~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Los Angeles Times

MTA plans security upgrades on rail lines

Transit officials in Los Angeles County say $10 million in improvements were planned before the discovery that Osama bin Laden had wanted Al Qaeda to strike U.S. rail systems.

By Ari Bloomekatz, Los Angeles Times

May 7, 2011

Transportation officials are planning a number of security upgrades along Los Angeles County's network of rail lines over the next year, including a chemical-detection system and scores of new video surveillance cameras.

The improvements were planned before U.S. officials announced they had found evidence that Osama bin Laden was planning some type of attack on U.S. rail systems. But officials said the roughly $10-million worth of safety upgrades comes at an opportune moment.

"Our timing's perfect, it's fortuitous," said Don Knabe, Metropolitan Transit Authority Board Chair and Los Angeles County Supervisor.

In response to Bin Laden's killing and discovery of rail attack plans, Knabe said Friday that Metro was responding by elevating security and asking the public to be vigilant.

Although some media organizations said the plans found in Bin Laden's compound specifically mentioned Los Angeles, Knabe said officials were not aware of any specific threats to the area's rail network.

"There's nothing imminent here in L.A.," he said.

Bin Laden's rail plot was merely "aspirational," according to a U.S. official who spoke to The Times on condition of anonymity because of the information's sensitivity. The threat was the first information publicized from the trove of documents, computers, hard drives, flash drives, DVDs and other material U.S. commandos seized after killing Bin Laden in his Pakistan compound on Monday.

Los Angeles-area security officials have been prepared, said Lt. Matthew Rodriguez of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which oversees security for Metro.

"This isn't a surprise to us," Rodriguez said. "This is something we've been prepared for, for many years."

Metro has been criticized in the past for slow response to security issues in rail stations. In 2007, a homeless man spilled mercury on a platform at the Pershing Square station, and Metro waited eight hours after being told of the spill before cleaning it up and clearing the station. At least four riders touched or stepped on the mercury and the incident exposed that many MTA workers were not trained on how to deal with hazardous materials.

Security measures have been scaled back in recent years as Metro faced budget shortfalls and large operating deficits. Officials said there was money available in the new budget for some enhancements.

Metro plans to spend $450,000 on speedy fiber optic connections, $100,000 for their closed-circuit television system and $609,000 to centralize Metro's rail and bus operation centers. Metro plans to spend $399,000 for an early-warning system that could detect chemical weapons.

That will add to other post-9/11 security measures, which include increases in uniformed and plain-clothes officers and 14 bomb-sniffing dogs. At least 10 fixed cameras were installed on each subway train after the attack and Metro added platform cameras that tilt, pan and zoom.

Brian Jenkins of the San Jose-based Mineta Transportation Institute said train stations are among the most vulnerable sites for a terrorist attack.

"It's not unusual at all," he said of Bin Laden's plans. "We know that the attacking terrorists are obsessed with attacking airliners. At the same time they really focus heavily on surface transportation. This is nothing new. We saw these major … terrorist attacks in Madrid in 2004, London in 2005 and Mumbai in 2006. Attacking surface transportation is really their killing field."

Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris of UCLA's Institute of Transportation Studies said part of the dynamic was that most of the attention in the U.S. seems to be focused on attacks on airplanes.

"Now that everybody has turned their attentions to the airlines, the rail lines are probably the most vulnerable part of the transportation system," she said.

Most rail systems are hesitant to create the same security environment as airports because part of the attraction of rail is that you don't have to take your shoes off, Loukaitou-Sideris said.

She and several colleagues published a paper on transit security in the wake of the Madrid bombings that argued that the U.S. was behind many European cities in their approach to security on surface transportation systems.

"The mandate of security unfortunately cannot happen without more funding and also some public information campaigns telling passengers to become more vigilant," she said. "The tradeoff with that is you make people worried."

At Union Station on Friday, many passengers said they felt safe riding the rails.

Danny Olivas, 30, takes the Gold Line to the Red Line to the Blue Line to his job as a forklift operator and said he feels safe aboard the trains and at each station.

"I always see the police with their dogs," he said. "They check the trains at Union Station before they depart and anybody boards. There's cameras all over. There's cameras on the trains and cameras on the decks."

But 43-year-old Mickey Turner of South L.A. wasn't convinced she was safe on Metro's rails. Before taking the 740 bus home she took the Purple Line to Union Station and said she was a bit nervous.

"I'm scared they're trying to blow up the trains or something," she said. "I don't know, maybe I'm being paranoid."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-la-rail-security-20110507,0,4761284,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Criticism of Calderon mounts over Mexico drug violence

Outrage over the rising death toll has generated sporadic street protests, and a massive demonstration is set for Sunday in Mexico City to denounce the government's failure to stem the bloodshed.

By Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times

May 6, 2011

Reporting from Mexico City

Public dismay over Mexico's drug violence mixed with election-season jockeying have put President Felipe Calderon on the defensive amid finger-pointing over the carnage.

Following the slaying of a poet's son and discoveries of hundreds of bodies in mass graves in northern Mexico, critics have stepped up charges that the conservative Calderon is the author of a failed anti-crime strategy. A massive demonstration to protest the country's rampant violence is planned Sunday in Mexico City.

Calderon, in a series of recent comments, has sought to steer blame toward the violent drug gangs, which at times act with the help of police under the control of local authorities. The president has accused detractors of political aims, and vowed to continue his 4 1/2-year-old crackdown on drug cartels.

"The actions of criminals … must not divide us," Calderon said Thursday during a Cinco de Mayo ceremony in the city of Puebla. "Mexicans should put country before party."

The sparring has accelerated as the three main parties, including Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN, prepare for several more gubernatorial votes this year and a presidential election in 2012.

Outrage over the rising death toll, with more than 34,000 people killed since Calderon took office pledging to fight cartels, has already generated sporadic street protests.

In polls, more Mexicans say they believe traffickers, not government forces, are winning the drug war. The Mitofsky polling firm said in February that for the first time in its history, respondents ranked public safety above the economy as Mexico's worst problem.

Big crowds are expected again in Mexico City's main plaza Sunday to urge an end to the bloodshed. Hundreds of marchers set out Thursday from Cuernavaca, 60 miles south of the capital, and were expected to be joined by many more after reaching Mexico City.

The "March for Peace" was organized by Javier Sicilia, a poet whose 24-year-old son was among seven people seized by gunmen outside a Cuernavaca bar and killed in March. Last month, the elder Sicilia, who has written for left-leaning publications, organized protests in Cuernavaca, Mexico City and other cities that took sharp aim at the drug war.

Mexicans' disenchantment rose after authorities found nearly 200 bodies in mass graves in the northern state of Tamaulipas in April. Many victims are thought to have been U.S.-bound migrants kidnapped en masse from buses heading to the border. More than 120 bodies were discovered in a second northern state, Durango.

Leaders of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which hopes to retake the presidency, have raked Calderon on security.

The PRI president, Humberto Moreira, former governor of Coahuila, another northern state where violence has surged, said Calderon should declare himself "incompetent."

Moreira has also mocked the rightist PAN over the fact that drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman remains at large. Guzman, who was captured in 1993, escaped from prison eight years later, after the PAN took power behind Calderon's predecessor, Vicente Fox.

"When the PRI governed, El Chapo was in prison," Moreira said last month. "Now that the PAN governs, El Chapo is on the street."

Leftist critics accuse Calderon of triggering violence by deploying troops for his anticrime drive, which they argue was designed largely to boost his standing after a razor-thin victory over Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in the disputed 2006 election.

Lopez Obrador, a fiery leftist, appears poised to run again. Calderon is barred by law from seeking reelection.

Calderon administration officials say the arrests or killings by government forces of a number of top drug suspects show they are winning the crime fight, though without much help from state and local authorities. Many of the most violent zones have long been governed by the PRI.

In the town in Tamaulipas where bus passengers were seized, more than a dozen municipal police officers were arrested on suspicion of helping the Zetas gang carry out the killings. Tamaulipas is a PRI stronghold.

"It's unacceptable … that in San Fernando, the … municipal police were protecting and giving information to criminals, instead of protecting the people," Calderon said in a message broadcast Wednesday.

Sicilia and backers stuck with plans for the march even after authorities announced arrests of five suspects in the slaying of his son, Juan Francisco Sicilia, and the six others. Federal police say the younger Sicilia wasn't linked to crime.

The case has stayed in the news for weeks, as have some past incidents in which children of prominent Mexicans have been victims. After two high-profile kidnappings in 2008, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets, but won few tangible results.

"The ones who are losing the war, suffering the war, are not the criminal factions or the government side," Sicilia declared Thursday at the start of the march. "It's us. We are the ones providing the bodies."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-blame-20110507,0,6199674,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Google News

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Fallout of Suicide by Student, a Plea Deal

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. — One of two former Rutgers University students accused of spying on another student with a webcam just days before he committed suicide will be allowed to avoid a conviction if she continues to provide information about her co-defendant, prosecutors said Friday.

The former student, Molly Wei , pleaded not guilty to invasion-of-privacy charges in Superior Court here. Ms. Wei was admitted to a pretrial-intervention program, in which she must perform 300 hours of community service over the next three years, testify at any proceedings, participate in counseling to deter cyberbullying and cooperate with the authorities. If she complies, the charges against her will be dropped.

The parents of the dead student, Tyler Clementi , who attended the proceeding, later said that they had advised the court to allow Ms. Wei, 19, to enter the program. But they said they favored harsher treatment for their son's roommate, Dharun Ravi , who has been charged with streaming live images of Mr. Clementi's intimate encounter with another man from a computer in Ms. Wei's dormitory room in September.

“We understand that Ms. Wei's actions, although unlawful, are substantially different in their nature and their extent than those against Tyler's former roommate,” Tyler's father, Joseph Clementi, said outside the Middlesex County Courthouse.

Standing next to his wife, Jane, Mr. Clementi said that while Ms. Wei had made a bad decision “without regards to another person's privacy and dignity,” she deserved another chance. “We hope that Ms. Wei will become a person who makes better decisions,” he said, “a person who helps people and a person who shows kindness to those she comes into contact with.”

Tyler Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge on Sept. 22, three days after Mr. Ravi and Ms. Wei were said to have spied on him. Prosecutors said Mr. Ravi used Ms. Wei's computer to activate a webcam in the room he shared with Mr. Clementi, and then alerted others to watch. Mr. Ravi is also accused of trying to spy on Mr. Clementi again two days later.

Mr. Ravi was indicted last month; the charges included a claim that he acted out of bias because Mr. Clementi was gay and that he tried to thwart an investigation. If convicted on a hate-crime charge, he could face 5 to 10 years in prison.

Mr. Ravi's lawyer, Steven D. Altman, said he welcomed the news that Ms. Wei would be required to testify in the case. “I think that's a very positive development, because anything that she is going to have to say is going to prove and show that whatever occurred was not done with any bias,” Mr. Altman said. “It will further confirm that he is not guilty of anything.”

Ms. Wei's lawyer, Rubin Sinins, said his client's admittance into the pretrial intervention program, was a good first step toward restoring her reputation. “We have said for seven months that Molly Wei has committed no crime,” he said. “She is a fine, upright person.”

Under the program, Ms. Wei must hold a job and stay out of trouble for three years, the longest term that can be imposed for a pretrial-intervention program. Both she and Mr. Ravi withdrew from Rutgers in October and are free on bail.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/07/nyregion/in-rutgers-suicide-case-ex-student-gets-plea-deal.html

.