okinawan coast, warning nearby residents to stay away from the coastline. The agency later lifted the warning within two hours after observing only a small swelling of tide.

Ryota Ueno, a town official in the Nishihara district of Okinawa, said, "I was fast asleep when the quake hit, and I jumped out of bed. It felt like the shaking lasted forever."

There was no major damage in his house, and he then rushed to the town office to meet up with his colleagues and stand by in case of reports of damage from residents, Ueno told a telephone interview with public broadcaster NHK.

So far, only one resident in the town reported a ruptured water pipe, but no other damage reported, he said.

Masaaki Nakasone, another official at he Nanjo town, said his house shook violently but all furniture and other objects stayed intact.

"First there was a vertical shaking, then the house swayed sideways," Nakasone said.

Okinawa is about 1,000 miles southwest of Tokyo.

Japan is one of the world's most earthquake-prone countries. In 1995, a magnitude-7.2 quake in the western port city of Kobe killed 6,400 people.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fgw-japan-quake27-2010feb27,0,520951,print.story

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Special-ed teacher shot dead in Washington

Jennifer Paulson, who taught children with reading disabilities at an elementary school in Tacoma, was shot by a man against whom she had an anti-harassment order, authorities say.

By Kim Murphy

February 27, 2010

Reporting from Seattle

A 30-year-old special education teacher was shot to death near the parking lot of a Tacoma, Wash., elementary school Friday, only a week after the man accused in the killing was jailed for harassing her.

The shooting occurred early in the morning, before any students arrived, and the suspect, identified as Jed Waits, also 30, was shot to death a short time later by a sheriff's deputy who pulled over his car about 10 miles from the school.

School officials were able to divert incoming school buses to another location and closed Birney Elementary School as a flood of police and emergency vehicles descended on the area.

Jennifer Paulson, who taught children with reading disabilities, had worked with Waits in the cafeteria at Seattle Pacific University years earlier, but had apparently not known him well, Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said.

She obtained an anti-harassment order against him about two years ago when he began calling her, sometimes 10 to 15 times a day. At one point, he sent her flowers and a stuffed bear, and unexpectedly showed up at the school.

"I never told him where I work and do not know how he found out," Paulson had written in her petition for the order, which was obtained by the Associated Press.

Fulghum said Waits was arrested Feb. 19 when Paulson called police to say that Waits had turned up again, in violation of the order.

Waits' bail was raised to $10,000 at the request of the Pierce County prosecutor's office Monday morning, but he was able to post it.

Ken Paulson, the victim's father, told reporters at the scene that his daughter had been staying with her parents since she learned Waits had been released.

"What happened today was evil," he said.

Neighbors, who ran outside when they heard the sound of screaming and gunshots, along with another school staff member, were able to provide a description of the suspect and his car.

The Pierce County sheriff's deputy pulled over the car on a traffic stop shortly before 8 a.m., department spokesman Ed Troyer said.

"We knew who he was because we had a plate number," Troyer said. "One of our deputies got behind him, turned the lights on, and about six blocks later, he pulls in the parking lot of a day care, comes out of the car with a gun, a semiautomatic handgun."

"He fires off a round, our deputy fires back two rounds, hits him, he goes down," said Troyer, who added that the suspect was pronounced dead at the scene.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-tacoma-shooting27-2010feb27,0,3511471,print.story

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From the Daily News

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Small quake hits US-Mexico border near SoCal city

CALEXICO - A magnitude-3.9 earthquake has rattled the California-Mexico border, but there are no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake occurred shortly after 7 a.m. Friday and was centered 16 miles southeast of Calexico, a California city of 40,000 people across the border from Mexicali, Mexico.

In December, a magnitude-5.8 temblor struck the area, forcing hospitals to evacuate in Mexicali. The quake did not cause any major property damage or injuries.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_14476711

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From the Wall Street Journal

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Earthquake Exposes Haiti's Faulty Adoption System

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—In the aftermath of the earthquake, scores of unaccompanied Haitian children are living in fetid tent camps here. A few miles away, Dixie Bickel, an American nurse, is having trouble filling dozens of empty beds at her tidy orphanage.

Haiti's welfare agency stopped sending kids there on the advice of the United Nations Children's Fund, or UNICEF, Ms. Bickel says. The UN agency worries that many children have been temporarily displaced by the quake. Putting them in orphanages like Ms. Bickel's could lead to adoptions overseas that separate them from family here. It also raises the risk that some might fall prey to child traffickers. But Ms. Bickel thinks those fears are misplaced, at least in the case of her God's Littlest Angels orphanage.

"There are kids sleeping outside in the rain and they aren't allowed to come to a place with warm beds, three meals a day, and a structured environment," says the 55-year-old Illinois native, who has been here 19 years.

The situation is a sign of how good intentions are clashing as the international community seeks to help the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation emerge from its most debilitating disaster. The Jan. 12 earthquake unleashed an outpouring of support that flooded Haiti with requests for adoptions.

But as relief organizations and foreign nations rush into the breach, they are growing increasingly wary of endorsing an adoption system that has long rescued children from poverty and disease but separates them from parents and relatives.

"We do everything in an emergency context to ensure that children and families can remain together," said Susan Bissell, UNICEF's chief of child protection. While UNICEF doesn't rule out international adoptions, she says the agency encourages situations "where children can remain in their communities and their culture."

Even before the earthquake, some 400,000 children, or about one out of every 10 Haitian kids, lived in some type of orphanage or had been farmed out to local families other than their own, according to UNICEF and other relief organizations. Many so-called orphanages are unregulated shelters that serve more as rooming homes and do not engage in adoptions. Of the residents, only a few thousand were actually orphans. The rest were relinquished by parents who feared they wouldn't be able to feed and clothe their children at home.

It's a situation outsiders still struggle to comprehend. Last week, in a speech in Haiti's rubble-strewn capital, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said France would welcome Haiti's orphans, "as long as they are true orphans and not children who are taken away from their families."

Such goodwill can collide with what Haitians themselves feel is their best—or sometimes only—option. When David Aitken, an Internet entrepreneur from Provo, Utah, traveled to Haiti last year to meet a girl he was in the process of adopting, he was shocked to find out that her mother worked at the orphanage. "When we learned the mother was there, we thought, 'We can't adopt her.' I couldn't imagine taking a child from her mother," he recalls.

Through an interpreter, however, Mr. Aitken and his wife were persuaded that the mother's strongest desire was to have her child raised by a U.S. family. He recalls her telling them, "You have to give my daughter a better life."

When he departed with the daughter in a van, "Her mom was smiling on the porch waving," he says. "It was surreal."

While many ordinary Haitians are overjoyed when their children are adopted overseas, the government finds the practice problematic.

"How can we rebuild a nation if the only chance that parents have to give their children a future is to part with them?" said Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive in an interview.

Haiti's adoption system seems almost perversely designed to produce just such an outcome. It's very rare for true orphans to find their way to a home overseas. That's because, as part of an attempt to combat child trafficking, Haitian regulations require orphanages to document the ancestry of any child they want to make eligible for adoption. Establishing the bona fides of a real orphan is much tougher than getting living parents to supply the needed documentation. Thus, most of the 1,500 Haitian children adopted by foreigners each year leave one or both birth parents behind.

On the first Sunday of each month, parents come to visit their children at the Bresma Orphanage in Port Au Prince. They say they can't even dream of providing the kind of life for their children that parents overseas could offer. WSJ's Joel Millman reports.

While Haitian law prohibits birth parents from receiving remuneration for giving up their kids, subtle financial incentives frequently creep in.

Most international adoption programs are not set up to allow parents to visit. But in Haiti, families often visit several times in the course of an adoption process than can stretch several years. And because Haiti is much closer to the U.S. than other major source countries such as China and Ethiopia, there's a greater tendency for the birth parents to stay in touch with their child and the adoptive parents. The end result is that many Americans open their wallets.

In 2005, Candace Pruett and Richard Stein of Colorado saw a picture of a girl named Keballah on a Web site for needy Haitian children. For $50 a month, they could help support the 6-year-old girl who, according to the blurb, "was very much loved and had a family who very much wanted her to go to school."

To the couple's surprise, they heard back from the family that what they really wanted was for the Denver family to adopt Keballah.

Three months later, in December 2006, Ms. Pruett flew to Port-au-Prince with books and toys for Keballah and met her mother, 26-year-old Elna. Over and over again, Elna said: "Thank you, thank you, thank you. We love you," to Ms. Pruett for agreeing to adopt the girl.

It took about 18 months for the couple's adoption paperwork to wind through Haiti's bureaucracy. Meanwhile, the couple sent $200 a month to the orphanage.

Today, 10-year-old Keballah still enjoys close contact with her Haitian mother. And whenever Ms. Pruett can, she sends money or goods back to the family.

"I sent two 50-pound boxes of men's shirts that I bought at a yard sale for 50 cents apiece." Keballah's mother, in turn, sold the shirts at a roadside stand.

At the Foyer de la Nouvelle Vie shelter in the district of Pétion-Ville near Port-au-Prince, director Yva Samedy says the adoption process can take up to five years when adoptive parents don't meet minimum age or other criteria and must seek exemptions from authorities.

While waiting, Ms. Samedy requires foreign couples to pay $200 monthly to help feed and clothe their future child, a huge amount in a country where most people live on less than $1 a day.

"It's quite a sum," Ms. Samedy said as she unpacked a set of satin dresses she bought for young girls who are about to depart from her shelter. "But that's because the cost of living is very high in Haiti and we can justify every cent."

The monthly stipend doesn't count additional fees for things like blood tests and birth certificates. Those extra payments average $8,000 at Ms. Samedy's shelter, and can reach $25,000.

With Haiti's annual volume of 1,500 adoptions, such middleman fees could total an estimated $20 million each year—enough to support hundreds of attorneys, notaries, civil servants and other facilitators.

Salnave Exantus is a successful lawyer who says he averages one adoption client per month. He is also the legal head of Haiti's birth and death registry, known as the National Archives, without whose certification no child can leave the country.

Mr. Exantus says that, as a lawyer, he charges $2,500 to $4,000 for each adoption case. He said he keeps a clear separation between his work as a lawyer and his position at the National Archives. "As a lawyer, I get paid for my work; I don't want any kickbacks."

Haiti's adoption pipeline all but ground to a halt last month,after 10 members of a church group from Idaho rolled into the hardscrabble town of Callebasse, an hour south of the capital. Though they were complete strangers to the villagers, they drove away with 20 local children on the promise to put them in an orphanage in the Dominican Republic. They found 13 more children in Port au Prince.

"If they had brought three buses, they would have filled them easily," said Milien Brutus, 28, one of the adults who sent a child.

The missionaries were stopped at the border and charged with trying to remove the children without proper documents. Two of them, including the chief organizer, Lauren Silsby, are still in detention. The women deny any wrongdoing.

The Haitian government, acting on the advice of UNICEF, has since temporarily suspended all new adoptions, worried that children could be snatched and spirited out of the country.

Certainly, international organizations have reason to be concerned. An estimated 2,000 Haitian children each year are trafficked to the neighboring Dominican Republic. According to UNICEF, many of these children are sold as child laborers or into the sex trade. Aid groups report that around 300,000 children are working as domestic servants in private homes. Called "restaveks" – literally "stay with" in Creole— they are also often subjected to abuse. As many as 100,000 children have been dropped by their parents at local orphanages, structures that vary widely in quality and usually live off foreign donations.

UNICEF is among the groups eager to wean Haiti off its adoption system. Earlier this month, UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman met with Mr. Bellerive, the prime minister, in Port-au-Prince and said her agency would help Haiti develop schools and clinics—not export its children. "Otherwise, how does your country hold together?" Ms. Veneman asked during a meeting.

But some who have spent years trying to improve conditions inside the country now feel that is a lost cause. Margarette Saint-Fleur says she spent 15 years fighting to raise women's incomes in Haiti for various Canadian nongovernmental organizations. Today, she is committed to helping Haitian women send their children abroad.

"I do 40 to 50 adoptions a year," says the 45-year-old Port-au-Prince native and founder of the Brebis de Saint-Michel de L'Attalaye shelter.

Other shelter operators have also given up on helping Haiti itself.

"Haiti cannot feed its children," says Harold Nungester, a Christian missionary from the U.S. who has operated an orphanage in the Haitian capital since 2002. "The best way to service them is to get them out."

The 53-year-old pastor runs the H.I.S. Home For Children shelter out of a two-story brick house. The main room is filled with dozens of folding cots; babies in diapers play on a tiled floor. Under a tarp were 52 plastic jugs brought by UNICEF after the earthquake.

He says his goal is to extract as many children as possible from Haiti via adoption. Just days after the earthquake, his wife, Chris, boarded a C-130 military transport plane with 78 children and shepherded them to their adopting families in the U.S. and Canada.

Even some government officials concede that it is difficult to persuade Haitians that relinquishing their children isn't the best course.

"We are a land of hurricanes, flooding and now earthquakes," said Edwin Casséus, head of the children and maternity department at Haiti's social welfare agency, IBESR, outside his quake-ravaged office. "As long as Haiti's economic situation won't improve, Haitian families will keep tendering their children."

Mike Fox, an American businessman who runs the Global Orphan Project in a district north of Port-au-Prince, insists that adoption is an economic proposition that makes little sense for Haiti.

"As opposed to paying $25,000 to adopt one child, you could spend $15,000 and build a home for 30 kids," says the Kansas City, Mo., transplant.

His compound, which has the Spartan look of a roadside motel, has absorbed almost 90 children since the earthquake, many of them from existing orphanages flattened by the ruins. He's also taken in street kids and a 13-year-old girl who came here seven months pregnant.

None of them, he says, are slated for adoption. The problem, however, is that structures like Mr. Fox's were initially designed to provide children with temporary relief until kids could reintegrate with their natural families. In Haiti, however, orphanages have become a permanent and growing part of the country's scenery.

After the earthquake, Arno Klarsfeld, the son of Nazi hunters Serge and Beate Klarsferld, was dispatched to Port-au-Prince by the French government to make recommendations on how France could help improve Haiti's humanitarian situation and regulate adoptions.

Back in Paris after two weeks in Haiti, Mr. Klarsfeld said he was struggling to write his report. "Something here isn't morally correct," he said.

"It's a vicious circle," he said. "The more orphanages open, the more parents are tempted to give their kids away."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704625004575089521195349384.html?mod=WSJ_World_LeadStory#printMode

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U.S. to Reconsider Benefits for Ill Gulf War Veterans

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Veterans Affairs Department said it will look again at the rejected claims of veterans who say their Gulf War service caused a mysterious illness, the first step toward potentially compensating them nearly two decades after the war ended.

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said the decision is part of a "fresh, bold look" his department is taking to help veterans who have what's commonly called "Gulf War illness" and have long felt the government did little to help them. The VA says it also plans to improve training for medical staff who work with Gulf War vets, to make sure they do not simply tell vets that their symptoms are imaginary—as has happened to many over the years.

"I'm hoping they'll be enthused by the fact that this ... challenges all the assumptions that have been there for 20 years," Mr. Shinseki told the Associated Press in an interview.

The changes reflect a significant shift in how the VA may ultimately care for some 700,000 veterans who served in the Gulf War. They also could improve the way the department handles war-related illnesses suffered by future veterans, because Mr. Shinseki said he wants standards put in place that don't leave veterans waiting decades for answers to what ails them.

The decision comes four months after Mr. Shinseki opened the door for about 200,000 Vietnam veterans to receive service-related compensation for three illnesses stemming from exposure to the Agent Orange herbicide.

About 175,000 to 210,000 Gulf War veterans have come down with a pattern of symptoms ranging from mild to severe that include rashes, headaches, memory problems, joint and muscle pain, sleep issues and gastrointestinal problems, according to a 2008 congressionally mandated committee that based the estimate on earlier studies.

But what exactly caused the symptoms has long been unanswered. Independent scientists have pointed to pesticide and pyridostigmine bromide pills, given to protect troops from nerve agents, as probable culprits. The 2008 report noted that since 1994, $340 million has been spent on government research into the illness, but little has focused on treatments.

Steve Robertson, legislative director of the American Legion, a veterans' group, and a Gulf War veteran himself who has struggled with his own health issues such as joint problems and chronic fatigue, said Friday the decision is welcome news.

"I can assure that there are Gulf War veterans who have been fighting this issue since 1991-92," Mr. Robertson said. "The ones I've talked to are very, very upset that they've had to fight this battle."

James Bunker, president of the nonprofit National Gulf War Resource Center, also praised the decision but said he hopes the claims processors will be better trained so they don't reject the same claims again, turning the process into "something that had lifted the hopes of many veterans just to let them down again."

Last week, Mr. Shinseki and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat and member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs committee, met privately with several Gulf War veterans. In an interview after the meeting, Mr. Rockefeller told the AP that Mr. Shinseki's background as a former Army chief of staff made the changes possible. He said either the military has been reluctant over the years to release paperwork related to the war or kept poor records about exposures in the war zone, which made it harder for the veterans to prove they needed help.

"The paperwork isn't very accurate, but the pain is very real," Mr. Rockefeller said.

Mr. Shinseki has publicly wondered why there are still so many unanswered questions about Gulf War illness, as stricken veterans' conditions have only worsened with age.

A law enacted in 1994 allows the VA to pay compensation to Gulf War veterans with certain chronic disabilities from illnesses the VA could not diagnosis. More than 3,400 Gulf War have qualified for benefits under this category, according to the VA.

The VA does not have an estimate of the number of veterans who may be affected, but it could be in the thousands.

Of those who deployed in the Gulf War, 300,000 submitted claims, according to the VA. About 14% were rejected, while the rest received compensation for at least one condition.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704625004575089620494985524.html?mod=WSJ_World_LEFTSecondNews#printMode

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Oregon Citizens Protest Planned Aryan Nations 'Compound'

Canyon City, Oregon—The appearance this month of members of an Idaho-based white supremacist group stirred citizens of this rural county seat to protest plans by the group to purchase real estate for a proposed "compound" for the Aryan Nations Church of Yahweh in the neighboring town of John Day, Ore.

The Idaho group's leader, Paul R. Mullet, 36, told a John Day newspaper editor he intended to purchase one of two empty buildings in the town of 2500, which like much of rural Oregon has been plagued by high unemployment during the current recession.

The properties he has in mind are a former junior high school and an abandoned opera house, whose construction harkens back to more prosperous times when the city of John Day thrived as a timber center. Mr. Mullet also proposed to use the surrounding forests for survival training of members, and that he hoped to have the grounds prepared in time to host a national convention of his movement in 2011.

Media reports indicated the white supremacist group selected John Day after learning that in 2002 surrounding Grant County had voted to designate itself a "UN-free Zone," forbidding the United Nations from doing business within the county, and instructing the county to do no business with the United Nations, or any of its agencies. Mr Mullet says he was not aware of that referendum.

While declaring itself UN-free appears to have had little impact on Grant County's everyday affairs, a decision by Aryan Nations to place its national headquarters in the Connecticut-sized county drew an immediate reaction from this nearly all-white community.

Starting with a march on Monday, then two town-hall meetings on Friday, townspeople here reacted angrily to news that the Idaho group's leader, Paul Mullet, says he may now consider suing the city of John Day should it refuse to allow Aryan Nations to purchase property for sale there. Reached by telephone in Idaho Friday night, Mr. Mullet said "I am still planning to purchase property there, yes."

Friday's meetings packed a community hall here. An estimated 350 people attended both gatherings to hear two Idaho-based human rights workers describe their efforts in battling hate-groups in northern Idaho. Norm Gissel, a Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, attorney and Tony Stewart, a retired professor, worked together in 2000 to win a landmark judgment against the Church of Jesus Christ-Christian Aryan Nations, a similar group that has since disbanded.

During a question and answer session after the two speakers concluded, one local man questioned whether Oregon's anti-discrimination laws recognized "politics" as a reason to refuse to do business with someone in the state, even while discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender or sexual preference is not.

"We believe in Oregon we can say no to these people," said Mike Cosgrove, 60, a retired schoolteacher who has lived in John Day since 1975.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704625004575090473593719004.html?mod=WSJ_WSJ_US_News_5#printMode

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From MSNBC

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Circular Firing Squad

By Michael Miller

Newsweek Web Exclusive 

Feb 25, 2010

Last May, feeling the need to show how seriously they took the drug war—and to demonstrate some results—Mexican federal troops arrested nearly 30 public officials suspected of ties to drug trafficking in President Felipe Calderón's home state of Michoacán, known for its mountains and clandestine marijuana fields. The haul included 10 mayors, pulled from their houses and offices at gunpoint by masked soldiers. Interior Secretary Fernando Gómez Mont touted the operation as "necessary to save politics and to defend our institutions and our very own political organizations from the pressures and temptations of crime." Invoking a 2008 law that dramatically expanded federal police powers, authorities held the mayors without charges, citing the mere suspicion of links to organized crime. The government was showcasing its zero-tolerance policy in the drug war that had killed more than 11,000 people and cost more than $3 billion per year.

Nine months later, the would-be champions of justice should feel awfully sheepish. Three of the mayors were released after a month in prison, returning home to cities divided by distrust. Then, in January, after nearly 250 days in jail, four more of the mayors were released, along with eight other officials. After their high-profile arrests, the mayors' quiet release has left many Mexicans wondering what is going on. The "Michoacanazo", as the debacle is now known, paints a picture of a bumbling, strong-arming federal government content to ruin careers, deprive cities of their elected leaders, and throw people in jail before building cases against them in the name of good press. It reveals that Calderón's government in Mexico City has become so paranoid and defensive in its conduct of the drug war that nearly everyone—including officialdom—merits suspicion. The fervor of the arrests, and the fact that most mayors are now free and back in office, suggests that the federal government is starting to lose sight of who, exactly, the enemy is.

González was released with the other mayors in January, and he has yet to hear an apology, either from the federal government or his party. Gómez Mont, the interior secretary, not only refused to apologize to the officials, but he even insisted they were released because of a lack of evidence against them—not because they were innocent—and that they could still be rearrested. (State legislators nonetheless voted quickly to allow González and the others to return to office.) Yet unlike the 48 percent of Mexicans who now disapprove of the president, he hasn't lost faith in Calderón himself. "I'm sure that someone lied to the president. Someone wanted to ingratiate himself and misled the president in order to justify their job or their position. That's the only thing I can think of that might have happened."

Some of the other arrests seem even more craven because of their openly political flavor. The 10 mayors were jailed a month before the July 5 midterm elections last year—which Calderón's conservative National Action Party lost badly. All but González were members of political parties opposed to Calderón. "The officials acted in really bad faith by arresting us like they did when they could have just sent someone to talk to us," said José Cortés Ramos, mayor of Áquila, who was accused of accepting campaign funds from narcos in return for police protection. "Either the government is deceiving itself, or we have a very poorly thought-through public policy at work here."

Admittedly, it's still a (very) remote possibility that the mayors are guilty after all, but the government is powerless to convict them—a frightening thought in a country already weakened and besieged. And at any rate, corruption is a very real danger in Mexico, especially for city-level police and politicians exposed to La Familia's cartel. Even the brother of the current Michoacán governor is a wanted man. Federal prosecutors point out, furthermore, that 20 former Michoacán officials—including three mayors and 10 others detained during the Michoacanazo—remain in jail under charges of ties to organized crime, although none has been convicted.

But the Michoacanazo shows the lengths to which the Calderón administration will go to to create the impression of progress in the fight against drug traffickers. At worst, it reveals a government so desperate and confused that it has begun to devour itself: burning innocent public servants in the cauldron of an all-consuming campaign, undermining democracy and the rule of law with shock-and-awe shows of executive force. That's no way to fight a war.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/234176/output/print

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Child sex abuse scandal stuns Delaware town

LEWES, Del. - For years, Brandy Little worked as a nurse for the Delaware pediatrician accused of molesting more than 100 of his young patients. Dr. Earl Bradley treated two of her children, his four kids sometimes baby-sat hers, and her oldest daughter even spent the night at his house.

Now the mother of three — along with thousands of other parents whose kids were treated by the quiet, disheveled doctor — has been asked to provide photos of her children to see if they match images on 13 hours of video that prosecutors say Bradley took to document his alleged crimes.

But Little and other parents aren't sure they want to know.

"If something had happened, it hasn't affected them in any way," Little said of her oldest daughters, now 11 and 16, who have told her nothing happened. "I don't know what I'm going to gain from knowing that he had done something to one of my kids."

In the days since Bradley was indicted on hundreds of separate sexual abuse charges, the scandal has created a wrenching dilemma that has pitted some spouses against each other, parents against grandparents. Guilt over leaving children alone with Bradley lurks in the background for some.

Bradley, 56, is being held in lieu of $2.9 million bail and is charged with 471 separate crimes. If convicted, he could become one of the most notorious pedophiles in the nation's history. His attorney has indicated that the criminal case could center on Bradley's mental health.

Stressful waiting

The allegations have devastated the small coastal community of Lewes, population 3,100, where he practiced. For some families, the victim identification process has confirmed their worst fears. Others are anxiously waiting.

A Rehoboth mother of two daughters hopes the silence from authorities is a good sign.

"I don't know how I would be able to cope with that," she said. "I think it would kill me if my child were to be identified."

The Rehoboth mother, like several other parents interviewed by The Associated Press, spoke on condition that their name not be used to protect her family's privacy. The Associated Press does not usually identify alleged victims of sexual assault.

Dr. Eli Newberger, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, said deciding whether to cooperate in the identification process is a complicated issue for parents.

"The best interests of individual children are probably better served if the abuses are identified," said Newberger, former medical director of the Child Protection Program at Children's Hospital in Boston. "There is a reasonable likelihood for a lot of these children of having subsequent symptoms."

At the same, Newberger said, parents are generally the best judges of their children and that deserves respect.

"If parents are not worried and say they don't see any perturbation in their children's behavior," he said. "... then I think that's probably not a sign that these particular kids are foredoomed to trouble."

Repressed memories

Patricia Dailey Lewis, a deputy attorney general and director of the Family Division in the state Department of Justice, said repressed memories can come back to haunt victims who may not have any symptoms of abuse now.

"We can't just see pictures of children being molested and ignore it because their parents don't want to participate," she said, noting that free counseling and other services are available to families once victims are identified.

The disturbing images of Bradley's alleged assaults were captured by cameras he set up in various rooms, which he decorated with Disney characters and stockpiled with toys and miniature carnival rides. Bradley spent much of his time and money on toys and amusement items that cluttered his offices.

"He was very easy to work with and for, and I never had any bad feelings or bad vibes," said Little, who left Bradley's practice in 2004. "He was just not a businessman. He could not run a business, and that's one reason I left.

"I wasn't into the whole carnival stuff; it was definitely over the top," she added. "Some people thought it was the greatest thing in the world... Some people thought it was weird."

Caught on tape?

A statue of Mickey Mouse sits abandoned in a front room of Bradley's shuttered office, where cameras can still be seen through the upstairs windows and on the boarded-up carousel near the front door. The property, like that of his run-down home, is strewn with junk, including rusting Volkswagen Beetles and amusement rides. Coin-operated Buzz Lightyear rides are stuffed inside a trailer, one with a sticker warning "Do Not Leave Child Unattended."

Prosecutors said some of Bradley's victims were sexually assaulted after he separated them from his parents during office visits. Others had unnecessary "exams" caught on videotape in the presence of their unsuspecting parents.

"I am very afraid that if we don't get people the help they need, we're going to see marriages crumble, we're going to see families crumble," Dailey Lewis said. "... Blaming yourself is not going to help your child. It's not going to help your family."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35606897/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

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Dugard, family file claims against California

ANTIOCH, Calif. - Jaycee Dugard and her family have taken the first step to sue the state of California for lapses officials made while she and her daughters were allegedly held captive by a convicted sex offender.

Dugard, her two daughters and her mother, Terry Probyn, have each filed claim forms against the Department of Corrections, Rachel Wall, a spokeswoman for the state's Victim Compensation and Government Claims Board, said Friday.

Dugard's spokeswoman, Nancy Seltzer, said the family members haven't decided whether they'll file a lawsuit.

"We are simply preserving Jaycee Dugard's right to file a lawsuit at a later date, if that is something she decides is in her family's best interest," Seltzer said.

By law, victims have six months from the time of the incident to file a personal injury claim against the state. Dugard was found in August.

The forms do not ask for a specific dollar amount, only saying damages exceed $25,000.

A messages left with the Santa Monica, Calif.-based attorney listed on the claims, Dale Kinsella, was not immediately returned.

Mistakes in monitoring

Prosecutors say Dugard was kidnapped from outside her South Lake Tahoe home in 1991 by Phillip and Nancy Garrido, then taken to Antioch, Calif., where she lived with two daughters fathered by Phillip Garrido in a ramshackle backyard compound.

Phillip Garrido had been under parole supervision because of a 1977 conviction for raping a 25-year-old woman. He was released from prison in 1988 and placed under federal supervision until 1999, when California took over.

According to an investigation by the Office of Inspector General, mistakes in how California monitored Garrido began right away. Among them, he was wrongly classified as a low-risk offender, which meant looser controls on him, and one agent did not try to confirm the identity of a young girl he saw at the house while on a visit, instead trusting Garrido's claim that she was his niece.

The secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Matthew Cate, has acknowledged serious errors in the handling of the case.

The Garridos have been charged with raping and abducting Dugard. They have pleaded not guilty and have an appearance in El Dorado County Superior Court later Friday on defense motions to allow them to visit each other in jail.

Their lawyers also want contact information for Dugard and permission from the court to communicate with her. Prosecutors oppose the motion.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35607056/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

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From ICE

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Former child human trafficking victim pursues career with ICE

At 10 years old, Shyima Hall's life was analogous to a dark fairy tale. As a human trafficking victim in Irvine, Calif., her everyday existence was hopeless drudgery, living in penury and servitude, all the while being verbally abused. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents discovered Hall after an anonymous tip led to a full-scale investigation of her traffickers, which freed Hall to open a new and promising chapter of her life. Today, Hall is a 20-year-old Southern California college student studying law enforcement. Her goal is to become an ICE special agent.

Hall's experience began in 2001 when a businessman brought her to the United States from Egypt, telling immigration officers at the Los Angeles International Airport that he was accompanying his "adoptive daughter" on a trip to a theme park.

Instead, the man delivered her to a wealthy Egyptian couple who forced her to work seven days a week cleaning their opulent Orange County home and caring for their five children. When she wasn't working, the couple made Shyima sleep on a bare, dirty mattress in the garage and wash her clothes outside in a bucket. She was not allowed to attend school and received no medical or dental care.

Hall's path to freedom began when an anonymous caller contacted authorities, and child welfare workers immediately responded. ICE agent Mark Abend, who spearheaded the investigation leading to the conviction of Shyima's captors, vividly remembers that day in April 2003.

"Shyima was confused and frightened," Abend remembers. Her captors told her authorities would beat her if she was discovered and her family in Egypt would not receive money they had been promised. "I was appalled," said Abend, "imagining how I would feel if this had happened to one of my children."

Hall's case, unfortunately, is not an isolated incident. As one of the primary federal agencies responsible for combating human trafficking, ICE special agents conduct hundreds of investigations each year into this modern-day form of slavery rescuing numerous victims of commercial sex and forced labor exploitation.

Human trafficking occurs in every legitimate and illegitimate labor sector in society. Yet the victims' experiences are all remarkably similar to Hall's. Their captors often confiscate their passports and use threats and abuse to keep the victims isolated and fearful as they force them to work in deplorable and often dangerous conditions.

"ICE is committed to the aggressive investigation and prosecution of traffickers who exploit some of the most vulnerable members of our society," said James A. Dinkins, director of the Office of Investigations. "Ms. Hall's case is an inspiring example of how lives can be transformed when the public, law enforcement and non-governmental organizations work together to fight this crime."

Although not a federal agent yet, Hall is already an asset to ICE. In October 2009, she spoke to ICE special agents at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia, sharing her experience as a human trafficking victim, including the emotional and physical trauma she endured. The agents told Hall that she "opened their eyes to the personal side of these cases." Hall says, "I want to do everything I can now and in the future to help people understand more about this issue."

The public can help victims of human trafficking by contacting the ICE tip line at 1-866-DHS-2ICE to report anyone who they suspect is held against their will. Public service announcements and other information on human trafficking can be found on the ICE human trafficking page .

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1002/100224washingtondc3.htm

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284 arrested in ICE operation targeting criminal aliens throughout Texas

Nearly 160 with violent criminal histories arrested in 3-day operation

DALLAS - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its law enforcement partners arrested 284 foreign nationals with criminal records during a three-day enforcement surge throughout Texas, making it the biggest operation targeting at-large criminal aliens ever carried out by ICE in the state.

During the operation, which concluded late Thursday, ICE officers and agents worked in teams with the U.S. Marshals Service, Department of State's Diplomatic Security Service and local law enforcement agencies. Of the 284 arrested, nearly 160 foreign nationals have violent criminal histories - such as homicide, assault and robbery - and more than 20 have convictions for sexual offenses. Of the total arrested, 18 have already been removed from the country.

At a news conference Friday morning, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for ICE John Morton announced the results of the special operation, which involved more than 280 federal and local law enforcement officers and agents. Assistant Secretary Morton cited the operation as another example of the vital role multi-agency cooperation and targeted immigration enforcement play in protecting our communities.

"We are a compassionate nation with a proud history of immigration," said Morton. "But we are also a nation governed by laws specifically designed to protect its citizens and residents. Those who come to the United States to prey upon our neighbors and communities will be prosecuted for their crimes and ultimately returned to their home countries. The results of this week's operation demonstrate ICE's commitment to that principle."

Arrests in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area accounted for the largest number of apprehensions during the operation where a total of 119 criminal aliens were taken into custody. San Antonio recorded the next highest number of arrests with 73. The arrestees, 259 men and 25 women, represent more than 22 different nations, including countries in Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Because of their serious criminal histories and prior immigration arrest records, at least 23 of those arrested during the enforcement surge face federal prosecution for illegally reentering the country after being formally deported. A conviction for felony reentry carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

Some of the worst of the offenders caught this week during Operation Cross Check include the following case examples:

• Juan Jose Lopez-Juarez, 36, from Mexico, was arrested at his home with the help of the Dallas County Constable Precinct Four. He was targeted and arrested in Dallas and is wanted in Michoacán, Mexico, for shooting and killing a 17-year-old boy while his mother pleaded for his life. Lopez-Juarez was originally deported in June 2000. ICE learned about his whereabouts from a tip made to our 24-hour tipline.
  
  
• Angel Gonzalez, from Mexico, was arrested Feb. 24 by ICE at his residence in Austin, Texas. He has a previous criminal history including a sexual offense against a child for which he was sentenced to three years in prison. Afterwards, ICE deported him. The U.S Attorney in the Western District of Texas has accepted him for prosecution for reentry after deportation.
  
  
• Ruiz Pina, from Mexico, was arrested by ICE agents in Houston on Feb. 24. He has convictions for unlawfully possessing a weapon, assault causing bodily injury, and drunken driving. PINA was ordered deported by a federal immigration judge in Houston, Texas, in 2005. He will be detained without bond at the Houston Contract Detention Facility pending removal from the United States.
  

Any of the foreign nationals arrested during this operation who have active warrants will be referred to the associated local law enforcement agency and ICE will place detainers to ensure they return to ICE custody following disposition of their criminal cases. Those who have outstanding orders of deportation, or who returned to the United States illegally after being deported, are subject to immediate removal from the country. The remaining individuals are in ICE custody awaiting a hearing before an immigration judge, or pending travel arrangements for removal in the near future.

This week's special enforcement action was spearheaded by ICE's Fugitive Operations Program, which is responsible for locating, arresting, and removing at large criminal aliens and immigration fugitives - aliens who have ignored final orders of deportation handed down by the nation's immigration courts. ICE's Fugitive Operations Teams (FOTs) give top priority to cases involving aliens who pose a threat to national security and public safety, including members of transnational street gangs and child sex offenders.

The officers who conducted this week's special operation received substantial assistance from ICE's Fugitive Operations Support Center (FOSC) located in South Burlington, Vt. The FOSC conducted exhaustive database checks on the targeted cases to help ensure the viability of the leads and accuracy of the criminal histories. The FOSC was established in 2006 to improve the integrity of the data available on at large criminal aliens and immigration fugitives nationwide. Since its inception, the FOSC has forwarded more than 150,000 case leads to ICE enforcement personnel in the field.

This week's enforcement operation is just one facet of the Department of Homeland Security's broader strategy to heighten the federal government's effectiveness at identifying and removing dangerous criminal aliens from the United States. Other initiatives that figure prominently in this effort are the Criminal Alien Program, Secure Communities and the agency's partnerships with state and local law enforcement agencies under 287(g).

Largely as a result of these initiatives, ICE removed a total of 136,126 criminal aliens from the United States last year, a record number.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1002/100226dallas.htm

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ICE arrests 49 in operation targeting criminals, fugitives

MILWAUKEE - Nearly 50 foreign nationals were arrested in central and western Wisconsin during a week-long enforcement action targeting criminal aliens and immigration fugitives. This operation was conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), with assistance from the Wisconsin Department of Justice - Division of Criminal Investigation, and the U.S. Border Patrol in Duluth, Minn.

The ICE operation, which began Feb. 18 and concluded Wednesday, targeted aliens with criminal records, previously deported aliens, and immigration fugitives with outstanding deportation orders. Thirty four of those arrested, or 69 percent, have criminal records in addition to their immigration violations.

Arrests were made in the following Wisconsin counties: Langlade, Dunn, Monroe, Eau Claire, Marathon, Portage, Clark, Trempealeau, Sauk, Wood, Shawano, and Waupaca.

Of the 49 arrested, 20 were arrested based on their prior criminal histories; some of their convictions and arrests include: carrying a concealed weapon, drug possession cocaine, fourth degree sexual assault, felony fraud, multiple OWIs (Operating while Intoxicated), and possession of methamphetamine. Of the 20 criminal aliens arrested, 18 are illegal aliens and two are U.S. permanent residents (green card holders) whose previous criminal convictions make them eligible for deportation.

ICE officers also targeted and arrested 17 fugitives with outstanding deportation orders. Immigration fugitives are aliens who fail to appear for their immigration hearings, or who abscond after being ordered by a federal immigration judge to leave the country. Of the 17 fugitives, 9 have prior criminal convictions in addition to having a final order of deportation; some of their crimes include violating a domestic abuse order, cocaine possession, and carrying a concealed weapon.

In addition, ICE officers arrested seven previously deported aliens. Four are being federally prosecuted in the Western District of Wisconsin for illegally reentering the U.S. after deportation, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. They are: Daniel Vela-Armas, 27, arrested Feb. 21 in Altoona; Luis Fernando Marcelino-Reyes, 26, arrested Feb. 20 in Dorchester; Arnulfo Romero-Gonzalez, 27, arrested Feb 20 in Edgar; and Federico Garcia-Hernandez, 28, arrested Feb. 20 in Wittenberg. Garcia-Hernandez had been deported from the U.S. on three prior occasions.

The arrestees, 45 men and 4 women, represent the following countries: Mexico, China, Germany, South Africa, Macedonia, Romania, and Yugoslavia.

"A top priority for the ICE is to enhance public safety by locating and arresting criminal aliens and fugitives, with the ultimate goal of removing them from our country in a safe and humane manner," said Ricardo Wong, field office director for the ICE Office of Detention and Removal Operations in Chicago. "ICE is dedicated to arresting criminal aliens and other violators who blatantly flout our nation's immigration laws."

The arrestees who are not being criminally prosecuted will be processed administratively for removal from the United States. Fugitives with outstanding deportation orders, and those who returned to the U.S. illegally after being deported, are subject to immediate removal from the country. The remaining aliens are pending a hearing before an immigration judge. ICE does not release the names of aliens arrested on administrative immigration charges.

This operation was conducted by ICE's Fugitive Operations Team (FOT) in Milwaukee, which is responsible for locating, arresting and removing immigration fugitives and at-large criminal aliens. Last year, ICE's FOTs made more than 35,000 arrests nationwide. More than 31,000 of those arrests, or nearly 89 percent, involved immigration fugitives and aliens with prior criminal convictions.

ICE's Fugitive Operations Program is just one facet of the Department of Homeland Security's broader strategy to heighten the federal government's effectiveness at identifying and removing dangerous criminal aliens from the United States. Other initiatives that figure prominently in this effort are the Criminal Alien Program, Secure Communities and the agency's partnerships with state and local law enforcement under 287(g).

Largely as a result of these initiatives, ICE removed a total of 136,126 criminal aliens from the United States last year, a record number. The Chicago ICE office, which encompasses a 6-state area that includes Wisconsin, accounted for 9,745 of the total number of criminal aliens deported.

http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/1002/100226milwaukee.htm

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From the FBI

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Early KKK rally in Florida Photo courtesy of the National Archives		THE FBI VERSUS THE KLAN Part 1: Let the Investigations Begin 02/26/10 Ninety-five years ago this month—in February 1915—the D.W. Griffith movie later titled The Birth of a Nation premiered in a Los Angeles theater. Though considered progressive in its technique and style, the film had a decidedly backwards plot that glorified a short-lived, post-Civil War white supremacist group called the Ku Klux Klan. The movie's broad release in March provoked riots and even bloodshed nationwide. It also revived interest in the KKK, leading to the birth of several new local groups that summer and fall. Many more followed, mostly in southern states at first. Some of these groups focused on supporting the U.S. effort in World War I, but most wallowed in a toxic mix of secrecy, racism, and violence.
As the Klan grew, it attracted the attention of the young Bureau. Created just a few years earlier—in July 1908—the Bureau of Investigation (as the organization was known then) had few federal laws to combat the KKK in these formative days. Cross burnings and lynchings, for example, were local issues. But under its general domestic security responsibilities, the Bureau was able to start gathering information and intelligence on the Klan and its activities. And wherever possible, we looked for federal violations and shared information with state and local law enforcement for its cases. Our early files show that Bureau cases and intelligence efforts were already beginning to mount in the years before 1920. A few examples: In Birmingham, a middle-aged African-American—who fled north to avoid serving in the war—was arrested for draft dodging in May 1918 when he returned to persuade his white teenage girlfriend to marry him. A Bureau agent looking into the matter discovered that the local KKK had gotten wind of the interracial affair and was organizing to lynch the man. The agent came up with a novel solution to resolve the draft-dodging issue and to protect the man from harm: he escorted the evader to a military camp and ensured that he was quickly inducted.  In June 1918, a Mobile agent named G.C. Outlaw learned that Ed Rhone—the leader of an African-American group called the Knights of Labor—was worried by the abduction of another labor leader by reputed Klansmen. “This uneasiness of the Knights of Labor,” our agent noted, “is the first direct result of the Ku Klux activities.” Agent Outlaw investigated and assured Rhone we would protect him from any possible harm. At the request of a Bureau agent in Tampa, a representative of the American Protective League—a group of citizen volunteers who helped investigate domestic issues like draft evasion during World War I—convinced an area Klan group to disband in August 1918.  World War I effectively came to an end with the signing of a ceasefire in November 1918, but the KKK was just getting started. Pro-war oriented Klan groups either folded or began to coalesce around a focus on racial and religious prejudice. Teaming up with advertising executive Edward Clarke Young, the head of the Atlanta Klan—William Simmons—would oversee a rapid rise in KKK membership in the 1920s. That's another story, and one that we will tell as part of this new history series detailing the work of the FBI to protect the American people—especially minorities and other groups—from the evils of the modern-day Klan. Over the course of the year, we will track the major aspects of this fight, with new documents and pictures to help tell the tale. Stay tuned. http://www.fbi.gov/page2/feb10/klan_022610.html

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