Immigration agency targets upscale San Diego restaurant

Federal officials hope the prosecution of Michel Malecot, owner of San Diego's French Gourmet, will deter other employers from knowingly hiring undocumented workers. Malecot has pleaded not guilty.

By Richard Marosi and Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times

May 25, 2010

Reporting from San Diego

In this palm-lined seaside neighborhood, Michel Malecot is known for dishing out the tasty baguettes, pastries and wedding cakes that have made his French Gourmet restaurant a fixture for 31 years.

But when federal authorities raided his eatery, they discovered that his recipe for success included a staff of illegal immigrant workers from Mexico — pastry chefs, bakers and cake decorators, some of whom had worked the ovens for 15 years.

The chef, popular in San Diego catering and philanthropic circles, was indicted last month on 12 felony counts of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

The indictment reflects a new approach by federal authorities as they crack down on the hiring of illegal immigrants in the United States. After years of conducting sweeps of undocumented laborers, the federal government is now focusing more on the employers who knowingly hire them.

Malecot, 52, has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he could face a maximum of five years in prison per count and a $250,000 fine per count. The government is also seeking to seize the restaurant, which includes the bakery and a catering business as well as a neighboring building owned by Malecot, saying the property should be forfeited because it was used in a crime.

The indictment charges that Malecot and his manager, Richard Kauffman, 51, knowingly hired illegal immigrants for several years, even after being notified that the workers' Social Security numbers were false.

A gregarious man who built his business after emigrating from France, Malecot said that he's a "stickler on paperwork" and that the undocumented workers represented a tiny fraction of the hundreds he has employed over the years. "We're just regular guys trying to make a living," he said in an interview at his restaurant, which has remained open since the raid.

His lawyer criticizes the government's effort to seize the restaurant. "The forfeiture laws are made for crack and methamphetamine [cases], not crème brûlée," said attorney Eugene Iredale.

But the government's strategy seems to have accomplished one of its goals — using a high-profile case to warn other businesses that they, too, could be hit. In San Diego, the French Gourmet case has generated extensive media coverage.

"Even a small amount of concerted, uniform enforcement can get a lot of attention — and it has," said John Morton, chief of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "Individual cases get a lot of attention. And we are doing this across the country in every state in the nation, calmly, methodically and with purpose."

The strategy contrasts sharply with that of the Bush administration, which conducted highly publicized work-site raids — with armed immigration agents — that led to the arrest and deportation of thousands of illegal workers but few criminal prosecutions of employers.

Obama called those raids ineffective and criticized them for dividing families and not holding employers accountable for creating a magnet for illegal crossers.

Experts said it's too early to gauge whether the strategy, which began last year, will truly deter the hiring of illegal immigrants. But many businesses appear to be doing more avoid being targeted. About 1,400 new businesses each week join E-Verify, a voluntary electronic program that checks whether new hires are authorized to work in the U.S. Nearly 17,000 employers in California and 204,000 nationwide are enrolled.

Federal officials are turning to some other familiar tactics, most notably the use of use of audits to check for illegal workers. Since July, the government has notified more than 1,600 companies nationwide of plans to audit their records. Hundreds of inspections are ongoing.

In fiscal year 2010, which ends in September, the agency fined 109 companies a total of about $3 million, up from $675,00 in fines against 18 companies in fiscal year 2008. And so far this fiscal year, 65 employers have been arrested, compared to 135 in all of 2008.

Immigration attorney Josie Gonzalez said her clients take note when other employers get arrested. "It is pretty scary," she said. "No. 1, someone could go to jail, and No. 2 … you are looking at your life earnings going down the drain and all your property and goods being seized by the government."

In January, authorities charged the owner of an Ohio-based Mexican restaurant chain with hiring dozens of illegal immigrants and paying them in cash to avoid paying the required taxes. The next month, agents arrested a owner of a Chinese restaurant in Hanover, Md., for allegedly employing illegal immigrants and housing them at a place she owned.

The case against French Gourmet seemed designed to make a lasting impression. On the morning of the initial raid in May 2008, teams of federal agents descended on tranquil Turquoise Street, blocking streets and alleys before raiding the bakery and whisking away 18 handcuffed immigrants.

The concentrated law enforcement presence was a sight to behold in the neighborhood dotted with surfer bars, yoga studios and clothing boutiques. "That was a day to remember.... You would have thought they caught Bin Laden," said one local businessman, who declined to be identified because he didn't want to draw attention to his business.

The chef's case has become somewhat of a cause celebre for some residents and customers in the affluent neighborhood between La Jolla and Pacific Beach. Customers have been pouring into his restaurant, and many have sent letters of support. Malecot is well known for donating food to charities, including law enforcement, military and medical aid groups.

John Reece, 75, sitting in the Veterans of Foreign Wars banquet hall down the street, said stricter enforcement of immigration laws is necessary and somebody has to be the example. But Reece said the government shouldn't seize the eatery, especially given the number of empty storefronts and struggling businesses in the area.

"Taking his business would do more damage than good," he said.

Besides, Malecot's skills would be missed, said Claudia Woodward, 58, a culinary student. "He's got good food," she said.

If the goal was to send a message, it worked, said some businessmen. The nearby owner who complained of heavy-handed tactics said he worries about coming under scrutiny for inadvertently hiring an illegal immigrant who uses false documents. "You don't want to open your door and be surrounded by ICE agents," he said.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/immigration/la-me-imm-gourmet-20100525,0,792400,print.story

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Customer stuck with counterfeit money from the post office

After cashing a postal money order, David Lipin tried using one of the eight $100 bills at the gas station and was nearly arrested. Even the Secret Service couldn't help him replace the bogus bills.

David Lazarus

May 25, 2010

A business inadvertently gives you counterfeit money — are you stuck with it? In most cases, yes. But what if that business happens to be a branch of the federal government?

Los Angeles resident David Lipin found himself asking this question the other day after he cashed a $1,000 Postal Service money order at a West Hollywood post office.

He said the postal worker handed him 10 $20 bills and eight $100 bills.

Lipin, 43, said he then stopped at a nearby gas station to fill his tank. He tried to pay with one of his new $100 bills.

"The clerk took a close look at it and said it was fake," Lipin told me. "Then she looked at some of the other $100 bills. She said they were fake too, and she called the police."

Alarmed, Lipin phoned a lawyer friend. At his friend's urging, he too called the Los Angeles Police Department to report that he'd been given bogus bills. "I wanted it very clear that I was a victim and not someone trying to pawn off some counterfeit dollars," Lipin said.

The cops arrived at the gas station and inspected the cash. They shook their heads.

"The police said the $100 bills were actually $5 bills that had been bleached and altered," Lipin recalled. "They showed me how you could hold them up to the light and see Abraham Lincoln's face. All eight turned out to be counterfeit."

So now what? The police took a report but said they couldn't do anything. They suggested that Lipin try the L.A. County Sheriff's Department, which serves West Hollywood.

A sheriff's deputy also said they couldn't do much and suggested he try the Secret Service. So did the post office when Lipin returned to the same branch that had given him the funny money.

"We don't have anything in our regulations to address this," said Richard Maher, a spokesman for the Postal Service.

He added that even though Lipin has a receipt showing he cashed his money order at the post office, it's impossible to verify that he received the bogus bills in the transaction. "What if he got them after he left the post office?" Maher asked.

The Secret Service was sympathetic toward Lipin's situation. But an agent basically told him he was out of luck. Unless an investigation turned up a counterfeiting mastermind, the buck would stop with Lipin.

"Unfortunately, counterfeit money is like a hot potato," said Wayne Williams, deputy special agent in charge of the Secret Service's L.A. office. "Whoever ends up with it last is the victim."

Well, yes, but Lipin got his bogus cash from the U.S. Postal Service, redeeming a Postal Service money order. Shouldn't Uncle Sam bear some responsibility?

"Not really," Williams replied. "The post office operates as a business. It takes in money from customers. Postal workers don't really have special equipment or training to spot counterfeit bills. Unless they're in on it, this isn't their responsibility."

So Lipin is hosed?

"He's hosed."

Williams advised anyone who receives questionable cash to stop by a bank and ask what the money pros have to say. If a bill is indeed counterfeit, contact the Secret Service and turn it in to authorities. Maybe they'll be able to find out where it came from, maybe not.

And don't try and be clever by spending the bogus bill elsewhere — passing the hot potato to someone else, as it were.

"If you tried to cash a bill you were told was fake, you could be arrested," Williams warned.

We're talking a felony, by the way, punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20100525,0,4471450,print.column

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About 45 million Americans don't use seat belts, U.S. Department of Transportation reports

The government says about 45 million Americans are not buckling up in their cars.

The Transportation Department released its estimate of seat belt use on Monday as it kicked off the annual Click It or Ticket campaign. The department says about 84% of motorists wear seat belts, an all-time high.

But Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says thousands of motorists are still dying each year because they don't buckle up. He says an average of 38 unbelted people a day are killed in motor vehicle crashes.

The Click It or Ticket campaign will run through June 6. More than 10,000 police agencies will enforce seat belt laws. The message will be reinforced with $8 million in national advertising.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dcnow/2010/05/45-million-americans-do-not-use-seat-belts-government-says.html

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U.S. crime rate continues to fall

Violent crime in the United States fell 5.5% last year, and property crime fell 4.9%, the FBI reported on Monday.

The federal statistics, compiled from 13,237 law enforcement agencies, show that violent crime fell for a third consecutive year, and property crime was down for the seventh year. The federal numbers are considered preliminary and will updated depending on what local agencies report.

The federal analysis shows that all four categories of violent crime -- robbery, murder, aggravated assault and forcible rape – were down from 2008. All four regions of the country showed a decline, with the South leading the way with a 6.6% fall, followed by 5.6% in the West, 4.6% in the Midwest and 3.5% in the Northeast.

Big cities, those with a population of 500,000 to 999,999, had the largest decrease in violent crime – 7.5%. Non-metropolitan counties had the smallest decrease, 3%.

Murders, the violent crime that generally gets the most attention from the media, were down 7.2%. Cities with a population of 25,000 to 49,999 were the only urban category to have an increase in murders, 5.3%. Non-metropolitan counties also had an increase, 1.8%.

On the property side, the nation's biggest cities, those with a populations of at least 1-million people, reported the greatest decrease, 7.9%. Non-metropolitan counties were the only group to report an increase in property crime:  0.5%.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/dcnow/2010/05/us-crime-continues-to-fall.html

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Dealing with dementia

Alzheimer's and other such diseases are on the increase, but there's no consensus on what can be done to prevent cognitive decline.

Martha L. Daviglus

May 25, 2010

Americans are living longer. That's the good news. The bad news is that the longer people live, the more likely they are to experience cognitive decline.

With the number of older Americans increasing, researchers around the country have thrown themselves into searching for ways to stave off mental decline, and the media stand ready to report every seeming breakthrough. Headlines have trumpeted such things as doing crossword puzzles, taking vitamin supplements, exercise and even drinking more red wine as possible ways of averting Alzheimer's disease and other kinds of dementia. But so far, there's no proof that any of them works.

Last month, the National Institutes of Health convened a State-of-the-Science Conference to evaluate and summarize current scientific evidence on preventing cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease. The independent panel, which I chaired, concluded that rigorous studies have not yet conclusively demonstrated the value of any preventive measure for maintaining cognitive health, nor for delaying the onset or reducing the severity of Alzheimer's disease. The current state of knowledge about the natural history of Alzheimer's disease and about the aging process, together with inconsistent and varying definitions of Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline, have hampered our understanding of what increases the risk of these conditions and how they may be prevented.

The fear that drives people to try to stave off Alzheimer's disease is understandable. This illness, which accounts for an estimated 60% to 80% of all dementia, robs people of their memories, their reasoning abilities and their personalities. Damage to the brain is progressive and leads ultimately to death. With an estimated 5.1 million Americans suffering from the disease, most of us have firsthand experience with its devastating effects. Alzheimer's disease is the fifth-leading cause of death in Americans age 65 and older, and the cost of this and other dementias in the United States is more than $148 billion annually. With the baby boom generation nearing retirement age, those numbers are likely to increase.

But it's important to remember that for most people, cognitive performance remains relatively stable over their lifetime, with only a gradual decline in memory and processing speed. For others, this cognitive decline progresses to problems with memory, language or other essential cognitive functions that are severe enough to be noticed by others but not severe enough to interfere with daily life. In most people, this mild cognitive impairment does not progress to dementia. Dementia is the progressive deterioration of multiple aspects of cognitive ability including memory and at least one additional area — learning, orientation, language, comprehension or judgment — that is severe enough to interfere with daily life.

So what is our understanding of what causes dementia and how to prevent it? At present, age is the strongest known risk factor for Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline. There is also evidence that diabetes mellitus, smoking, depression and a particular inherited variation of the ApoE gene are associated with higher risk of Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline. Our panel reviewed many studies of lifestyle factors but concluded that so far, they show only weak or inconsistent associations. Studies examining the value of herbal and dietary supplements (including vitamins B, E and C, folate and beta-carotene), diet, physical activity and prescription and nonprescription drugs did not show any consistent benefit. There are other reasons, of course, to consume diets low in saturated fat and high in vegetable intake, and there is limited evidence that exercise may help preserve cognitive function. But although the panel believes that further study is warranted, these factors haven't yet been proved to prevent dementia.

The panel also identified gaps in scientific knowledge and made several recommendations for future research, such as the need for large, long-term, population-based studies using agreed-upon diagnostic criteria to characterize dementia and cognitive decline. It also called for the establishment of registries for Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline, similar to those that exist for cancer. It will take considerable time and resources to conclusively identify factors that can modify risk and to recommend preventive measures based on firm scientific evidence.

With carefully designed future studies based on consistent definitions of diagnoses, we may one day have more answers. Until then, the best advice is to live a physically and mentally active healthy lifestyle, stay aware of well-known major risk factors for chronic diseases and avoid spending money on products with little or no proven benefit.

Martha L. Daviglus is a physician and professor of preventive medicine and gerontology at Northwestern University. She chaired the NIH State-of-the-Science Conference's Preventing Alzheimer's Disease and Cognitive Decline Panel. The panel's report as well as panelist bios and other resources are available at http://consensus.nih.gov/2010/alz.htm .

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-daviglus-20100525,0,823468,print.story

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Mideast peace is a global issue

Previous reconciliation efforts fell on deaf ears, feeding the fanaticism that now plagues the world, says Saad Hariri. The time for arbitration may be at hand.

by Saad Hariri

May 25, 2010

In the fall of 1991, I was an undergraduate student at Georgetown University, following the coverage of the Madrid peace conference. In the Spanish capital, the United States had managed to gather Arabs and Israelis around a table with the aim of ending what was then half a century of war and desperation, whose first victims were the people of the region, including the people of my country, Lebanon.

As I prepared to make my first official visit to Washington as prime minister of Lebanon, I couldn't help but reflect on the price the entire word has paid since the Madrid conference failed to bring peace to the Middle East and justice to the Palestinians.

Back in 1991, Al Qaeda and its offshoots and emulators simply did not exist. But fanaticism and terrorism fed on the rage, frustration and tragedy that have replaced the failed peace. It has proved too easy to find desperate people who will do desperate things, and extremists have gained an ever-growing audience among Arabs and Muslims by asking one question: What have the moderates, the defenders of a negotiated settlement, ever achieved?

The sad answer is, nothing. Let no one be fooled: It is not that moderates — the overwhelming majority of Arabs and Muslims — have not tried. In 2002, representatives of the world's 300 million Arabs signed a peace initiative at a summit in Beirut. It offered peace to Israel in exchange for a Palestinian state and Israel's withdrawal to pre-1967 borders and the return of occupied Syrian and Lebanese land. This initiative was also adopted by the member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, which represents the world's Muslims, 1.3 billion people.

But the Arab peace initiative fell on deaf ears. The result was more war, more violence and more death, fostering more rage, frustration and despair. And now I can almost hear the heinous criminal minds that orchestrated terrorist attacks in New York, London and Madrid telling us all, "If you liked the past 20 years, you're going to love the next 20!"

Mideast peace is now a global problem. And global problems call for global solutions and global leadership. Today this leadership responsibility falls primarily on the United States. President Obama understands well that extremism feeds on injustice. He also recognizes that despair can be exploited to serve sinister agendas. We applaud his determination to restore credibility to the Middle East peace process.

This effort should not be allowed to fail. And that means the time may soon come — I believe we don't have much time left — when it will be necessary to move from mediation to arbitration. Two possible forums for arbitration are the U.N. Security Council and the so-called quartet of Middle East peacemakers — the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. The United States is the foremost power in both. The key would be that the terms of the final status settlement be defined by an arbiter if the two sides fail to agree. Reaching a settlement in this manner may carry risks, but the cost of continued failure is much greater.

The parameters of a sustainable peace settlement between Palestinians and Israelis, as well as between Israel and the Arab and Muslim worlds, are well established. Successive governments in Israel have turned a blind eye to those parameters, with the mistaken belief that military superiority can bring security. It does not. It only gives birth to new forms of militant extremism, which threaten us all.

As prime minister of Lebanon, it is my duty to shield my country as regional tensions increase and threats become louder. Lebanon's population may constitute only 1% of the Arab world, but our unique diversity of faiths and our traditional role as a beacon of hope, tolerance, democracy and coexistence in our region give Lebanon a special significance and an impact far wider than its borders.

In the end, it is my strong conviction that real security can come only if the main sources of tension and conflict in the region are removed. This is the message I have brought with me to Washington.

Saad Hariri is the prime minister of Lebanon. He met with President Obama on Monday.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-hariri-arbitration-20100525,0,5729348,print.story

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Arizona's Anglo insecurity

The state's anti-immigrant mood grounded in cultural insecurity.

by Gregory Rodriguez

May 24, 2010

It's easy to assume that Arizona has become the epicenter in the battle against illegal immigration primarily because it has one of the highest percentages of undocumented migrants of any state in the union. But that's just half the story behind the fear many white Arizonans evidently feel.

Arizona is something of a transient culture. "Post-ethnic" white transplants drove its population growth — particularly in recent decades — newcomers who had long since passed through the crucible of suburbanization and left behind the "home country" identities of their forebears. The leap by these Midwesterners or Californians to Arizona was another step beyond that.

What they found when they arrived (mostly to the hot emptiness of Phoenix), was not much in the way of Anglo culture. Earlier migrations didn't spring from the kind of foundational events, like California's Gold Rush or Texas' Alamo heroics, that made for distinctive Americana. And instead of truly engaging whatever was there, they adopted a veneer of real and imagined local color.

By the late 20th century, white Arizonans had perfected a style critics dubbed "Taco Deco," "Mariachi Moderne" or simply "Refried Architecture" — that faux Spanish colonial architecture with arches, tiles and the bougainvillea climbing everywhere (Southern California has its share too). According to Phoenix architecture critic Lawrence Cheek, in the Valley of the Sun, "The farther you move away from the Hispanic neighborhoods of central and south Phoenix, the more refried architecture you see. The style has been coopted not by the people who could legitimately claim it as their heritage — they tend toward Middle American tract homes — but by itinerant gringos in search of a heritage…."

Faux Native American culture is another part of the Arizona aesthetic. I know a fancy spa in Scottsdale that has a tepee in the back where a shaman leads meditation sessions. (Never mind that tepees were used by Plains Indians far from the Southwest.) In some parts of town, you can't shake a stick without hitting mass-produced Kachina dolls, wrought-iron Kokopellis welded by hippie sculptors, and Indian jewelry that isn't made by Indians.

None of this should be mistaken for genuine cross-pollination or healthy race relations. On the one hand, it demonstrates the Anglo newcomers' desire to acquire the trappings of ethnicity. On the other, it suggests how comfortable they are commodifying and consuming less influential cultures.

And make no mistake, the coming of Anglos meant the delegitimizing of other cultures in the Arizona Territory. In the early 1900s, during Arizona's struggle for statehood, its representatives had to prove to Washington that it was, in essence, white enough to enter the union.

Because of the large presence of non-Anglos, Indiana Sen. Albert Beveridge, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Territories, argued that the federal government should view Arizona as it would an overseas possession. To avoid its becoming like "the Negro section of the South," he wanted Arizona to be managed the same way as the Philippines.

To counter such bias, proponents of statehood assured Washington that Anglo transplants dominated the territory politically and culturally. In 1902, congressional delegate Mark Smith declared that what made Arizona different from — read: more worthy than — New Mexico was that most people in the territory were non-natives: They came "fully grown from the different states of the union."

When it was time to write a constitution, this logic was made explicit, and non-Anglos were relegated to second-class status. The struggle for statehood had honed a clear notion of what constituted the preferred Arizonan. As historian Eric V. Meeks has written, "Racial inequality was not simply an unfortunate corollary to full statehood; it was built into the very identity of Arizona from its inception."

The echoes of that resound in the state's adoption of a "present your papers" law, as well as its ban of voluntary K-12 ethnic studies. It's hard not to see the whole outburst as a simple expression of white cultural insecurity. And 98 years after the territory became a state, the nasty campaign against illegal immigrants suggests that Anglo Arizonans' identity is still driven less by who they are than by who they are not.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rodriguez-arizona-20100524,0,4185245,print.column

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EDITORIAL

The Supreme Court on punishing sex offenders

In a recent ruling, the high court failed to clarify the law on civil commitment of sex offenders.

May 25, 2010

Whether sex offenders can be detained even after they have completed their sentences is an important question that pits individual rights against public safety. But when the Supreme Court ruled last week on a federal law allowing such confinement, it didn't address that basic issue. It should do so in a future case.

The court's decision involved appeals by four convicted sex offenders and one defendant who was declared mentally unfit to stand trial. They originally argued that they had been denied due process because the government only proved that they were dangerous by "clear and convincing evidence," as compared to the higher standard in criminal cases of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The court, in its decision, focused only on the issue of whether Congress could exercise powers not specifically enumerated in the Constitution.

In his majority opinion, Justice Stephen G. Breyer noted that the court failed to address the issue of whether the statute violated prisoners' constitutional rights by requiring that they be held indefinitely even after they had served their criminal sentences. That suggests that the court might revisit a 1997 decision in which it upheld a Kansas law similar to the federal statute. Breyer dissented from that ruling, complaining that the commitment in that case "was not simply an effort to commit [the prisoner] civilly but rather an effort to inflict further punishment on him."

Such laws are not uncommon. With encouragement from the federal government, many states have established civil procedures to commit sex offenders to mental institutions after they finish their criminal sentences. In California, about 800 convicted sex offenders have been civilly committed. No doubt some offenders satisfy the requirements for commitment — a dangerous mental illness that ideally is susceptible to treatment — but we suspect that others do not.

For good reason, sex offenders, especially those who abuse children, are among the most reviled of criminals. In recent years, there has been a welcome recognition that at least some such offenders are incorrigible, a realization that has inspired an array of laws, some better conceived than others, to monitor their movements after they are released.

There is also a place for civil commitment of sex offenders who are proven to be both dangerous and resistant to rehabilitation. But there is a strong temptation to use the civil commitment process as a backdoor way of prolonging a criminal sentence. The Supreme Court should accept an appropriate case to address the question left hanging by last week's decision — whether extending the confinement of a convicted sex offender should require the same level of proof as convicting him in the first place. The answer to that question should be yes.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-offenders-20100525,0,40469,print.story

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EdDITORIAK

France's veil threat

Basically, the measure is simply religious discrimination against Muslims.

May 24, 2010

France, which gave the English language the word "nuance," is offering a nuanced justification for a bill that would outlaw "concealment of the face in public." According to President Nicolas Sarkozy, the proposed measure should not be seen as an act of hostility toward Muslim women, only a small fraction of whom wear the full-face veil. Rather, the bill is designed to protect "personal dignity, particularly women's dignity," and the openness required of citizens in a republic.

This rationalization, however, needlessly complicates a simple reality. Banning the veil, even if justified on the grounds of assimilation, civility or women's emancipation, is an act of religious discrimination.

Those who would be subject to the $185 fine would be almost exclusively Muslim women, who believe they are honoring a religious dictate. Yet for living by their faith, they would be subject not only to that penalty but also to demands by police that they remove the veil and identify themselves (a scenario that will sound familiar to Americans who have followed the controversy over Arizona's notorious immigration law).

Like Switzerland's recent ban on minarets, this legislation is a response to Muslim immigration and a reflection of Europe's unease with some cultural expressions of Islamic culture. But just as the presence of minarets amid the Alps interferes with no one's rights, the same is true of women who veil themselves in public. (The argument that veils could allow criminals to conceal themselves is far-fetched.)

In justifying the ban, Sarkozy appealed to the French tradition of laicite , a term that connotes a stricter separation of church and state and a more secular society than is mandated by the U.S. Constitution or found in other democracies.

But to the extent that laicite allows for blatant discrimination against religious practice, it is incompatible with Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says that everyone "has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."

Assimilating Islamic immigrants has been a challenge for several European countries, one that Americans sometimes minimize. It is also true that a minority of Muslims may reject the idea of pluralism and religious tolerance. But those very values argue against overreactions like the proposed ban on the wearing of veils, Sarkozy's elegant explanation notwithstanding. France's Parliament should reject the ban.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-veils-20100524,0,1639746,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Many Faiths, One Truth

WHEN I was a boy in Tibet, I felt that my own Buddhist religion must be the best — and that other faiths were somehow inferior. Now I see how naïve I was, and how dangerous the extremes of religious intolerance can be today.

Though intolerance may be as old as religion itself, we still see vigorous signs of its virulence. In Europe, there are intense debates about newcomers wearing veils or wanting to erect minarets and episodes of violence against Muslim immigrants. Radical atheists issue blanket condemnations of those who hold to religious beliefs. In the Middle East, the flames of war are fanned by hatred of those who adhere to a different faith.

Such tensions are likely to increase as the world becomes more interconnected and cultures, peoples and religions become ever more entwined. The pressure this creates tests more than our tolerance — it demands that we promote peaceful coexistence and understanding across boundaries.

Granted, every religion has a sense of exclusivity as part of its core identity. Even so, I believe there is genuine potential for mutual understanding. While preserving faith toward one's own tradition, one can respect, admire and appreciate other traditions.

An early eye-opener for me was my meeting with the Trappist monk Thomas Merton in India shortly before his untimely death in 1968. Merton told me he could be perfectly faithful to Christianity, yet learn in depth from other religions like Buddhism. The same is true for me as an ardent Buddhist learning from the world's other great religions.

A main point in my discussion with Merton was how central compassion was to the message of both Christianity and Buddhism. In my readings of the New Testament, I find myself inspired by Jesus' acts of compassion. His miracle of the loaves and fishes, his healing and his teaching are all motivated by the desire to relieve suffering.

I'm a firm believer in the power of personal contact to bridge differences, so I've long been drawn to dialogues with people of other religious outlooks. The focus on compassion that Merton and I observed in our two religions strikes me as a strong unifying thread among all the major faiths. And these days we need to highlight what unifies us.

Take Judaism, for instance. I first visited a synagogue in Cochin, India, in 1965, and have met with many rabbis over the years. I remember vividly the rabbi in the Netherlands who told me about the Holocaust with such intensity that we were both in tears. And I've learned how the Talmud and the Bible repeat the theme of compassion, as in the passage in Leviticus that admonishes, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

In my many encounters with Hindu scholars in India, I've come to see the centrality of selfless compassion in Hinduism too — as expressed, for instance, in the Bhagavad Gita, which praises those who “delight in the welfare of all beings.” I'm moved by the ways this value has been expressed in the life of great beings like Mahatma Gandhi, or the lesser-known Baba Amte, who founded a leper colony not far from a Tibetan settlement in Maharashtra State in India. There he fed and sheltered lepers who were otherwise shunned. When I received my Nobel Peace Prize, I made a donation to his colony.

Compassion is equally important in Islam — and recognizing that has become crucial in the years since Sept. 11, especially in answering those who paint Islam as a militant faith. On the first anniversary of 9/11, I spoke at the National Cathedral in Washington, pleading that we not blindly follow the lead of some in the news media and let the violent acts of a few individuals define an entire religion.

Let me tell you about the Islam I know. Tibet has had an Islamic community for around 400 years, although my richest contacts with Islam have been in India, which has the world's second-largest Muslim population. An imam in Ladakh once told me that a true Muslim should love and respect all of Allah's creatures. And in my understanding, Islam enshrines compassion as a core spiritual principle, reflected in the very name of God, the “Compassionate and Merciful,” that appears at the beginning of virtually each chapter of the Koran.

Finding common ground among faiths can help us bridge needless divides at a time when unified action is more crucial than ever. As a species, we must embrace the oneness of humanity as we face global issues like pandemics, economic crises and ecological disaster. At that scale, our response must be as one.

Harmony among the major faiths has become an essential ingredient of peaceful coexistence in our world. From this perspective, mutual understanding among these traditions is not merely the business of religious believers — it matters for the welfare of humanity as a whole.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, is the author, most recently, of “Toward a True Kinship of Faiths: How the World's Religions Can Come Together.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/opinion/25gyatso.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1274792610-Yv13gjvpZFxl/RONQpat8Q&pagewanted=print

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Hard Times Spur Ideas for Change

As states around the country gird for another grim budget year, more leaders have begun to talk not of nipping, not of tucking, but, in essence, of turning government upside down and starting over. Ever growing is the list of states, municipalities and agencies with blue ribbon committees aimed at reconsidering what government should be.

A lawmaker in Nebraska this year proposed the unthinkable: Cut by half, or more, the 93 counties that have made up the state for generations. Senators in Indiana, aiming to thin the tangled layers there, want to eliminate the system of more than 1,000 township boards.

And in Missouri, where lawmakers this spring took a day off for a brainstorming session on how to “reboot government,” there is talk of merging the agencies that oversee secondary and higher education, providing incentives to counties for combining services, even turning to a four-day state workweek.

But despite the longest recession since the Great Depression and predictions already of new, gaping deficits in state budgets for at least the next two years, some of the most sweeping notions for overhaul remain just that — notions. And so, as more than a dozen states grapple with next year's budgets, most of which take effect on July 1, many experts say politicians would be wise to do more than merely contemplate significant change — and may soon have little choice.

“We can incrementally hobble and muddle through, or we can stand back and be more strategic,” said Scott D. Pattison, the executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers . “That's the question: whether this will be the time when these ideas actually get carried out, or whether this is going to be a whole lot of reports that sit on a shelf.”

Beyond the immediate financial squeeze, political pressures are growing, too. The jobs of 37 governors are up for grabs in November, so talk of remaking government — eliminating services, merging school districts, shrinking employee costs — has become a refrain.

“We are working essentially off a 1950s, 1960s model” of government and services, said Tom Emmer, a state representative and a Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota, where lawmakers closed a nearly $3 billion projected budget gap in May and are already anticipating a $5 billion hole next year. Mr. Emmer voted against the current budget agreement, explaining in an interview: “You cannot Band-Aid the Good Ship Lollipop. It's time to completely restructure the hull.”

Perhaps, but change — especially eliminating anything — has proven to be politically fraught.

In Georgia, after the House voted to end financing for the state's Council for the Arts, artists, musicians and dancers, some in costume, turned up in the state Capitol. In the end, the 2011 budget gave the council nearly $790,000 — about a third of what it had received this year (and less than was needed to be ensured federal grant money) but still enough to keep it alive.

“Anytime you start changing things, you are playing with people's hearts,” said Rich Pahls , the Nebraska senator who proposed reducing the number of counties — a thought that startled those long accustomed to having their own courthouse and board of supervisors. That arrangement was designed in the days of the horse and buggy, Mr. Pahls said, not a time when, in rural Nebraska, “people will drive 100 miles to the grocery store.”

The proposal got nowhere during this year's legislative session, but Mr. Pahls remains hopeful. “None of this can happen overnight,” he said, “but I think we're almost on the cusp of something now — a tipping point where people are dissatisfied with the way government is working as it is.”

Scott Walker, the county executive of Milwaukee County in Wisconsin — who has, improbably enough, suggested the possibility of eliminating county government — concurs. “It's reached the point where the public is already there,” said Mr. Walker, also a Republican candidate for governor. “Our elected officials need to be willing to take that next step.”

One problem, said Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana, a Republican, is that “people like hanging on to the authority they have.”

A move to abolish township boards in Indiana failed to make its way through the state legislature, and efforts to abolish the office of lieutenant governor in states like Illinois and Louisiana have gained little traction.

Certainly, there are indications that revenues to states are steadying after a long, sharp drop. But experts say the budget picture in many states will remain dark, particularly as federal stimulus money, which some places have leaned on heavily to make up deficits, disappears.

Despite the struggles, there have been some broad changes. In Hawaii, the school year was 17 days shorter than usual (though some there want to restore the old calendar next year). In Massachusetts, a pile of transportation agencies were transformed into one last year.

Other examples are found in smaller places — places where the budget crunch hit hard, like Pewaukee , Wis., a city of 12,000 that found itself with a $1.8 million deficit and the need to replace two broken-down fire trucks. Leaders there decided to close the Police Department in January and sign a contract with the local sheriff's department.

But in a sign of how politically hazardous cutting government can be, some in town clamored to recall the mayor, Scott Klein. Instead, Mr. Klein won re-election last month over an opponent who had promised to reopen the Police Department.

Elsewhere, making over government remains a work in progress. In Missouri, lawmakers agreed to merge the state's water patrol with its highway patrol (saving about $1 million a year) and to stop printing copies of the state's “blue book” guide to politics and statutes (saving $1.7 million). But larger ideas will wait.

Other places may wish to look at Michigan, a state plagued by budget problems long before everywhere else. Since the early 2000s — a period Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm , a Democrat, recalls as “the decade from hell” — the state has shrunk itself. It dropped a quarter of all state departments and 11,000 workers, closed 8 prisons and 10 prison camps, and drastically decreased funds for services like the arts and dental care for adults.

Much of that was accompanied by deep, loud complaint. “People have come to expect that government was going to be a certain way,” Ms. Granholm said, “and we've had to press the reset button on our economy and our government.”

But for those places resistant to change, still hoping to ride out the hard times for a few more years until flush budgets return, Ms. Granholm is skeptical.

“People who don't take advantage of the crisis to cross over to a new model,” she said, “are wasting the crisis.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/us/25remake.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

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South Korea to Designate North as Main Foe

SEOUL, South Korea — President Lee Myung-bak said on Tuesday that he would redesignate North Korea as his country's archenemy, as the South Korean and United States militaries announced plans for major naval exercises in a show of combined force.

South Korea 's relisting of North Korea as its “principal enemy” — a designation dropped during inter-Korean detente in 2004 — symbolizes the shift in South Korean policy toward the North.

On Monday, South Korea cut off trade with North Korea, denied North Korean merchant ships use of its sea lanes and called on the United Nations to censure the North for what it called the deliberate sinking of one of its warships by a North Korean torpedo. Forty-six sailors were killed in the March 26 sinking.

South Korea formally designated North Korea as its “principal enemy” in 1994 after the North threatened to turn Seoul into a “sea of fire” during the height of an international crisis over its development of nuclear weapons.

But that designation, renewed in the South's Defense White Paper every other year, was dropped in 2004, the same year the two Koreas also suspended propaganda broadcasts across their border. The 2010 paper was due out in October.

“In the past 10 years, we have failed to establish the concept of principal enemy,” Mr. Lee told a meeting of senior advisers for his government on Tuesday, referring to the Sunshine Policy of cultivating reconciliation with the North by his two liberal predecessors, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun . “We have ignored the very danger under our feet.”

Tensions between the Koreas escalated after the sinking of the vessel and after Mr. Lee's pledges to make North Korea “pay a price.”

The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il , whose government has threatened an “all-out war” against any sanctions, has ordered his military and reserve forces to be ready for war, said an organization of North Korean defectors on Tuesday. Last Thursday, when the South formally accused the North of torpedoing its ship, a senior North Korean general relayed Mr. Kim's order through a broadcast to intercoms fitted at most North Korean homes, said North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, a Web site based in Seoul and run by North Korean defectors.

The news caused the main stock index in Seoul to drop more than 3 percent in early trading. The South Korean won also weakened sharply.

The ruffles in the financial markets indicated that investors, already shaken by financial trouble in the euro zone, were seriously monitoring the current phase of tension-raising on the divided Korean Peninsula.

The exile group said it learned of the order from sources inside the North.

“We do not hope for war but if South Korea, with the U.S. and Japan on its back, tries to attack us, it's Chairman Kim Jong-il's order to finish the task of unifying the fatherland, which was left undone” during the Korean War, the group quoted the instruction as saying.

It said the North Korean authorities were also mobilizing outdoor rallies of reserve soldiers under the slogan of “Retaliation for retaliation! All-out war for all-out war!” Those mobilized were ordered to wear their military uniforms.

Seoul officials could not immediately confirm the report. During periods of tension with the outside world, the Pyongyang regime has often mobilized huge outdoor rallies. It uses such rallies to strike fear of the outside world into its impoverished people and to popular support around Mr. Kim, analysts said.

With Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calling the Korea situation “highly precarious,” the Pentagon and South Korea announced they would soon conduct joint naval exercises, including antisubmarine drills in the Yellow Sea.

On Monday evening, South Korea resumed its “Voice of Freedom” radio broadcasts directed at the North Korean people. It broadcast a South Korean pop song by a girl band, boasted the South's economic prosperity and belittled the North Korean government for failing to feed its people.

Soldiers were also rebuilding loudspeaker systems along the border to bombard the front line North Korean soldiers and villages with the same broadcasts. The North, expected to do the same, warned that it might shell those tools of “psychological war.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/world/asia/26korea.html?ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Jamaica Cops Attack Drug Lord's Slum Stronghold

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) -- More than 1,000 police and soldiers assaulted a public housing complex occupied by heavily armed gangsters defending an alleged drug lord wanted by the U.S., waging a major offensive in the heart of West Kingston's ramshackle slums.

Security forces broke through barbed-wire barricades and fought their way into the warren-like Tivoli Gardens neighborhood Monday afternoon. Sporadic gunfire could be heard into the night echoing across the darkened slums, where authorities cut off power. Military helicopters flying with their lights off buzzed overhead.

Masked gunmen swarmed around West Kingston trying to prevent the extradition of Christopher ''Dudus'' Coke, who has been indicted in New York on drug and arms trafficking charges. The U.S. Justice Department considers him one of the world's most dangerous drug lords.

While fighting raged in Tivoli Gardens, gunbattles spread to other volatile slums close to Kingston, the capital that sits on Jamaica's southeastern coast, far from the tourist resorts on the north shore.

It was not immediately clear what was happening inside the virtual fortresses where Coke's supporters began massing last week after Prime Minister Bruce Golding dropped his nine-month stonewalling against extraditing Coke, who has ties to the governing party.

Authorities said two police officers had been killed and at least six wounded since Sunday, and at least one Jamaican soldier was shot dead during Monday's fighting at Tivoli Gardens, the Caribbean island's first housing project. There were no details on casualties inside that neighborhood or other poor areas where clashes erupted.

A woman in Tivoli Gardens told Radio Jamaica that she and her terrified family were hunkered down in their apartment as a firefight raged outside.

''I really pray that somebody will find the love in their heart and stop this right now. It is just too much, my brother,'' the woman told the station, the sound of a gunbattle nearby.

Gangsters loyal to Coke began barricading streets and preparing for battle immediately after Golding caved in to a growing public outcry over his opposition to extradition. Jamaica's leader, whose represents West Kingston in Parliament, had claimed the U.S. indictment relied on illegal wiretap evidence.

West Kingston, which includes the Trenchtown slum where reggae superstar Bob Marley was raised, is the epicenter of the violence. But security forces also came under fire in areas outside that patchwork of gritty slums.

Gunmen shot at police while trying to erect barricades in a poor section of St. Catherine parish, which is just outside the two parishes where the government on Sunday implemented a monthlong state of emergency.

A police station in an outlying area of Kingston parish also was showered with bullets by a roving band of gunmen with high-powered rifles.

Security Minister Dwight Nelson said ''police are on top of the situation,'' but gunfire was reported in several poor communities and brazen gunmen even shot up Kingston's central police station.

The drug trade is deeply entrenched in Jamaica, which is the largest producer of marijuana in the region and where gangs have become powerful organized crime networks involved in international gun smuggling. It fuels one of the world's highest murder rates; the island of 2.8 million people had about 1,660 homicides in 2009.

In a sun-splashed island known more for reggae music and all-inclusive resorts, the violence erupted Sunday afternoon after nearly a week of rising tensions over the possible extradition of Coke to the United States, where he faces a possible sentence of life in prison.

He leads one of the gangs that control politicized slums known as ''garrisons.'' Political parties created the gangs in the 1970s to rustle up votes. The gangs have since turned to drug trafficking, but each remains closely tied to a political party. Coke's gang is tied to the governing Labor Party.

The U.S. State Department said Monday it was ''the responsibility of the Jamaican government to locate and arrest Mr. Coke.'' A U.S. Embassy spokeswoman denied widespread rumors that U.S. officials were meeting with Coke's lawyers.

Coke's lead attorney, Don Foote, told reporters his legal team had planned to have talks with U.S. officials at the embassy but the meeting was canceled.

Foote refused to say whether Coke was hunkered down in the barricaded Tivoli Gardens slum or was somewhere else in the country.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/05/25/world/AP-CB-Jamaica-Slum-Standoff.html?_r=1&ref=world&pagewanted=print

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Black Firefighters' Claim Was Timely, Justices Say

WASHINGTON — In a case that carried echoes of two of its most divisive decisions in recent years, the Supreme Court on Monday unanimously ruled that black firefighters in Chicago did not miss a deadline to argue that the city used an employment test in a way that disproportionately hurt their chances.

The decision was reminiscent of one decided last year by a 5-to-4 vote, Ricci v. DeStefano . There, the court ruled in favor of white firefighters in New Haven claiming race discrimination.

Monday's decision also touched on issues at the core of a 5-to-4 decision from 2007, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company . In that case, the court ruled against Lilly M. Ledbetter , saying she had not filed her pay discrimination suit soon enough. (Congress effectively reversed that ruling, though not in a way that affected the Chicago case.)

This time, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for a unanimous court. The facts of the case, a concession by Chicago and the text of the law at issue compelled a ruling in favor of the black firefighters, Justice Scalia wrote.

The case arose from a written employment test administered to more than 26,000 applicants in 1995. The city said that everyone who scored above 65 on the test was qualified, but it limited its initial hiring to a random selection from among candidates who scored 89 or better, a group it called “well qualified.”

A trial court judge, in a ruling not contested by the city on appeal, found that “the cut-off score of 89 is statistically meaningless.” The city stipulated that the 89-point cutoff had a “severe disparate impact against African-Americans.”

The plaintiffs sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits race discrimination in employment and required them to file a claim within 300 days of the contested practice. The question in the case was whether each of 11 rounds of hiring based on the 1995 test amounted to a fresh unlawful use of the test results.

The trial judge ruled that the city's “ongoing reliance” on the 1995 test was a “continuing violation” of Title VII. The judge ruled in favor of a class of 6,000 black applicants who had been designated as qualified but not hired, ordering the hiring of 132 of them and payments to the rest.

The federal appeals court in Chicago reversed, saying that the plaintiffs should have filed a claim within 300 days of when they were first sorted into the categories of “well qualified” and “qualified.”

Justice Scalia said the appeals court had answered the wrong question. Under Title VII's disparate-impact prong, he wrote, each use of a forbidden employment practice gave rise to a separate claim.

Justice Scalia distinguished the Ledbetter case as concerning disparate-treatment discrimination.

“For disparate-treatment claims — and others for which discriminatory intent is required — that means the plaintiff must demonstrate deliberate discrimination within the limitations period,” he wrote. “But for claims that do not require discriminatory intent, no such demonstration is needed.”

Justice Scalia acknowledged that the court's ruling in the new case, Lewis v. City of Chicago, No. 08-974, may allow suits over long-established practices. But a contrary ruling, he said, would let employers continue to use an unlawful practice with impunity.

“Truth to tell,” he said, “both readings of the statute produce puzzling results.” But he added that the court's job was not to adopt the approach that “produces the least mischief” but “to give effect to the law Congress enacted.”

Death Penalty

In an unsigned decision, the court ordered the federal appeals court in Atlanta to have another look at a capital case in which a lower-court judge had adopted verbatim a decision drafted by prosecutors. Two justices dissented.

The case, Jefferson v. Upton, No. 09-8852, involved Lawrence Jefferson, a Georgia man who was convicted in 1986 of killing a co-worker while the two men were fishing. Mr. Jefferson maintains that his trial lawyers failed to investigate an injury that he suffered as a child when a car ran over his head.

After a hearing on a state-court challenge to his conviction on that ground, the trial judge, without telling the defense, asked prosecutors to prepare a written decision and then adopted it without changes, even though it described statements from a witness who had not testified.

There is some dispute about precisely what happened, Monday's decision said, including whether Mr. Jefferson's lawyers were later given a chance to respond to the state's proposed decision. It is undisputed, however, as the Georgia Supreme Court wrote in ruling against Mr. Jefferson in 1993, that “the state concedes that it drafted a proposed final order at the court's request that was adopted verbatim.”

Prosecutors said this practice was “constitutionally acceptable.”

Justice Scalia, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas , dissented, saying that Mr. Jefferson had not properly raised the argument addressed by the majority.

DNA Evidence

The court agreed to hear an appeal from Hank Skinner, a death row inmate in Texas who seeks access to DNA evidence that he says could prove his innocence. In March, the court granted a stay of execution less than an hour before Mr. Skinner was to be put to death for the murder of his girlfriend and her two sons.

Prosecutors have blocked Mr. Skinner's requests to test blood, fingernail scrapings and hair found at the scene of the killings. Mr. Skinner maintains he was sleeping on a sofa in a stupor induced by vodka and codeine when the killings took place on New Year's Eve in 1993.

Robert C. Owen, one of Mr. Skinner's lawyers, said the court's decision to hear the case, Skinner v. Switzer, No. 09-9000, “represents the necessary first step to our eventually obtaining the DNA testing that Mr. Skinner has long sought.”

Last year, in District Attorney's Office v. Osborne , the Supreme Court rejected what it called a free-standing constitutional right of access to DNA evidence. Mr. Skinner sued under a federal civil rights law known as Section 1983, and the immediate legal question before the court is whether a suit under that law is permissible here.

Mr. Owen said he hoped “to persuade the court that if a state official arbitrarily denies a prisoner access to evidence for DNA testing, the prisoner should be allowed to challenge that decision in a federal civil rights lawsuit.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/us/25scotus.html?ref=us&pagewanted=print

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From the Department of Homeland Security

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Hurtricane Preparedness Week

The goal of this Hurricane Preparedness Web site is to inform the public about the hurricane hazards and provide knowledge which can be used to take ACTION . This information can be used to save lives at work, home, while on the road, or on the water.

Hurricane hazards come in many forms: storm surge , high winds , tornadoes , and flooding . This means it is important for your family to have a plan that includes all of these hazards. Look carefully at the safety actions associated with each type of hurricane hazard and prepare your family disaster plan accordingly. But remember this is only a guide. The first and most important thing anyone should do when facing a hurricane threat is to use common sense.

You should be able to answer the following questions before a hurricane threatens:

• What are the Hurricane Hazards?
• What does it mean to you?
• What actions should you take to be prepared?

Download the Hurricane Preparedness Week Poster (2010 version) High Resolution Poster (13 MB PDF) High Resolution Poster (1.5 MB JPG) Visit the NOAA Coastal Services Center Historical Hurricane Tracks website to learn about historical tropical cyclones occurring in different areas located throughout the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf of Mexico. The website provides information about U.S. coastal county population versus hurricane strikes as well as links to various Internet resources focusing on tropical cyclones.

The interactive mapping application allows you to search the National Hurricane Center historical tropical cyclone database and graphically display storms affecting your area since 1851.

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/HAW2/english/intro_printer.shtml

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From the FBI

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CRIME RATES FALL According to Our Preliminary Stats 05/24/10 Preliminary data indicates that, for the third year in a row, the rate of violent crime in the United States is down. It appears that property crime also declined, for the seventh straight year. Our final figures won't be available until the fall, but our just-released Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report , January to December 2009, shows some fairly significant decreases—5.5 percent for violent crime and 4.9 percent for property crime, as reported to us by 13,237 law enforcement agencies from around the country that provided at least six months of data.

Here are some more top line numbers from the report:

All four categories of violent crime declined overall compared to 2008: robbery, 8.1 percent; murder, 7.2 percent; aggravated assault, 4.2 percent; and forcible rape, 3.1 percent. Violent crime declined 4.0 percent in metropolitan counties and 3.0 percent in nonmetropolitan counties. The largest decrease in murders—7.5 percent—was in cities with populations ranging from 500,000 to 999,999. The only increases in murders were found in cities of 25,000 to 49,999 (up 5.3 percent) and nonmetropolitan counties (up 1.8 percent). All overall categories of property crime also decreased when compared to 2008. Motor vehicle theft was down 17.2 percent; larceny-theft, 4.2 percent; and burglaries, 1.7 percent. Motor vehicle theft, which experienced the largest decrease in a single property crime category by far, fell significantly in all four regions of the country—down 18.5 percent in the Midwest, down 17.5 percent in both the Northeast and the West, and down 16.3 percent in the South.  Arson declined across the board, with reported decreases across all population groups and all four regions of the country—11.6 percent in the West, 10.6 percent in the South, 9.2 percent in the Midwest, and 8.6 percent in the Northeast. The 2009 crime statistics are preliminary; the final report will be issued this fall. Past full-year reports: 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005  | More - More About the Uniform  Crime Reports (Statistics) - Frequently Asked Questions

The report also contains individual 2008 and 2009 figures for all eight crimes—murder, forcible rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny-theft, and arson—by cities with populations of 100,000 or more.

Why do we put out these preliminary numbers? To get the information as quickly as possible into the hands of those who need it most—like local law enforcement and community leaders who are in positions to implement effective crime strategies.

But please note: the FBI doesn't offer in-depth analysis of the data. We leave that to criminologists, state and local law enforcement agencies, and other experts.

However, despite the decreases we have noted in 2009 crime levels, law enforcement agencies around the country—including the FBI—have not lessened efforts to investigate these crimes, and we continue to work with one another to develop strategies to combat and prevent violence and crime in our communities.

Resources:
- Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report (2009)
- Press release
- Other Uniform Crime Reports

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