Personal traits will be used to screen U.S.-bound air passengers

Fliers from abroad will be evaluated based on personal traits rather than nationality.

By David S. Cloud

April 2, 2010

Reporting from Washington

The Obama administration will announce Friday a new screening system for flights to the United States under which passengers who fit an intelligence profile of potential terrorists will be searched before boarding their planes, a senior administration official said.

The procedures, which have been approved by President Obama, are aimed at preventing another attack like the one attempted by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian suspected of ties to Al Qaeda who allegedly tried to blow up an airliner Christmas Day with a bomb hidden in his underwear, the official said.

After that attempt, the administration began mandatory screening of airline passengers from 14 high-risk countries, including Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria.

Under the new system, passengers on flights from all countries could be subject to special screening before boarding if they have personal characteristics that match the latest intelligence information about potential attackers, the senior official said.

"We believe it is a much more effective system" that is "tailored to optimize our ability to interdict would-be terrorists," said the official, who requested anonymity in describing the plan.

Even U.S. citizens traveling to the United States from abroad would be subject to special screening if they matched certain characteristics, the official said.

Administration officials said the system would provide greater fairness than the current method.

They said it would not amount to improper profiling because it would rely on specific and frequently updated intelligence and involve more countries than the current 14.

The new plan is designed to catch terrorism suspects about whom the U.S. may know bits of information but not full names or other identifying data that would lead to their names being placed on a no-fly list.

In many cases, the U.S. might learn of a possible attack by someone about whom it has only fragmentary information -- a partial name, nationality, certain facial features or details about recent travel.

Such information will be forwarded to airlines and foreign governments by the Department of Homeland Security as it is received and will be used to guide them in deciding which travelers to subject to special screening, the official said.

In the case of Abdulmutallab, U.S. intelligence had received communication intercepts months before the Christmas Day attempt about a suspected plot involving a Nigerian, as well as a partial name.

The breakdown occurred because intelligence officials failed to match that information with a tip they received from Abdulmutallab's father that his son may have joined a radical Islamist movement.

Because of the failure to connect the available information, Abdulmutallab's name was placed in a database of possible extremists but not on the no-fly list, which contains about 4,000 names, or on a terrorism watch "selectee" list, which comprises fewer than 20,000.

The new system seeks to eliminate this vulnerability by ensuring that even without a name, airlines will receive information that will enable them to select passengers for additional screening, the official said. But he did not say that the new system necessarily would have stopped Abdulmutallab.

"I like to think it would have increased our chances to stop" him, the senior official said.

Even if the Nigerian had been pulled aside, security screeners still would have had to detect the bomb in his underwear.

"We like to think they would have detected the IED," he said, using an abbreviation for improvised explosive device. Techniques for detecting hidden bombs, weapons or other devices would not change under the new system.

The current practice of searching all passengers from any of 14 countries is inconvenient and untargeted, the officials said.

The new system, although it applies to many more countries, will result in "a significant reduction" in the number of passengers receiving special pre-boarding scrutiny than the thousands currently searched each day, the senior official estimated.

The types of information provided to airlines would be broad and varied, officials said. In some cases, decisions about who is selected for screening would be made automatically by matching the intelligence data against information in databases about passengers.

For example, if the U.S. received information about countries a terrorism suspect had visited, all passengers who had visited those countries could be pulled aside, the officials said.

In other cases, the decision about whom to search will hinge on the discretion or vigilance of those dealing with the passengers.

For example, if told to look for passengers with particular facial characteristics, it would be up to screeners or airline personnel to designate a passenger for special screening, the official said.

U.S. officials would not describe all the categories of information that would be included under the new procedures. Doing so would alert potential attackers to ways of defeating the system, they said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-flight-screening2-2010apr02,0,888921,print.story

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Mexico drug gangs turn weapons on army

In northern states this week, gunmen fought troops and sought to confine some to their bases by cutting off access and blocking roads. The aggression shows they are not afraid to challenge the army.

By Tracy Wilkinson

April 2, 2010

Reporting from Mexico City

Drug traffickers fighting to control northern Mexico have turned their guns and grenades on the Mexican army, authorities said, in an apparent escalation of warfare that played out across multiple cities in two border states.

In coordinated attacks, gunmen in armored cars and equipped with grenade launchers fought army troops this week and attempted to trap some of them in two military bases by cutting off access and blocking highways, a new tactic by Mexico's organized criminals.

In taking such aggressive action, the traffickers have shown that they are not reluctant to challenge the army head-on and that they possess good intelligence on where the army is, how it moves and when it operates.

At least 18 alleged attackers were killed and one soldier wounded in the fighting that erupted Tuesday in half a dozen towns and cities in the states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, the army said, topping off one of the deadliest months yet in a drug war that has raged for nearly 3 1/2 years.

The U.S. Consulate in Monterrey issued a warning to Americans who might be traveling in northern Mexico for the Easter break, citing the sudden outbreaks of gun battles in Nuevo Leon and neighboring states.

Traffickers previously have fought with army patrols, but the attempt to blockade garrisons came after weeks of an intense, bloody power struggle between two rival organizations, the Gulf cartel and its erstwhile paramilitary allies, the Zetas, to control the region bordering South Texas.

Part of the strategy of Tuesday's assaults may have been to prevent the army from patrolling, to give the drug gangs a freer hand in their fight against each other.

"This really speaks to the incredible organization and firepower that the drug-trafficking organizations have managed to muster," said Tony Payan, a border expert at the University of Texas at El Paso. "These are organizations that are flexible, supple and quick to react and adapt. They no doubt represent a challenge to the Mexican state."

In Reynosa, one of the scenes of Tuesday's fighting, the local government put out alerts Thursday for residents to avoid parts of the city. Residents said they heard gunfire and saw military armored personnel carriers moving through neighborhoods. One person was reported killed.

"People hear gunfire and get scared," said Jaime Aguirre, a radio talk show host. "But it's better to keep quiet and not hear anything so as not to risk reprisals."

Reynosa resident Yenni Gandiaga was driving to the gas station Tuesday morning when she heard gunfire getting closer and louder. Then she saw the troops and the gunmen. She turned down a side street to hide, crashing into two other cars in the process.

"People ran about screaming, picking up their children," she said. She hid in a stranger's house. When she emerged after the combatants moved on, the windows of storefronts and cars were shattered.

The Mexican Defense Ministry in Mexico City put out a blow-by-blow account of Tuesday's events. Taking a page from a manual on urban guerrilla warfare, gunmen struck at the same time Tuesday morning, and then again in the afternoon.

In Reynosa, a city in Tamaulipas state across the border from McAllen, Texas, gunmen positioned trucks, cars and trailers on a highway to block Campo Militar, an army base, about 11 a.m. At almost the same time, they blocked a garrison in the city of Matamoros, about 60 miles to the east. In Rio Bravo, between the two cities, traffickers battled with army patrols.

Later in the day, troops and traffickers clashed in other Tamaulipas towns and in neighboring Nuevo Leon state.

The army said it confiscated armored cars, grenade launchers, about 100 military-grade grenades, explosive devices and about 13,000 rounds of ammunition. Seven men were captured.

"The actions by these criminal organizations are a desperate reaction to the advances made by federal authorities in coordination with state and municipal security forces," Gen. Edgar Luis Villegas said.

It was not clear whether the fighting the army reported was with the Zetas or the stronger Gulf cartel. Most of the violence has been cartel against cartel, with some bystanders getting caught in the cross-fire. The gangs have also attacked police stations in many areas.

The Zetas, founded as a group of mercenary former soldiers working for the Gulf group, split away in a bid to take over part of the lucrative drug trade. They are fighting to seize territory from the Gulf network in Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, amid reports that other strong cartels, such as the one based in Sinaloa, may be uniting with the Gulf traffickers to wipe out the Zetas.

Dozens of people, primarily traffickers, have been killed in recent weeks as the two groups clashed in the broad triangle along the border from Nuevo Laredo to Monterrey to Reynosa and Matamoros. Traffickers have flexed their muscle by repeatedly setting up roadblocks, closing highways and tying up traffic even in Monterrey, a major city.

"It is a risky tactic because it has the potential of angering society, but it is a very effective show of power," said Martin Barron, a researcher at a Mexico City think tank.

The increased agility of the drug gangs seen in Tuesday's violence indicates good intelligence, experts here and abroad said. Some of that intelligence comes from taxi drivers, street vendors and scores of other people on the traffickers' payroll who serve as lookouts for drug runners and their henchmen. But Payan and others suggested that some of the precise, street-level intelligence may come from soldiers, adding substance to fear that as the army is increasingly dragged into the drug war it is becoming susceptible to the same cartel-financed corruption that has long corroded police departments and many political structures.

In Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's deadliest city and where the army has been deployed in greatest force, federal police are to begin taking over security duties this month as the army is gradually withdrawn, the government said. The army has been criticized for rights abuses, including the disappearance of detainees and illegal searches.

By one newspaper's count, the drug war's death toll in March was the highest yet, more than 1,000.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/latinamerica/la-fg-mexico-gunbattles2-2010apr02,0,5405848,print.story

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Abortion provider's killer is sentenced to life in prison

Scott Roeder is defiant in a Kansas courtroom as he is sentenced for shooting and killing Dr. George Tiller in a Wichita church last year. He will not be eligible for parole for more than 50 years.

By Robin Abcarian

April 2, 2010

Scott Roeder, the antiabortion extremist who murdered George Tiller, one of a handful of American physicians who performed late-term abortions, was sentenced to life in prison in a Wichita, Kan., courtroom Thursday and will not be eligible for parole for more than 50 years.

"The blood of babies is on your hands!" he yelled at prosecutors as bailiffs led him from the courtroom.

A former airport shuttle driver who was once arrested with bomb-making materials in his car, Roeder, 52, was convicted Jan. 29 of premeditated murder for shooting Tiller point-blank in the forehead during a Sunday service on May 31 as the doctor stood in the vestibule of his Wichita church.

Sedgwick County District Judge Warren Wilbert could have allowed Roeder to come up for parole after 25 years but gave him the harsher sentence because he shot Tiller in church and stalked him for years before.

Roeder was also sentenced to 24 consecutive months on two counts of aggravated assault for threatening to kill two church ushers who tried to stop him as he fled Reformation Lutheran Church after the shooting.

As Tiller's wife, Jeanne, and their four adult children looked on, an unrepentant Roeder addressed the court for more than 40 minutes in a rambling statement that was part defense of his action, part primer on abortion techniques and part sermon about the difference between God's laws and man's.

Toward the end of the day, he repeatedly interrupted the judge with small outbursts equating abortion to murder.

"It is no secret that George Tiller killed unborn babies for a living," Roeder said. "He did this with the blessing of the highest laws of our land. If I were allowed to display pictures of aborted babies as you allowed [pictures of] George Tiller lying in a pool of blood, some of the jury might have been persuaded to find me innocent of murder."

The judge stopped Roeder's speech when he veered into politics, criticizing the prosecutor, Sedgwick County Dist. Atty. Nola Foulston.

"I was told by my counsel that I could say anything," Roeder said.

"It is not a forum for you to get on a soapbox and give your entire political beliefs," said Wilbert, who became increasingly impatient with Roeder. "I am not going to allow what I view as an attempted character assassination of Nola Foulston."

Roeder, Wilbert said, was to address only why he should receive a shorter sentence.

Earlier, the prosecutor, Roeder's defense attorney, a Tiller family representative and several of Roeder's friends gave statements about whether Roeder should be eligible for parole after 25 or 50 years of his life sentence.

Prosecutors and the Tiller family called Roeder a terrorist; Roeder's friends called him a hero who acted on principle.

"This is a significantly dangerous man," Foulston said.

Four of Roeder's friends from the antiabortion movement asked the judge for leniency, describing Roeder as a kind person who acted to save the lives of "the unborn."

Regina Dinwiddie, a nurse in Kansas City, Kan., described Roeder as "a very loving and compassionate man who only had feelings for those other than himself."

George Hough, a clinical psychologist who evaluated Roeder for the defense, testified that Roeder was not psychologically impaired when he chose to kill Tiller, but was motivated by a strongly held religious belief.

Hough said that beginning in his late 20s, Roeder had "moved increasingly in the direction of radical religion, Christianity," and became "obsessed" with taxes, license plate laws and "the true intentions of the framers."

After 1992, Hough said, Roeder began to "obsessively seize" on abortion and "felt an increasing need to take action," which culminated in the murder of Tiller.

Tiller's relatives listened calmly as Roeder described their place of worship as a "synagogue of Satan" for allowing Tiller to belong. "Who else would embrace a mass murderer in their midst?" he asked.

Tiller's longtime attorney, Lee Thompson, spoke for the family. He said they considered the murder a hate crime.

"George Tiller was shot in the face while serving as an usher at his church," Thompson said. "Why? Because he performed constitutionally protected legal medical services for women. . . . It's as morally repugnant as any hate crime."

Thompson described Tiller as a dedicated family man who defended the rights of women and believed in the rule of law. Tiller, Thompson said, "practiced medicine as he lived his life, with care and compassion." When one of his daughters became a physician, Thompson said, Tiller advised her to "always touch a patient gently."

Tiller was the fourth abortion provider and the eighth person connected to an abortion clinic to be killed for their work since 1993.

"It has been nearly a year since Dr. Tiller's murder, yet no federal charges have been brought," said Katherine Spillar of the Feminist Majority Foundation, which has urged the government to look closely at ties among abortion foes who advocate violence. "It's hard to believe that he acted entirely alone."

Tiller's death left a void in the small community of doctors who perform late-term abortions, which account for a tiny percentage of the estimated 1.2 million abortions each year in the U.S. His relatives announced in June that they would close his Wichita clinic, Women's Health Care Services.

Before he was slain, Tiller had been subjected to repeated acts of violence as well as criminal investigations initiated by an antiabortion state attorney general. Tiller was acquitted in March 2009 of breaking Kansas abortion law.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-roeder-sentencing2-2010apr02,0,4151920,print.story

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ACORN's behavior was `highly inappropriate' but not criminal in California, Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown says

California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown said in a report Thursday that the community organizing group ACORN engaged in "highly inappropriate behavior" in the state but violated no criminal law.

Brown's office launched an investigation of ACORN's California operations at the request of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last September after the release of videos that appeared to show ACORN employees advising people about how to engage in prostitution and other other illegal activity.

ACORN — the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now — disbanded Thursday after months of controversy over the videos and various government investigations.

Started in Arkansas in 1970, ACORN expanded around the nation with community offices working on such issues as affordable housing and voter registration. ACORN had 13 offices in California and 40,000 members.

"ACORN in California was disorganized and very poorly managed," Brown's report said. "It failed to recruit, train and monitor its employees to ensure compliance with California law."

Brown said some ACORN employees made suggestions about how to avoid criminal activity when approached by James O'Keefe III, a political filmmaker, and Hannah Giles, a Florida college student, who posed as a pimp and prostitute in meetings with ACORN workers from July 24 to Aug. 14, 2009. But the "most offensive" statements by ACORN workers occurred outside California, the report said.

In fact, one ACORN worker in San Diego even called the police about the couple, and another worker in San Bernardino treated the meeting as a joke, the report said.

"The evidence illustrates that things are not always as partisan zealots portray them through highly selective editing of reality," Brown said. "Sometimes a fuller truth is found on the cutting room floor."

Brown's office gave O'Keefe and Giles immunity from a state privacy law that prevents unauthorized taping in exchange for a complete set of their videos, the report said. It noted that persons who were taped without their knowledge could sue in civil court.

The report said ACORN probably violated state civil laws by disposing thousands of pages containing confidential information about employees, members and other individuals, failing to file a 2007 state tax return and engaging in four instances of possible voter registration fraud in San Diego.

ACORN also was unable to document how it used charitable funds raised for the victims of Southern California wildfires, the report said. But the probe "determined that ACORN spent more than it likely raised for the fire victims and therefore further action into this issue is not a wise use of the state's resources," the report said.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/04/attorney-general-jerry-brown-acorns-behavior-was-highly-inappropriate-but-not-criminal-in-california.html#more

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From the Daily News

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Feds' crackdown targets dozens in suspected meth ring

Federal authorities said 31 people faced drug charges in a crackdown Thursday targeting a large-scale ring that funneled methamphetamine from Mexico to California and Washington using fake vehicle batteries.

The suspected ringleader, Jesus Marquez-Marquez, was believed to be in the Mexican state of Michoacan and has not yet been arrested, authorities said.

Marquez-Marquez, also known as Don Chuy, allegedly ran the drug ring that stored the drug in Tijuana before it was moved across the U.S.-Mexico border via hidden compartments and bogus car batteries.

Marquez-Marquez is accused in a federal complaint of having a number of distribution cells in California's Central Valley, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, and the state of Washington.

The ring is believed to have brought more than 200 pounds of meth into Southern California every month.

About 90 pounds of meth worth more than $5 million was seized Thursday as well as eight kilograms of cocaine. Ten people were arrested, and others were being sought.

It wasn't immediately known if any of them had retained attorneys.

Each federal drug conspiracy charge carries a maximum sentence of life in prison.

http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_14803538

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From the New York Times

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Questions for School on Bullying and a Suicide

SOUTH HADLEY, Mass. — On one point, everyone here agrees: the high school students who taunted and threatened Phoebe Prince for three months, until she hanged herself, deserve to be punished.

But acrimony over what school officials knew and how they dealt with the bullying of Ms. Prince, 15, has intensified since Monday, when the district attorney announced that nine students who hounded her would face criminal charges . Six students were named and charged with felonies, and three faced charges as juveniles and were not identified.

School leaders said the district attorney had gotten it wrong when she said that teachers and officials had long known about the hazing of Ms. Prince, a newcomer from Ireland who was relentlessly taunted as an “Irish slut” by some students after she briefly dated a popular senior football star.

The district attorney, Elizabeth D. Scheibel , for her part, issued a terse statement on Thursday suggesting that the school superintendent did not know the facts. Lending support to the district attorney's account, some students said in interviews that they had seen teachers witness bullying incidents or had seen a teacher console Ms. Prince as she wept. On the day she committed suicide in mid-January, she was seen crying in the nurse's office, according to students.

As new details emerged about Ms. Prince's persecution, school district leaders, in a flurry of television appearances and interviews, insisted that neither they nor the principal had known the extent of the hazing. They said that teachers were instructed to report all incidents and that the principal of South Hadley High School learned only at the time about two examples of harassment of Ms. Prince, both about a week before her suicide, and had disciplined the two girls involved immediately.

Officials did not realize that several other girls continued to harass Ms. Prince in the days that followed, according to Gus Sayer, the superintendent, and Edward J. Boisselle, the chairman of the school committee, as the school board is known here. And only after her death, they said, did officials learn that she had been threatened and slurred since October.

The officials said they had no record of Ms. Prince's parents complaining to the school about the hazing, something that the district attorney and the parents say the mother did twice. They said they had taken districtwide measures to fight the problem of bullying well before Ms. Prince's torment came to light.

“We were proactive, but unfortunately, accidents and tragedies can still occur,” Mr. Boisselle said in an interview.

Darby O'Brien, a friend of the Prince family, said Thursday that Ms. Prince's parents had told him that they had twice tried to alert the school and protect their daughter. Anne Prince, the mother, told him that in one case she had contacted a school official in November asking “whether this gang of girls was a threat to her daughter,” and was told not to worry. The mother said she had contacted the school again in the first week of January as the taunting continued, Mr. O'Brien said.

The parents, who are discussing a possible civil suit, have refused to speak to reporters. Mr. O'Brien, a parent and head of an advertising agency here, called for the superintendent, board chairman and principal to resign. “I can't buy the story that they were unaware,” he said. “They are running for cover.”

Some parents defend the district. Jana Darrow-Rioux, who has been involved with the antibullying efforts started at the school last year, says she believes that the school is being unfairly blamed.

“I think it's convenient for people to want to punish the school because it's the only tangible organization in this mess,” Ms. Darrow-Rioux said. She said that officials had not been able to share information during the investigations and that this had fueled unwarranted rumors.

In interviews, some students and parents described bullying incidents that they said were witnessed by teachers. A few times in December and early January, for example, Ms. Prince arrived at a class late and crying; a teacher tried to console her in the hallway and then left her there, said a student who did not want to be identified, citing the criminal proceedings.

Susan Smith said that her son had watched as one of the accused bullies screamed insults in Ms. Prince's face in the cafeteria while the teenager tried to ignore it — and that two teachers saw the verbal assault but did not act.

Questions continued to swirl about the case.

On Thursday, the district attorney, Ms. Scheibel, said in a statement: “I do not intend to address Superintendent Sayer's assertions point by point. I will, however, say that Mr. Sayer does not have access to our investigative materials. Therefore he can't have a basis for some of his comments.”

Some parents questioned the effectiveness of the school's internal investigation after Ms. Prince's death and what they described as a failure to discipline some of the offenders until the charges emerged this week.

“They had eyewitnesses to the bullying that they never interviewed,” Ms. Smith said.

Some of the students who were accused were “removed from the school” this year, school officials said. Citing privacy rules, they would not say whether the students were suspended, expelled or sent to a different school.

But a few of them, school officials acknowledged, were removed only this week, after the announcement of charges against the nine.

The various charges include statutory rape for the two boys, criminal harassment, violation of civil rights, stalking and other similar crimes.

The Princes lived in a small town in County Clare, Ireland, and Ms. Prince attended a boarding school in Limerick. The family had relatives in South Hadley, a region thick with Irish heritage, and decided to move here last year.

The mother, a schoolteacher, brought Ms. Prince and her 12-year-old sister to Massachusetts, renting the top floor of a house near the high school while their father stayed behind to sell their house.

By all accounts a lively girl, newly arrived at school last fall with an Irish brogue, Ms. Prince soon caught the eye of Sean Mulveyhill, a senior and a football star, and they briefly dated.

But Mr. Mulveyhill, 17, also dated Kayla Narey, 17, who like him was a longtime resident and part of a popular clique at the school, according to a friend of the students. He cut ties with Ms. Prince, and Ms. Narey and some of her friends started their campaign against her in October, students said. Mr. Mulveyhill and Ms. Narey have been charged.

Around the same time, other girls, including Flannery Mullins, 16, and Sharon Chanon Velasquez, 16, both of whom were charged, started harassing Ms. Prince, students said.

Some girls cursed Ms. Prince when the saw her in the hallways or cafeteria, shouting epithets and sometimes, in the library, whispering them as they went by.

“People were calling her a druggie or a slut, and she immediately got this horribly bad reputation,” said Betty Czitcom, a sophomore.

They vilified her on Web sites and sent her text messages calling her a slut and a whore and telling her she deserved to die, according to Ms. Prince's friends.

On the afternoon of her death, on Jan. 14, other students said they saw Ms. Prince going into the nurse's office, crying. A school official confirmed that Ms. Prince had seen the nurse but said he could not comment on the reasons.

After 2 p.m., as Ms. Prince walked the three blocks to her home, girls from the younger group sped by and hit her with a can of Red Bull, according to friends of Ms. Prince.

Ms. Prince's younger sister found her at 4:30 p.m., hanging from the stairwell by the scarf her sister had given her for Christmas.

In the traumatic days that followed, Rebecca Brouillard, a student who spoken on a television interview about the hazing, was slammed against a wall and hit by one 0f the accused girls, said her father, Mitch Brouillard. He said that they were angry she had publicly discussed the bullying, and that some of the students who were accused had bullied his own daughter for years.

Dozens of parents attended a school committee meeting at the time and described a history of bullying at the school that many said had never been brought under control.

But school district officials noted that last fall, out of concern after the suicide of a boy in Springfield, Mass., they brought a leading consultant, Barbara Coloroso, to give a seminar about prevention and reporting of bullying.

Ms. Coloroso rushed back to South Hadley after Ms. Prince's death. She said in an interview this week that the high school had not fully carried out her recommendations to ensure reporting of any potential bullying and to involve parents early on.

“This was a horrible wake-up call,” she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/us/02bully.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

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Health Care for All, With Obama Down the Street

PORTLAND, Me.

First through the door of the Portland Community Health Center on Thursday morning was a stick figure of a man, oblivious to the homemade signs and the White House advance team across the street. He had a bald eagle drawn on his sweatshirt, a street-hard weariness in his eyes, and a throbbing pain in his right hand.

Sarah Andel, a nurse practitioner , knew this man, James Hierl: how he lived in a shelter; how his depression made eating seem futile. As she held his numbed hand, working to remove a painful wart with a blade, she coaxed and coddled him: You have to eat; you have to see your psychiatrist; and please, James, eat.

“You're going to come back in a week,” Ms. Andel said, as her patient headed for the door, finger bandaged, cheeks concave, looking older than his 53 years. “O.K., James?”

Mr. Hierl gave a hesitant nod. Soon he was out on Park Avenue, where a line was forming outside a brick bandbox called the Portland Expo. The reason: President Obama was to speak there in the afternoon about new health care legislation that, among other things, will provide a huge increase in money — $11 billion — to community health centers like this one.

Across the country, more than 1,200 of these centers are providing treatment to low-income patients who would otherwise linger in expensive emergency rooms. The law is intended to reduce the burden on Medicaid and help the centers serve 20 million more people.

So the day progressed. On one side of the street, Obama aides scurried, the police blocked off traffic, and people waited in the sun, holding signs that said “Thank You” — though by lunchtime, hundreds were chanting the opposite. And on the other side, uninsured and underinsured people sought care, beginning with a man who saw little reason to eat.

A year ago, there was no Portland Community Health Center, though for years the city had been seeking federal money for a center that would provide care regardless of income or insurance. One that would reach the many new immigrants and refugees — from Rwanda, Iraq, Congo — who are finding their way to this southern Maine hub; save money; offer help.

Then, last year, the city received $1.3 million in stimulus money to open a community health center. It created a board, hired a staff, and found some vacant but tired space in a building on Park Avenue. On Nov. 2, the doors opened.

Now clients walk into a waiting room where the walls have been painted a lively yellow. Some magazines, from The New Yorker to Diabetes Forecast, sit on furniture bought at Wal-Mart and Staples. Children have a play area in the corner. “We want it to be a place where people really want to come,” said Carol Schreck, the executive director.

More important than aesthetics is the staff. It includes three nurse practitioners, a registered nurse, a social worker, two medical assistants, and a pediatrician and a doctor who come once a week. An eligibility specialist is also on hand to help clients navigate a health care universe nearly confusing enough to require hospitalization.

Patients without insurance pay on a sliding fee scale that is made possible by Medicaid reimbursement. For example, if they earn $10,830 or less a year, which is the usual case here, they pay $3 a visit.

So far, this community health center has seen 750 patients who, employees say, would otherwise have gone to the emergency room or gone without treatment. Half have no insurance. Many are Mainers, but just as many are recently arrived immigrants who often bear the mental scars of war. Interpreters are part of the everyday life here.

Ms. Schreck said the new legislation means many good things for this center — including, perhaps, a dental clinic in the unused space at the back of the office. “We hope,” she said.

Through the morning and into the early afternoon, the health center provided a close-up view of the Obama line that snaked past the Portland Ice Arena, past an abandoned gas station, past a school for the visually impaired. People here said lines this long are seen only when the Maine Sea Dogs, the baseball team that plays in a nearby park, are giving out bobble-head dolls.

But Ms. Andel, 31, one of the three nurse practitioners, had little time to gawk. After the man who would not eat came another man, fresh to Portland from an Indian reservation several hours away, who was struggling with the anxieties of heroin withdrawal. After him, two women with back pain, then a man from Burundi who needed to undergo a physical as part of his path to earn citizenship.

Meanwhile, outside and just down the street, the last gasps of the yearlong argument about health care legislation found breath in chants of “Nobama!” and “Yes We Can!”

Here were people complaining that they didn't like health care rammed down their throats (the preferred terminology for opponents). Here, too, was Kathleen Stokes, the president of the community health center's board. She was standing in line with her ticket, telling anyone who would listen of the benefits of community health centers.

At 3:15 or so, a staff member at the front desk adjusted her computer to a live broadcast of the goings-on in the Portland Expo, just a few dozen yards away. A couple of minutes later, the strains of “Hail to the Chief” rang through the waiting area, as a smiling President Obama appeared on the small screen.

On Wednesday, there was a free tax clinic in the Portland Expo; on Friday, the Maine Red Claws basketball team will play the Fort Wayne Mad Ants. But right now the Portland stage belonged to a victorious president who began his speech with “Hello, Portland!”

Ms. Andel did not have time to watch the speech. At the same time that the president was talking, she was handling another tough case: a crusty woman of 60 who positively, absolutely, refused to take medication for her diabetes.

But after a lot of back and forth, the patient grudgingly gave in to the coaxing, coddling nurse practitioner. She agreed to make some dietary changes — and to come back to the community health center in a month.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/health/policy/02land.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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Quake Survivors Freed From Immigration Jails

More than three dozen Haitian earthquake survivors were released from Florida immigration jails on Thursday after more than two months in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement .

Many had lost relatives in the Jan. 12 earthquake ; some had been pulled from the rubble themselves. In the chaotic days and aftershocks that followed, many had been seeking security, food or treatment at the Port-au-Prince airport when they were waved onto military transports or other planes by United States Marines , only to be detained for lack of visas when they landed.

Lawyers at the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, who had urged their release for weeks, were jubilant as they waited with relatives outside the Broward County Transitional Center, a privately operated jail in Pompano Beach, for the last ones to walk out. Immigration officials said 40 Haitian survivors would be released on orders of supervision by nightfall. This came on the day that The New York Times reported that at least 30 earthquake survivors were being detained.

By February, nearly all had been ordered deported, but deportations have been indefinitely suspended since the earthquake. Advocates said their continued detention was traumatic and legally unjustified.

Allison Kent, a lawyer with the center, said two young women remained in jail — including one originally flown to the United States for hospital care — because they were still in deportation proceedings. A Creole-speaking therapist was to visit them Friday, she said.

Lawyers said the federal government was now reversing a practice adopted after the earthquake, to hold Haitians for at least 90 days after a deportation order before considering them for supervised release. Those released can be returned to Haiti when deportations resume.

Among the first to be freed was Jackson Ulysse, 20, whose request for release described how sounds in the jail made him fear another earthquake and panic that he would not be able to get out. He had been trapped when his family's apartment building collapsed in the quake, in which many relatives died.

He and his brother, Reagan Ulysse, 25, had been detained together until March 11, when Reagan was abruptly transferred to a distant immigration jail, leaving Jackson not knowing where he was. But by Thursday evening a family friend had picked up Jackson and was driving him to pick up Reagan from the lobby of the Krome Detention Center in Miami.

“That's what I want — to see my brother, to see that they let him go, I want to hug him,” Jackson said in French in a telephone interview. “I'm very happy, and I'm going to church to thank God.”

The brothers' uncle, Virgile Ulysse, 69, a United States citizen who will take them in to his home in Norwalk, Conn., was also full of gratitude. “Thank the United States for Jackson and Reagan's release,” he said in a telephone message.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/us/02detain.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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3 Relatives Dead, Child Feared Speaking Up, Police Say

CHARLOTTE — A 10-year-old girl ran out of her home with her 2-year-old brother to waiting police officers late Monday night. Leaving behind her father, who then fatally shot himself, the girl proceeded to help unravel a grisly murder-suicide, the police said. Two adults and two children were dead.

The father, Kenneth Jermaine Chapman, 33, had suffocated his wife, Nateesha Ward Chapman, 34, in an apartment they had recently moved from, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg police said. In the family's new apartment nearby, he stabbed 13-year-old Na'Jhae Parker and suffocated her 13-month-old sister, Nakyiah Jael Chapman — within a day of killing their mother. With the two children's bodies in the apartment for several days, Mr. Chapman continued to live there with his 10-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son.

The 10-year-old, a fifth grader, suspected that her stepmother and siblings were dead, the police said. But she continued to attend school and not discuss the situation for fear that she could endanger herself and her 2-year-old brother.

Officials at McClintock Middle School in Charlotte called the Chapmans' home when Na'Jhae, an eighth grader, did not show up for class. A school spokeswoman declined to give any details of the call.On Thursday, new details emerged about other warning signs of the family's troubles. Mecklenburg County Youth and Family Services said that it received a telephone referral about the family on Sept. 21. A department spokesman declined to give details about the call but said the information did not meet the legal definition for abuse or neglect or indicate that a child was in danger.

Two calls were made to 911 about the family: one by a friend of Mr. Chapman's, on March 19, and one by Nateesha Chapman's uncle, at about 11:15 Monday night.

The friend told the police on March 19 that he was concerned about a Facebook posting that indicated that Mr. Chapman might be suicidal, according to a police spokesman, Rob Tufano said. The friend said Mr. Chapman had told him to “check the news in a few days.”

An officer went to the family's old apartment about 6:30 p.m. that day. All the lights were out and no one answered the door, Mr. Tufano said. The officer returned later, but no one answered the door.

On Monday night, Nateesha Chapman's uncle asked the police to check on his niece, whom he had tried to reach several times in the past two weeks. When officers went to the family's new apartment, the 10-year-old girl and 2-year-old boy ran from the home.

Hours later, guided by information from the girl, the police went to the family's old apartment and found Ms. Chapman's body.

The Chapmans moved to Charlotte from Martinsburg, W.Va., about a year ago to be closer to Ms. Chapman's relatives and to benefit from a better economy, friends said.

“Up here it seemed like everything was all right,” said Solomon Wright, a neighbor in West Virginia who taught Na'Jhae, the 13-year-old, and her 10-year-old sister in school. “I never saw the evil. That's what troubles me the most. I didn't see it. If I had, maybe I could have helped.”

At McClintock Middle School in Charlotte this week, students decorated Na'Jhae's locker with flowers. On Thursday, teenagers marched through Charlotte's Uptown area to raise awareness of domestic violence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/us/02charlotte.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From the White House

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Seniors Can Rest Assured

Throughout the health care reform debate, we've seen opponents of reform come out in full force to misrepresent how this legislation will affect the American people. For months they have been targeting seniors---trying to deceive them into thinking that the President's plan will reduce their guaranteed benefits. This is simply untrue. Under the new health reform law, no guaranteed Medicare benefits will be cut.  Here is the real truth:  The new health reform law will lower costs for seniors while improving the quality of care. That's why seniors groups like AARP strongly support the new law . Let's take a look at some of the key benefits for seniors:

• Under the new health reform law health care reform, seniors will get relief from exorbitant prescription drug costs that millions face when reach the gap in coverage known as the doughnut hole. This year, Medicare beneficiaries will get a $250 rebate if they hit this doughnut hole. And next year, they will receive a 50% discount on brand-name drugs in the donut hole.  By 2020, the prescription drug donut hole will be completely closed.  As AARP noted in its statement yesterday, “by completely closing the doughnut hole, people in Medicare Part D thankfully no longer have to make the tough decision to either pay bills or split pills.”
  
  
• Right now, seniors pay up to 20 percent of the cost of many of their preventive services. But next year, thanks to health reform, Medicare beneficiaries will receive free preventive care and annual wellness checkups at no cost.
  
  
• Reform will strengthen the financial health of Medicare through the elimination of waste and fraud, and by ending overpayments to private insurance companies. Through reform, unwarranted subsidies to private health plans will be reduced. Medicare's guaranteed benefits will be protected.
  
  
• Seniors will see their care improve as we move to a system where providers are rewarded based on the quality of their care. With these changes, physicians and hospitals will be incentivized to reduce medical errors and coordinate care to keep people healthy.
  

So, while opponents of reform try to distort the facts and spread fear, seniors can rest assured that their coverage will be more comprehensive and more affordable as a result of health reform. 

Linda Douglass is with the White House Office of Health Reform

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/04/01/seniors-can-rest-assured

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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Advanced Imaging Technology - Yes, It's Worth It

ATLANTA - Francisco Cortes-Meza, 26, of Mexico, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Richard W. Story in the Northern District of Georgia for sex trafficking in an organization that targeted young Mexican women.

Thomas E. Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division, said, “This defendant preyed on vulnerable women who dreamed of a better life in the United States. Individuals who force women into prostitution commit a heinous crime that will not be tolerated. The Department of Justice is committed to holding accountable traffickers who seek to profit at the expense of the freedom, rights and dignity of others.” 

U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia Sally Quillian Yates said, “Prosecuting human trafficking cases is a priority for the U.S. Attorney's Office with the dual goals of punishing the traffickers and protecting the victims.  Traffickers often prey upon those who may be vulnerable due to their immigration status, unfamiliarity with our legal system, or fear of law enforcement.  Every victim of this heinous crime is protected by the laws of the United States, regardless of their citizenship status, and should not fear coming forward to report this criminal abuse. ”

“While we cannot undo the irreparable harm caused to these victims, we hope that today's sentence brings some closure allowing them to heal and move forward,” said Kenneth A. Smith, Special Agent in Charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Atlanta. “Traffickers worldwide are selling terrible lies to young women luring them with promises of a better future. Through prosecutions like this, we are sending the message to traffickers that their crimes will not go unpunished.”

Cortes-Meza was sentenced to 20 years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution to the victim in the amount of $21,000.  Cortes-Meza was convicted of these charges on Dec. 16, 2008 when he entered a guilty plea to one count of sex trafficking by means of force, fraud, or coercion.

According to U.S. Attorney Yates and the information presented in court:

From Spring 2006 through June 2008, Cortes-Meza, and others charged in the conspiracy, recruited and enticed approximately 10 victims to come to the Atlanta area from Mexico to engage in prostitution for the financial benefit of the members of the alleged conspiracy. Often the conspirators would lure the women to the U.S. by promising better lives, legitimate employment or romantic relationships with the defendants.  Drivers collected the victims from the homes where they lived with the defendants in Norcross and drove them to apartments and homes where paying clients waited for commercial sex. 

Specifically, Cortes-Meza lured one young woman to the United States under the false pretense that she would find a job in a restaurant. Cortes-Meza paid smugglers to bring the victim to the United States. Once she was here, Cortes-Meza compelled her to engage in commercial sex acts with 30-40 men every night, and to give him the money she collected. The evidence in the case showed Cortes-Meza controlled the victim's daily life and was physically violent with her.

The Department of Justice has identified human trafficking prosecutions such as this one as a top priority in the Department. In order to bring defendants to justice, victims of crime may be eligible for immigration status in the United States to assist in the prosecution.  Three women testified today at the sentencing hearing for Cortes-Meza, and spoke of physical threats, beatings and intimidation, forcing the victim to work as a prostitute, and that she was not allowed to speak to anyone. NOTE: The Department of Homeland Security Tip Line to report trafficking crimes is 1-866-347-2423. 

This case was investigated by Special Agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Coppedge and Trial Attorney Karima Maloney of the Civil Rights Division's Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit prosecuted the case.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/April/10-crt-361.html

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Civil Rights Era Cold Case Investigations Continue

The following post appears courtesy of the Civil Rights Division.

In 1955, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy, was sent by his mother to live with family in Mississippi.  What would later unfold was a major event that sparked our nation's Civil Rights Movement.  After interacting with a white woman, Till was abducted and brutally murdered by two men who confessed to the crime after they were acquitted of murder charges.  Double jeopardy prohibited the state from retrying the defendants, so both of the now-deceased perpetrators managed to elude justice. 

In recognition of the significance of these events, Congress passed the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007 to task the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and the FBI with reviewing, investigating and assessing for prosecutive merit more than 100 unsolved civil rights era homicides.

Reflecting on the importance of these cold case investigations, Attorney General Eric Holder said:

The Department of Justice fully supports the goals of the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007.  Unsolved, racially-motivated murders from the civil rights era are a stain on our nation's history, but they are also an opportunity for us to demonstrate our commitment to the principle of equal justice for all. I am personally committed to this issue, and I assure you that the Department of Justice will lend its assistance, expertise, and resources to the investigation and, when possible, the prosecution of these tragic murders.

The Civil Rights Division, the United States Attorneys' offices, and the FBI, have worked diligently to assess whether more than 100 pending cold case matters can be prosecuted, and they are continuing their efforts. Often, there are significant obstacles to prosecuting crimes committed decades ago. Witnesses may have died, or they may be impossible to locate. Memories may have faded; evidence may have been lost or destroyed.

But while the passage of time may have created obstacles to prosecution in some cases, experience has shown that time may have removed obstacles in others. Perhaps a citizen who was once too afraid to provide information will now step forward and tell what he or she knows. Perhaps someone who has suffered a guilty conscience for many years will find the courage to relieve himself of that burden. Perhaps someone will simply decide that it is long past time to help right a terrible wrong. We know from other cold case investigations that brave citizens telling their truth for the first time can make a prosecution possible.

I strongly urge anyone with information concerning a civil rights era murder to contact the FBI. The time to come forward is now. If we work together, perhaps we can uncover the truth while there is still a chance to bring the criminals who perpetrated these vile murders to justice.

The Justice Department has conducted extensive outreach to investigate and resolve these unsolved cold cases.  Our cold case initiative has yielded major accomplishments.

Earlier this month, a federal appeals Court upheld the 2007 conviction of James Ford Seale, a reputed Klu Klux Klansman, in the kidnapping and killing of Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee in 1964.  The Court upheld Seale's conviction by a jury in a trial prosecuted by Justice Department officials 43 years after the murders.  Read the Court's opinion, here .

Because of legal limitations, it is unlikely that there will be federal jurisdiction over most of these cases.  Two critical statutes used to prosecute racially motivated homicides, interference with federally protected activities and interference with housing rights, were not enacted until 1968.  Under the Ex Post Facto Clause of the Constitution, these laws cannot be applied retroactively to conduct that preceded their enactment.  The five-year statute of limitations on most federal criminal charges is another challenge for prosecutors.

Department officials have also engaged the community, including civil rights groups like the NAACP, Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Cold Case Truth and Justice Project to enlist help in identifying potential cases and uncovering information.  The Department is committed to bringing these cases when possible. 

Our review of these cases will be exhaustive and thorough.  If we are able to bring a sense of closure to these cases, to bring justice in any form to the families of the victims of these horrific crimes in memory of Emmett Till, it will be worth the effort.

http://blogs.usdoj.gov/blog/archives/665

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From the ATF

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$25,000 Reward Offered for Information in Suspicious Device Incidents in East Texas

ATF and Postal Inspectors Seek Public'S Help

Tyler, Texas — Robert R. Champion, Special Agent in Charge for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ( ATF ) and Randall C. Till, Fort Worth Division Inspector in Charge for the United States Postal Inspection Service announced today a reward up to $25,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for placing suspicious devices throughout the East Texas area. Numerous of these devices have been placed in blue United States Postal Service collection boxes. The suspicious items have been incendiary-style devices as well as devices that resemble pipe bombs. These incidents have occurred in the counties of Smith, Rusk, Gregg, Harrison, and Panola.

Anyone with information regarding suspicious activity around blue collection boxes or the person(s) responsible for these acts can contact the Postal Inspection Service's East Texas Tip Line at (817) 359-2719, or the toll-free number (877) 876-2455, option 2.

http://www.atf.gov/press/releases/2010/03/033110-dal-reward-offered-in-texas-incidents.html

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