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From Los Angeles Times

Giffords to attend husband's shuttle launch in Florida

The Arizona congresswoman still recovering from a gunshot wound to the head has been cleared by doctors to travel to Cape Canaveral to watch the launch of Endeavour, which husband Mark Kelly is commanding.

Associated Press

April 24, 2011

Reporting from Houston

Rep. Gabrielle Giffords plans to attend her husband's space shuttle launch in Florida on Friday, he said, in what will be the Arizona congresswoman's first excursion since she was flown to Houston more than three months ago to recover from a gunshot wound to the head.

In an interview with CBS' Katie Couric, husband Mark E. Kelly said Giffords' doctors had given her permission to go to Kennedy Space Center for the launch of Endeavour, which Kelly is commanding.

CBS released excerpts of the interview, which is scheduled to air Monday on the "CBS Evening News," according to a network statement.

"I've met with her doctors, her neurosurgeon … and they've given us permission to take her down to the launch," Kelly said in the interview.

James Hartsfield, spokesman for NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, referred all questions about Giffords to the congresswoman's office.

President Obama and the first family also are scheduled to watch the launch, although it's unclear if they will watch with Giffords.

It will be the first time Giffords has traveled since she was flown from Tucson to Houston on Jan. 21 for rehab. The Democrat was shot in the head Jan. 8 as she was holding a community outreach event in the parking lot of a Tucson shopping center.

Jared Lee Loughner, 22, has pleaded not guilty to charges stemming from the attack and is in custody. Six people were killed and 13 wounded, including Giffords.

She has not been seen publicly since the shooting and has spent the last three months relearning how to speak, walk and take care of herself. She has been singing — as part of musical therapy — asking for her favorite foods and visiting with family, friends and her rabbi.

Kelly returned to training for the shuttle launch in February after taking time off to be at his wife's bedside.

Giffords went to Kelly's last launch in 2008 when he commanded space shuttle Discovery. The two married in 2007.

Earlier, a report in the Arizona Republic said the congresswoman was planning to "walk a mountain" when she returned to Tucson.

Nurse Kristy Poteet said Giffords pushes a cart up and down the hospital halls as therapy, focusing on using the correct muscles. More therapy comes from games of bowling and indoor golf.

Her physicians place her in the top 5% of patients recovering from her type of brain injury, the Arizona Republic said.

"She shows a lot more independence right now," said Dr. Gerard Francisco, chief medical officer at Houston's Memorial Hermann rehabilitation institute, who works with her daily. "She's her own person."

Those close to Giffords told the Republic that she speaks most often with a single word or declarative phrase: "love you," "awesome."

She longs to leave the rehab center, repeating, "I miss Tucson." When that day comes, Giffords told Poteet she plans to "walk a mountain."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-giffords-20110425,0,1347739,print.story

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Man booked on suspicion of attempted murder after allegedly firing at police helicopter

The LAPD copter was fired on after the pilot responded to a report of gunshots in Van Nuys, a detective says. Danny Lopez, 18, is arrested after family members tackle him. A tipster's report of a second gunman sets off a search, but no suspect is found.

by Corina Knoll and Andrew Blankstein, Los Angeles Times

April 24, 2011

An 18-year-old man was booked on suspicion of attempted murder Sunday after he allegedly shot at a police helicopter in Van Nuys, rupturing its fuel tank and forcing it to make an emergency landing. A tipster's report of a second gunman set off an hours-long search and evacuations, but no suspect was found.

The Los Angeles Police Department helicopter was fired on after the pilot responded to a report of gunshots in the 15700 block of Saticoy Street about 6 a.m., Det. Gus Villanueva said. Officers who arrived in patrol cars saw San Fernando Valley resident Danny Lopez shooting at the copter from a yard, Villanueva said. Family members eventually tackled Lopez and held him until his arrest. A semi-automatic rifle was recovered, Villanueva said.

The helicopter, which was leaking fuel, landed at Van Nuys Airport and the pilot was uninjured.

"This situation could have easily turned tragic, and we were just fortunate," Assistant Chief Earl Paysinger said. "It's ironic that it happened on Easter Sunday. Someone divine was watching over us."

Officers offered no possible motive for the shooting. Villanueva said Lopez "was upset about a friend or family member who passed away."

Lopez was jailed at the LAPD's Van Nuys station.

As officers prepared to leave the area, they received a tip of another gunman hiding on the same block. A SWAT team determined the suspect could be in an apartment building. Tenants, many of whom were awaken by the gunfire, were evacuated. Some watched as dozens of officers swarmed the neighborhood. Other residents waited out the drama at a nearby elementary school auditorium, frustrated that their Easter plans had been derailed.

"We're waiting to see if we can go back to get [my grandson's] Easter basket and clothes," said Irene Garcia, 43, who stared hopefully down the street.

Authorities narrowed the suspect's possible location to two adjoining apartments. After calling into the apartments and receiving no response, they fired tear gas about 12:25 p.m., Villanueva said. A search failed to turn up a gunman.

Villanueva said an investigation will continue, although it was possible the tipster had been wrong. Residents were allowed back into their homes about 2:45 p.m. Several of them said that although the area is generally peaceful, gunshots have been heard occasionally over the last three weeks.

Elizabeth Bell, 46, who was watching television early Sunday when she first heard the gunfire, said she was shocked to learn that the target was a helicopter.

"On Easter too!" she said. "That's the day you're supposed to relax and chill and behave."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-helicopter-shooting-20110425,0,7521920,print.story

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Police, bus companies failed to act as graves filled in Tamaulipas

There were clues but nothing was done, and now at least 177 bodies have been unearthed. Demand grows for dismissing the state's elected but apparently ineffective officials.

by Tracy Wilkinson, Los Angeles Times

April 25, 2011

Reporting from Matamoros, Mexico

Suitcases started piling up, unclaimed, at the depot where buses crossing northern Tamaulipas state ended their route. That should have been an early clue.

Then the bodies started piling up, pulled by forensic workers from two dozen hidden graves in the scruffy brush-covered ravines around the town of San Fernando, 80 miles south of this city that borders Brownsville, Texas.

At least 177 corpses have been recovered in the last few weeks, most of them, officials now say, passengers snatched from interstate buses, tortured and slaughtered. Women were raped before being killed, and some victims were burned alive, according to accounts from survivors who eventually overcame their fears and came forward.

The slayings have horrified a Mexican public already awash in violence and led commentators to call them "our Auschwitz" and a "Mexican genocide."

Worse yet is the realization that the killing in Tamaulipas state has been going on for months — including the brutal slayings of bus passengers — and no one, not the bus companies, nor the police, nor the officials in charge, acted to stop it.

Elida Martinez, a gray-haired woman in her 60s, was one of dozens of mothers, fathers and siblings of the missing who were waiting in the morgue here the other day to offer blood samples for DNA testing.

Two of her daughters disappeared in February, one kidnapped from the hotel in San Fernando where she worked and the other seized from her home in the middle of the night a short time later. Between them they left behind four children.

"You pray to God you won't find them here," she said. Yet the gut-wrenching uncertainty tears her apart. "You don't sleep. You can't work. You live in anguish."

After the massacre last year of 72 mostly Central American immigrants near San Fernando, the government of President Felipe Calderon promised the world, including angry Central American authorities, that justice would be done and the popular routes through northern Mexico toward the United States would be guarded.

It now appears, however, that the killings continued, and not just of immigrants but Mexican citizens and, perhaps, a handful of Americans. On Wednesday, authorities said they had rescued a group of 68 Mexicans and Central Americans who had been seized by gangsters from buses or from bus stations in the same area.

The motives behind the bus kidnappings remain unclear. Gangs may seize the passengers hoping to extort money from them, to forcibly recruit them or because they are searching for rivals.

The killings have galvanized an unusual if belated consensus, even among conservative commentators and politicians, that parts of Mexico have indeed been lost to criminal gangs such as the Zetas and the Gulf cartel that control (and are battling each other to dominate) the northeast. What does it mean, they ask, when the federal government cannot keep the nation's highways safe from brazen predators?

Even worse is the near-certainty that the police who are meant to be protectors have been involved. Among the more than 50 people arrested in connection with the latest killings are 17 local police officers accused of providing protection to the cartel gunmen believed responsible.

There is growing demand for a new government strategy and that the national Senate take the highly unusual step of dismissing the state's elected but apparently ineffective officials, a move that would also involve Calderon suspending civil rights in the region.

"If Tamaulipas is not a failed state, or a narco-state, it sure looks like one," political analyst Alfonso Zarate said. "The institutional powers are incapable of upholding the law."

Calderon has steadfastly resisted that characterization.

The top official in Tamaulipas is something of an accidental governor. Egidio Torre Cantu was elected last year, standing in at the last minute after his brother, a shoo-in for the job, was assassinated by a drug gang.

"We are prisoners in towns that we cannot leave," said Mario Alberto Alejandro, 43, who came to the morgue looking for his brother, Rigoberto, a U.S. citizen who vanished Feb. 23 on the road to Matamoros. "In whose hands are we?"

Alejandro echoed other families in saying authorities were giving them the runaround, sending relatives from the morgue to one government office after another and even in some cases to Mexico City, where most of the bodies have been taken, in part because the Matamoros morgue was full.

Alejandro said his brother Rigoberto has lived for 13 years in Texas, where he works as a forklift operator. He was in Tamaulipas to visit family, a trip he makes often.

"He never thought it would be this dangerous," Alejandro said. "There is no security."

So many families have shown up at the Matamoros morgue that locals set up a tent with chairs and a table offering coffee and water. Doors have been plastered with dozens of pictures of missing people.

Francisco Garcia's nephew Jose was on his way to Chicago from central Mexico when last heard from in early March. He was traveling with two friends, who are also missing, and all were going to join family in the U.S.

"We have not received any information, no phone call asking for ransom, nothing," said Garcia, a farmer. Too terrified to travel to Matamoros, Garcia was among scores of people who instead went to the morgue in Mexico City.

"Jose is just gone."

The Times reported in early March that several thousand people have disappeared since Calderon launched the crackdown on drug gangs in December 2006. Most vanished without a trace. Families nurse the hope that their loved ones were taken as forced laborers on marijuana farms or in meth labs. But the mass graves, here in Tamaulipas and in other parts of the country, are slowly destroying those hopes. At least 58 bodies were recovered last week from clandestine graves in Durango state.

The main bus companies that run through Tamaulipas have altered their schedules and eliminated nighttime trips through San Fernando. But they have not spoken publicly about the killings. One manager, speaking through a representative but insisting on anonymity, confirmed the existence of unclaimed suitcases but would not discuss why authorities were not informed about them.

"Maybe it's fear, or they didn't want to lose the business," said Jose Javier Saldana, a regional human rights official. "Maybe the drivers didn't report it up the chain [of management], either."

Although some of the families said the bus companies' failure to sound the alarm was unconscionable, most put the blame on authorities. Several families said authorities tried to pressure them not to speak to reporters. Furthermore, officials in three central states, Guanajuato, Queretaro and San Luis Potosi, say they have been asking the Tamaulipas government about numerous missing citizens as far back as 2009.

In the San Fernando case, in addition to the police officers, the arrested include Martin Omar Estrada, a.k.a. "El Kilo," whom authorities describe as a ringleader responsible for the latest dead as well as last summer's migrant massacre. If true, that means Estrada, who was arrested this month, and his gang continued to operate with impunity for months.

Calderon recently promised to take back Tamaulipas and flood the zone with troops. It was virtually the same promise he made five months ago.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-mass-graves-20110425,0,5293561,print.story

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FBI identifies suspect in attempted bombing at Colorado mall

The FBI issues a nationwide alert in a search for Earl Albert Moore, 65, who was seen on surveillance video. Officials say he is probably armed and dangerous.

by Nicholas Riccardi, Los Angeles Times

April 24, 2011

Reporting from Denver

The FBI identified a 65-year-old man with a raft of aliases as the suspect in the attempted bombing of a suburban shopping mall on the anniversary of the Columbine massacre and issued a nationwide alert Sunday, warning that he is probably armed and dangerous.

Earl Albert Moore is the lone suspect in the case, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said. It listed five aliases for him and said he had an "extensive" criminal background.

One week before Wednesday's attempted bombing, the FBI said, Moore had been released from federal prison after serving a sentence for armed bank robbery in West Virginia.

Authorities found a pipe bomb and two propane tanks while extinguishing a small fire in the Southwest Plaza food court. The mall is less than two miles from Columbine High School, where in 1999 two students killed 13 people before turning guns on themselves. The mall, which can have as many as 10,000 shoppers at its busiest, was evacuated for hours.

There was no explicit link to the high school massacre, but the timing made people suspicious and anxious. The local school district restricted access to 25 schools as a precaution.

Attention swiftly turned to grainy pictures captured by surveillance cameras of a balding man with a mustache who was spotted leaving the area at the time of the attempted bombing. Investigators were not able to identify him until Sunday.

It remained unclear whether Moore was still in Colorado. In a statement, the FBI said it was conducting a nationwide hunt and asked the media to distribute images of Moore.

The agency said Moore is about 6 feet tall, weighs 200 to 220 pounds and has a gray mustache and multiple tattoos, including one of a viking. His aliases include Earl Buchanan, Morelli Buchanon, John Lindzy, Donald Morelli and Gary Steele.

Authorities urged anyone with information about his whereabouts to call 911 or the Jefferson County tip line at (303) 271-5615 .

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-colorado-mall-suspect-20110425,0,355322,print.story

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Noncriminals swept up in federal deportation program

Secure Communities, a federal program launched in 2008 with the stated goal of identifying and deporting more illegal immigrants 'convicted of serious crimes,' has netted many noncriminals or those who committed misdemeanors.

by Lee Romney and Paloma Esquivel, Los Angeles Times

April 25, 2011

Reporting from San Francisco and Los Angeles

More than once, Norma recalls, she yearned to dial 911 when her partner hit her. But the undocumented mother of a U.S.-born toddler was too fearful of police and too broken of spirit to do so.

In October, she finally worked up the courage to call police — and paid a steep price.

Officers who responded found her sobbing, with a swollen lower lip. But a red mark on her alleged abuser's cheek prompted police to book them both into the San Francisco County Jail while investigators sorted out the details.

With that, Norma was swept into the wide net of Secure Communities, a federal program launched in 2008 with the stated goal of identifying and deporting more illegal immigrants "convicted of serious crimes."

But Norma was never convicted of a crime. She was not charged in the abuse case, though the jail honored a request to turn her over to immigration authorities for possible deportation.

"I had called the police to help me," said Norma, 31, who asked that her last name not be used because she fears that speaking out may jeopardize her case. "I think it's unjust…. Even with a traffic ticket we can now be deported."

Under the program, fingerprints of all inmates booked into local jails and cross-checked with the FBI's criminal database are now forwarded by that agency to Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be screened for immigration status. Officials said the new system would focus enforcement efforts on violent felons such as those convicted of murder, rape and kidnapping.

But Secure Communities is now mired in controversy. Recently released ICE data show that nearly half of those ensnared by the program have been noncriminals, like Norma, or those who committed misdemeanors.

In addition, hundreds of ICE emails released in response to litigation by immigrant and civil rights groups show the agency knowingly misled local and state officials to believe that participation in the program was voluntary while internally acknowledging that this was not the case.

U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose) on Friday accused ICE officials of lying to local governments and to Congress and called for a probe into whether ICE Director John Morton and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, who oversees the agency, were aware of the deception.

San Francisco and Santa Clara counties are among those jurisdictions that sought to prevent fingerprint data from being automatically routed to ICE. Although that data will still be forwarded to immigration authorities, both counties are now crafting policies that would deny ICE hold requests for inmates booked on minor infractions.

There is still much confusion over what legal authority states have to change their participation agreements with ICE, which now says they are unnecessary.

A bill sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) to be heard in committee Tuesday would require California to modify its agreement with ICE so that only fingerprints of convicted felons are run through the immigration database. The bill also contains protections for domestic violence victims and juveniles and would make the program optional for counties.

"With punitive methods that sweep them all up, there's no trust," said Ammiano, adding that with 11 million illegal immigrants in the country, the policy should be specifically tailored to dangerous criminals. "We have had children come home from school and their parents are not there. That is not an enlightened policy."

A similar bill is pending in Illinois, while Colorado managed to negotiate a modified agreement that includes some protections for domestic violence victims. Washington recently became the first state to refuse to join the federal program, and Washington, D.C., withdrew altogether.

Federal officials now contend that all states and counties must participate in Secure Communities by 2013. They said Washington, D.C., was allowed to temporarily terminate its agreement only as a courtesy.

But the program's legality remains an open question. Homeland Security officials say they need no approval from counties or states because Secure Communities is merely "an information-sharing program between federal partners." Lofgren and other critics, however, question the federal government's right to impose the program on local jails. Backers of Ammiano's bill say that ICE has exceeded its authority and plan to move forward with proposed changes to California's agreement.

ICE spokeswoman Nicole Navas said that the Secure Communities program resulted in the deportation of 72,000 convicted criminals last year, more than at any time in agency history. Of those, 26,000 had committed major violent offenses.

"By removing criminal aliens more efficiently and effectively, ICE is reducing the possibility that these individuals will commit additional crimes in U.S. communities," she said.

Some who appear in the data to be noncriminals or low-level offenders have gang affiliations, were arrested for drunk driving or were previously deported and returned, she said. Of California's fingerprint matches, 22% to date are fugitives who had ignored deportation orders or were expelled and returned illegally, data shows.

Norma, for example, had left the country voluntarily after an immigration arrest in 2002 but returned the same year, ICE officials said.

In 2009, California signed one of the earliest agreements with ICE to participate in Secure Communities. The program is now in 41 states and 1,211 local jurisdictions, including all California counties.

Critics say the program discourages immigrants from reporting crimes and encourages racial profiling because officers might book individuals on minor infractions knowing that their fingerprints will be screened by ICE. They point out that the program does not screen out those arrested but never charged with a crime.

A Homeland Security official said the department has hired a criminologist to examine arrest statistics for signs of racial profiling and is looking to "enhance the decision-making process" to reduce the number of noncriminals being deported. The department also will soon unveil a policy for domestic violence victims.

Supporters applaud Secure Communities for replacing ad hoc immigration enforcement with a nationwide effort that targets criminals.

"Before what was happening was the local officers had no way of knowing or had to take special steps to find out if the people they arrested were potentially removable from the community," said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for tougher immigration enforcement. Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca also supports the program.

But Lofgren and others are upset over what they see as the deception with which the Secure Communities program was implemented.

The congresswoman was most angered by the hundreds of ICE internal documents recently released by order of a federal judge. A review of the correspondence reveals an agency that misled local and state officials as it struggled to defuse what one email called "a domino effect" of political opposition.

As early as November 2009, Secure Communities Acting Director Marc Rapp declared in an email that "voluntary" meant "the ability to receive the immigration response" about fingerprint matches, not the ability to decline to provide the data in the first place.

But for nearly a year that was not made clear to local agencies. "They said, 'You set up a meeting and you opt out.' That's why we're pretty unhappy," said Santa Clara County Counsel Miguel Marquez.

San Francisco County Sheriff Michael Hennessey also unsuccessfully sought to opt out of the program last summer. Hennessey is developing a policy that would honor ICE detainer requests only for felons and misdemeanants whose crimes involve "violence, guns, and certain sex offenses." Santa Clara County is exploring a similar policy.

In July, Lofgren wrote Napolitano and U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder seeking "a clear explanation of how local law enforcement agencies may opt out of Secure Communities by having the fingerprints they collect … checked against criminal, but not immigration databases." In September, she received letters back stating that locals need only submit the request in writing to state and federal officials.

ICE officials knew the language was misleading. "I like the thought. But reading the response alone would lead one to believe that a site can elect to never participate should they wish," an FBI staffer wrote to ICE colleagues in an August email exchange about the draft. In October, Napolitano and Morton finally held a news conference to clarify that opting out of Secure Communities is not possible.

A Homeland Security official said Friday that "Secure Communities is not voluntary and never has been. Unfortunately, this was not communicated as clearly as it should have been to state and local jurisdictions."

Meanwhile, Norma is preparing to testify on behalf of Ammiano's bill. She attends a domestic violence support group and cares for her 3-year-old son, Brandon, in a rented room while wearing a bulky ankle monitor.

"Now that I know my rights, I want to fight," said Norma, who recently graduated from a leadership program to help other abuse victims.

Immigration visas are available for domestic violence victims who meet specific criteria. If she loses her case, Norma said, she will return to Mexico.

"This strength they've given me, this sense of security, this I will carry with me anywhere I go."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-secure-communities-20110425,0,4002513,print.story

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At juvenile hall, an exercise in forgiveness on Easter

An Easter Mass at the Sylmar juvenile hall offers victims and offenders a chance to make peace, seek mercy.

by Jason Song, Los Angeles Times

April 25, 2011

Sylvia Guzman seemed unemotional for most of Sunday's sunrise Easter Mass outside a juvenile hall in Sylmar.

But she wiped away a tear when Francisco "Franky" Carrillo spoke about spending nearly 20 years in jail before his conviction was overturned earlier this year.

"It makes me sad that I cannot see my sons … but he gives me hope that someday they will be free," said Guzman, whose two sons are being held pending trial on charges including attempted murder.

Guzman said she believed her children are innocent.

The predawn ceremony, which drew about 100 worshipers in a light drizzle, drew curious stares from workers and guards as they filtered in and out of the Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall during a shift change. The annual event organized by the Jesuit Restorative Justice Initiative is meant to give victims of violence a forum to forgive their attackers and families an opportunity to ask for changes in state law that would give young offenders a chance at parole.

A bill under consideration by the state Legislature would allow courts the chance to review the cases of juvenile offenders currently sentenced to life without parole and possibly reduce their sentences to 25 years to life.

"We pray that this becomes law," said Father Michael Kennedy, the initiative's executive director, during his sermon, which he conducted in English and Spanish.

When Kennedy asked worshipers if they had a family member or acquaintance in jail, virtually all said yes. As the sun rose, members of the crowd lighted candles to demonstrate their faith that those incarcerated would have a chance to be rehabilitated.

Carrillo was released in early March after spending almost two decades behind bars after being convicted in 1992 of being the gunman in a fatal shooting in Lynwood. He denied having any involvement, but six teenage boys said they saw him commit the crime.

Five of the witnesses recanted their stories earlier this year, and Carrillo was soon released.

During Sunday's service, Carrillo spoke of his time behind bars and became emotional when recalling the last time he saw his father, who died of stomach cancer in 1999. "To know my dad wouldn't see me...." he said before stopping to compose himself.

At that point, Maria Gudiño, who was already crying softly, got up and left because she was overcome with emotion. Her son, Fabian Navarro, 18, was accused of armed robbery and has spent two months in jail, she said.

"It's so sad that we can't be together today," she later said. "He's a good worker who never did any drugs."

Carrillo said, "I don't want to come here with a message of despair" and urged the congregation to have faith and support laws that would give offenders a chance to make things right.

"Bad things happen in life," he said, "but everyone deserves a chance."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-easter-mass-20110425,0,4914200,print.story

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From the New York Times

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Editorial

Multiple Inequities

For a generation, in one of the law's gross inequities that has fallen unduly on African-Americans, 1 gram of crack cocaine was treated the same as 100 grams of powder cocaine in federal courts. It didn't matter that the theory behind the law that crack — cocaine cooked in baking powder — was somehow more addictive and led to more violent crime soon proved false.

Congress moderated, but unfortunately didn't eliminate, that disparity last year by passing the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, reducing the ratio to 18 to 1. For anyone, that is, who committed a crack offense after the law went into effect last August. For those who committed crack-related crimes before then but have yet to be sentenced, it doesn't. They are subject to the old mandatory minimum sentences — 5 years for 5 grams, 10 years for 50 grams.

As Adam Liptak reported in The Times, federal judges have expressed outrage about being forced to impose the harsher treatment with no discretion. While courts decide if the new law can be applied retroactively, the Justice Department has the discretion to do something now, building on a policy Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. began last May.

He called for the “reasoned exercise of prosecutorial discretion,” authorizing a tough but flexible approach. He asked prosecutors to take into account the kind of gross unfairness that results from applying the Fair Sentencing Act to someone who committed a crack offense in August 2010 but not to someone who did so the month before.

By statute, judges must give the mandatory minimum sentences to offenders subject to the old law. Even under the old law, however, prosecutors have considerable discretion. Through plea bargaining, they can also ask for sentences of five years rather than 10. If they decide not to prosecute in federal court, they can let a state prosecute with more flexibility in sentencing.

Under the Holder approach, they can still recommend that dangerous offenders serve the maximum sentence.

Prosecutors often fret about upsetting a judge when they don't press for the maximum sentence. The judges who say they don't want to perpetuate what Judge Michael Ponsor called “a Congressionally recognized injustice" are apt to be just fine with prosecutorial discretion. Meanwhile, Congress needs to try again and equalize the penalties for possession of crack and powder cocaine.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/opinion/25mon2.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

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From Google News

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Weather radios part of home safety

by Nancy Gaarder

WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

A Denison, Iowa, doctor has been such a big believer in storm sirens that, back in 2008, he tracked down a 1950s-era civil defense siren, plopped down $100 and installed it at the Boy Scout camp where he volunteers each summer.

Two months later, that camp — the Little Sioux Scout Ranch — was struck by a horrifying tornado that left four Scouts dead and 48 people injured.

If it hadn't been for that siren and weather radios, Dr. Dennis Crabb said he believes the toll probably would have been higher.

While both of those tools, along with the Internet, play a role in saving lives, weather radios are unique because they've been the subject of significant government investment as part of the nation's emergency alert system.

The government has erected more than 1,000 transmitters across the country so that nearly every American using a weather radio will receive instant alerts on it.

In the past decade the government broadened the purpose of weather radios to include alerts about nuclear disaster, chemical spills, terrorist attacks, 911 outages and even Amber Alerts.

The government has committed to providing the radios to all public and private schools. Individuals can purchase them just about anywhere, from electronics stores to discount stores to grocery stores.

Brian Smith, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Valley, described these advantages of weather radios:

Smith said a quality weather radio costs about $30.

Bruce Thomas, spokesman for Midland Radio Corp., a major manufacturer of the radios, said the radios have another advantage. Because they're part of the nation's emergency alert system, millions of people can receive warnings simultaneously.

In contrast, phone alerts are vulnerable to the communications systems crashing, and even television updates are vulnerable to power outages.

The radios work similarly to a regular AM/FM radio. They receive a signal that has been sent over the airwaves. In the case of a tornado warning, the signal is activated by a local weather service office.

While no estimates are available on the percentage of homes with weather radios, sales at Midland Radio indicate interest has grown exponentially in the past five years, Thomas said.

In the Omaha area, Hy-Vee Supermarkets are partnering this spring with the local chapter of the American Meteorological Society, the National Weather Service and others to provide assistance programming the radios.

Volunteers will be at several Hy-Vees on Saturdays in May and June to program weather radios, said the weather service's Smith. People can purchase a weather radio at Hy-Vee or bring in their own for programming.

If Randy Ross, emergency manager for Monona County, Iowa, could offer one message to the public, in the wake of a tornado that devastated his county this month, it would be this: Have a weather radio in your home.

“Spend the money. They're not that expensive,” he said. “That's how I monitor what's going on.”

http://www.omaha.com/article/20110425/NEWS01/704259933/8

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