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From the Washington Times

Burst of activity detected at N. Korean nuclear test site

by Foster Klug

SEOUL — North Korea has ramped up work at its nuclear test site, according to an analysis of satellite images released Tuesday, a day after a senior U.S. envoy warned the North that an atomic test would unify the world in seeking swift, tough punishment.

Glyn Davies' comments after meetings Monday in Seoul with his South Korean and Japanese counterparts reflect widespread worry that North Korea may follow a failed April 13 long-range rocket test with its third nuclear test.

Both of its previous nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009, followed rocket launches.

North Korea, meanwhile, shot back in a statement Tuesday, saying it will keep developing its nuclear program if the United States continues to “stifle” the country.

A Foreign Ministry spokesman made no direct threat of a nuclear test, but said North Korea feels compelled to strengthen its “nuclear deterrent” in the face of U.S. hostility.

However, the spokesman also said North Korea is open to dialogue to resolve the standoff.

Koh Yu-hwan, a North Korea professor at Seoul's Dongguk University, said the North's message is that “the U.S. should come to the dialogue table [with North Korea] if it wants to stop its nuclear test.”

Satellite images taken by DigitalGlobe and GeoEye in the past month show more activity at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in North Korea's northeast, including mining carts, excavation equipment and a large amount of debris taken from inside a tunnel and piled around its entrance, James Hardy, IHS Jane's Asia-Pacific specialist, said Tuesday.

The most recent image was from May 9.

South Korean intelligence officials said last month that satellite images showed North Korea was digging a new tunnel in what appeared to be preparation for another nuclear test at the site.

A new tunnel is likely needed because existing ones probably caved in and became contaminated with radioactive material after previous tests.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who took power in January following the death of his father, Kim Jong-il, has vowed to place top priority on his impoverished country's military.

“It is very important that North Korea not miscalculate again and engage in any future provocation,” Mr. Davies, the top U.S. envoy for North Korea, told reporters at the South Korean Foreign Ministry. “If they make the right choices, there can be a different future for North Korea .”

Another nuclear test, however, would result in “swift and sure” punishment at the U.N. Security Council, he said.

North Korea announced its planned rocket launch just two weeks after it had struck a food aid-for-nuclear freeze deal with Washington - the result of months of tedious, back-and-forth negotiations that was seen as something of a breakthrough at the time.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/22/burst-of-activity-detected-at-n-korean-nuclear-tes/

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From Google News

Ohio

Nonprofit seeks people to train Labrador retrievers as guide dogs

by Donna J. Miller

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Can you take in a beautiful, cuddly, smart, sweet-smelling, purebred puppy?

Nurture it for 16 months?

Then give it up?

Guiding Eyes for the Blind wants people that will do just that. The nonprofit is expanding its Labrador retriever puppy training program, adding Cleveland East to its Cleveland West branch to involve more people in puppy rearing.

"We all cry when the dog is leaving, but when you get to meet the person who is receiving the dog, you really feel like you are giving that person wings," Guiding Eyes spokeswoman and puppy raiser Michelle Brier said.

Victoria Smith of Concord Township agreed. Giving up Vanilla after spending much of every day with her for 16 months "was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do," she said.

But Smith kept reminding herself that Vanilla was bred to be a guide dog and "is going to give someone the greatest gift -- independence."

'Betsy Dunn, of Chester Township, raised a Guiding Eyes puppy named Gene.

"He went everywhere with me . . . and helped me lose 40 pounds as a result of our daily three-mile walks."

She intends to take in another puppy in July, when Guiding Eyes will distribute another batch of 8-week-old puppies, along with crates, leashes, collars and ID tags.

Volunteer puppy raisers teach puppies basic commands, house manners and how to greet people. New volunteers learn at classes that run from 6:30 to 8 p.m. June 6, June 20 and June 27 at The Goddard School, 7645 Fredle Drive, Concord Township. Pre-registration is required. For more information call 440-930-5732 or go to lstephens@guidingeyes.org .

Guiding Eyes pays the puppies' veterinary bills, while the foster families supply the dog food -- an expense that is tax-deductible. Pups in training are allowed to go anywhere a seeing-eye dog can go, including malls, restaurants, schools and theaters.

Guiding Eyes for the Blind Nicole Pedone lost her sight to diabetes and now is assisted by Guiding Eyes dog Ikea.

After 14 to 16 months, the dogs go back to the Guiding Eyes academy in Patterson, N.Y., where training continues for six months, before graduation ceremonies. Puppy raisers are invited to the ceremonies, where they can meet their dog's new partner.

Guiding Eyes has its own breeding colony of Labrador retrievers that live in foster homes and travel to Patterson for breeding. About 400 puppies are born each year. About three percent of those remain in the breeding pool.

Those that don't pass the program to become guide dogs are either offered to autistic children, other service dog agencies or offered for adoption to the puppy raiser or prescreened homes.

"Vanilla changed my life more than I changed hers," Smith said. "She opened my eyes to the people who need help and showed me how I could make a difference in someone else's life."

There are more than 400 Guiding Eyes puppy raisers living from Maine to North Carolina. Learn more about the 58-year-old group at guidingeyes.org or call 866-GEB-LABS.

http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/05/nonprofit_seeks_people_to_trai.html

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Arizona

'Domestic terrorism': White supremacist gets 40 years in jail for Ariz. bomb attack

by MSNBC.com staff

A white supremacist likely will spend the rest of his life behind bars after a federal judge sentenced him to 40 years in prison Tuesday for a 2004 bombing that wounded a black city official in suburban Phoenix.

Jurors in February convicted Dennis Mahon, 61, of three federal charges stemming from a package bomb that injured Don Logan — Scottsdale's diversity director at the time — and a secretary.

They stopped short of finding him guilty of a hate crime after a six-week trial that included dramatic testimony from Logan and a female government informant dubbed a "trailer park Mata Hari" by defense attorneys.

'Trailer park Mata Hari' case: White supremacist twins' bomb trial wraps up

In handing down the sentence, U.S. District Judge David Campbell said he believed the bombing was premeditated and done to promote an agenda of hate and racism.

He called it an "act of domestic terrorism."

Campbell defended the decision not to classify it as a hate crime. "The jury was never asked if this was a hate crime," he said, although they were asked to consider whether Logan was targeted because of his race, The Arizona Republic reported.

"Mr. Mahon acted to promote racial discord," Campbell said, according to the Republic.

Logan told the Republic after the sentencing that he believed Campbell's comments meant it was essentially a hate-crime conviction. "He didn't know me; all he hated was what I represented," Logan said.

Mahon, meanwhile, maintained his innocence, telling the crowded courtroom: "I didn't do this bombing."

He said he felt bad for the victims, "but I can't apologize for something I didn't do."

Mahon had faced between seven and 100 years in prison. Since there is no parole in the federal system, he likely will spend the rest of his life behind bars.

His identical twin brother, Daniel, also faced a charge in the case but was acquitted.

The package bomb detonated in Logan's hands on Feb. 26, 2004, in a Scottsdale city building.

Former stripper as informant

Prosecutors alleged the Mahon brothers bombed Logan on behalf of a group called the White Aryan Resistance, which they said encourages members to act as "lone wolves" and commit violence against non-whites and the government.

They showed surveillance tapes at trial of the brothers referring to Logan in racial slurs. They also played a voicemail that Dennis Mahon left at Scottsdale's diversity office just months before the bombing in which he angrily said: "The white Aryan resistance is growing in Scottsdale. There's a few white people who are standing up."

Defense attorneys said someone working for the city of Scottsdale was likely the perpetrator because Logan's job made him unpopular.

During Tuesday's hearing, Logan said he believes his skin color was the motivation for the attack. He told the judge that Dennis Mahon's actions warranted the maximum sentence.

"Don Logan didn't ask to be here. I am here by default. I am here for justice," Logan said. "Dennis Mahon does not deserve to be free."

During the trial, defense attorneys heavily criticized the use of 41-year-old Rebecca Williams as an informant, nicknaming her the "trailer park Mata Hari" — a reference to the Dutch exotic dancer who was convicted of working as a spy for Germany during World War I.

Investigators met the former stripper through her brother, an informant himself on the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, and recruited her for the Mahon case, directing her to act like a government separatist and racist. She wore revealing clothes and sent racy photos to the brothers to win their trust.

'They got walloped': Masked group attacks alleged white supremacists in Illinois restaurant

Williams met the brothers in January 2005 after investigators set her up in a government-provided trailer at a Catoosa, Okla., campground where the brothers were staying at the time. A Confederate flag was placed in her window, and prosecutors say the Mahons introduced themselves within minutes of her arrival.

Dennis Mahon opened up to Williams as their conversations were recorded, telling her how to make bombs after she told him a fictitious story that she wanted to harm a child molester she knew.

In one conversation, she asked Mahon if he had ever successfully detonated a bomb, to which he replied: "Yeah, diversity officer."

Logan testified at trial about the unbearable pain he felt after he opened the package, describing the lights going out, the room filling with smoke and debris falling from the ceiling.

Logan, who now works as a diversity administrator in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, was hospitalized for three days.

He needed four surgeries to remove shrapnel from his arm and hand, do a skin graft on his severely damaged forearm and restore some use to one of his fingers that nearly had to be amputated.

'Self-aggrandizing claims'?

Dennis Mahon's defense team has maintained his innocence, with his attorney Deborah Williams crying in court Tuesday and saying: "I don't believe Dennis Mahon has done this."

"He has not lived a good life in the way that most people would think of it," she said.

The defense attorneys argued their client "often makes exaggerated self-aggrandizing claims" that aren't true, that he was an alcoholic who constantly was drinking Everclear, and that his statements to Williams were just meant to impress her.

Mahon's lawyers also argued no evidence showed the bombing was done with the intent to seriously injure or kill Logan. They noted there were no deaths or life-threatening injuries from the bombing.

Prosecutors, who recommended a sentence of more than 60 years, said Dennis Mahon intended to send a political message in trying to kill Logan.

The Mahons were living in the Phoenix area at the time of the bombing but left days afterward and were arrested in 2009 in Illinois.

Dennis Mahon was found guilty of conspiracy to damage buildings and property by means of explosives; malicious damage of a building by means of explosives; and distribution of information related to explosives

Daniel Mahon was acquitted of conspiracy to damage buildings and property.

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/23/11823265-domestic-terrorism-white-supremacist-gets-40-years-in-jail-for-ariz-bomb-attack?lite

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Detroit

Community Policing Coming to the Motor City

by ROOP RAJ

DETROIT (WJBK) - In the past five days, Detroit has had 8 murders and 33 non-fatal shootings. With crime rates getting out of control, one group is implementing a plan that they say can help Detroit.

Watch Roop Raj's Full Report Above

The Manhattan project is coming to the Motor City, and hopes "community Policing" will have a big impact on crime in Detroit. The group lowered crime dramatically in New York City, as well as Milwaukee.

"In New York City in 1980, if you would have told citizens that New York was going to be in the position that it was in by the late 1990's, nobody would have believed you. People wanted to move out of New York City," said George Kelling with the Manhattan Project.

The Manhattan Project will kick off in Detroit on June 4th in the Grandmont and Rosedale neighborhood. It will last for 90 days, and is paid for by the non-profit Manhattan Institute.

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/dpp/news/local/community-policing-coming-to-the-motor-city-20120522-km

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Minnesota

Military beat: Police share info on vets in crisis

by: Mark Brunswick

A one-day course is scheduled next month to teach law enforcement personnel de-escalation tactics for military veterans in crisis.

The course, hosted by the Lakeville Police Department and the Upper Midwest Community Policing Institute, recognizes the unique circumstances first responders often face when dealing with veterans. The eight-hour class teaches cops, 911 dispatchers, emergency medical responders, jail personnel, chaplains and others who may encounter a veteran in crisis how to use verbal tactical skills to defuse potentially dangerous situations. It also will deal with the effects of multiple deployments, understanding the emotional impact of war-time stressors, challenges of veterans with reintegration and definitions and how to identify the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health disorders affecting veterans.

The Upper Midwest Community Policing Institute is a nonprofit organization that offers comprehensive consulting services and customized training on a local and national scale.

As a testament to the importance of the topic, the class is already full and there is a waiting list.

The classes are being offered as it becomes more clear that veterans facing the criminal justice system often bring special needs. Last month, the Ramsey County attorney's office and the Minnesota Alliance on Crime presented a program on PTSD in the criminal justice system.

While not excusing the behavior, after 10 years of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, civilian courts nationwide are acknowledging that some veterans' crimes can be traced back to the combat zone and that jail or prison time often isn't the best answer. Statistics compiled by the National Association of Drug Court Professionals show that 70 percent of defendants in specialty courts such as the vets courts finish their programs and that 75 percent do not reoffend for at least two years.

http://www.startribune.com/local/152741945.html