The New York Times
3 College Students Arrested in Alabama Church Fires
By RICK LYMAN
Three college students from the prosperous suburbs south of Birmingham, two of them 19 and one 20, were arrested today in the burning of nine Baptist churches in rural Alabama last month that federal officials say was a prank that spun out of control.
Benjamin N. Moseley and Russell L. DeBusk Jr., both 19 and students at Birmingham Southern College, were arrested after admitting their involvement in the fires to federal agents who had been led to them by tire tracks left behind at several of the burned churches, officials said.
Arrested a few hours later was Matthew Lee Cloyd, 20, a student at the nearby University of Alabama-Birmingham whose mother was the owner of the 2000 Toyota 4Runner that had left the tracks, federal agents said in an affidavit accompanying the criminal complaint against the three men.
The identities of the accused came as a surprise to investigators, who had speculated that the arsons were the work of people intimately familiar with the remote rural roads where the fires were set, not products of Birmingham's upper-middle class, one the son of a doctor and another of a county constable.
"This is just so hard to believe," said Alabama Fire Marshal Richard Montgomery. "My profile on these suspects is shot all to heck and back."
Gov. Bob Riley said he was happy to learn that the fires were "an isolated incident" and not an organized attack on religious beliefs or Baptists. Speaking at a news conference announcing the arrests, he said the last five weeks had been "a pretty tough time" for church-goers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/national/08cnd-arson.html?hp&ex=1141880400&en=1fe75b55282e8b3f&ei=5094&partner=homepage
House Committee Votes to Block Port Deal
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: March 8, 2006
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A House panel dominated by Republicans voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to block a Dubai-owned firm from taking control of some U.S. port operations in an election-year repudiation of President Bush.
By 62-2, the Appropriations Committee voted to bar DP World, run by the government of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, from holding leases or contracts at U.S. ports. Bush has promised to veto any such measure passed by Congress, but the vote underscored widespread public opposition to the deal and the GOP's fears of losing its advantage on the issue of national security in this fall's elections.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/politics/08wire-port.html?hp&ex=1141880400&en=b75db1851ecaa64a&ei=5094&partner=homepage
A Rebellion in the G.O.P. on Security, a Signature Issue
By CARL HULSE
WASHINGTON, March 8 — After more than five years of allowing President Bush relatively free rein to set their course, Republicans in Congress are suddenly, if selectively, in rebellion, a mutiny all the more surprising since it centers on the party's signature issue of national security.
In a rebuke to the White House, House Republicans are moving aggressively to put the brakes on the takeover by a Dubai company of some port terminal operations in several large American cities, an effort that moved forward on Wednesday with broad bipartisan support.
At the same time, Republicans in the Senate are wrestling with how hard to press the White House for more authority over Mr. Bush's eavesdropping program, seeking a middle ground between Democratic calls for an investigation of the program and White House demands to keep hands off.
In the case of the port deal, the political considerations are clearly paramount for Republicans and are compelling. Public opinion appears to be strongly against allowing an Arab company to manage some port terminals in the United States, Democrats are hammering Republicans on the issue, and the White House has been unable to provide much political cover to its allies on Capitol Hill.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/politics/09assess.html?hp&ex=1141966800&en=d1f439942098958b&ei=5094&partner=homepage
50 Abducted in Iraqi Raid; 24 Bodies Found in Baghdad
BY KIRK SEMPLE
BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 8 — Gunmen wearing the uniforms of Interior Ministry commandos and driving government vehicles raided a private Iraqi security company this afternoon, kidnapping about 50 employees and seizing weapons, computer equipment and documents, police officials said.
The raid came on the same day that the Iraqi police and the American military announced that 24 bodies, most of them apparently garroted, had been discovered in Baghdad over a 15-hour period.
The workers at the security company were forced into the government vehicles and, according to witnesses, did not resist because they assumed their abductors were government forces on a legitimate operation.
"It's a terrorist operation, 100 percent," said an official who runs the Baghdad Police operations room. He refused to provide his name because he was not authorized to speak with the media.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/international/middleeast/8cnd-iraq.html?hp&ex=1141880400&en=d5d28dce0303047a&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Iran Warns of 'Harm and Pain' if U.S. Pushes Sanctions
By JOHN O'NEIL
Iran said today that it would cause "harm and pain" to the United States if it pushes for international sanctions over Tehran's nuclear program, while two senior State Department officials called the Iran the greatest strategic threat facing America.
The Iranian statement, made at a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, came a day after Vice President Dick Cheney declared that the United Nations Security Council would "impose meaningful consequences" on Iran if it proceeded with uranium enrichment activities, and the Bush administration put an end to talk of compromise with Iran that was floated Russia.
"The United States may have the power to cause harm and pain but it is also susceptible to harm and pain," Iran said in its statement. "So if the United States wishes to choose that path, let the ball roll."
Javad Vaeedi, a senior nuclear negotiator for Iran, told Reuters that Tehran would not immediately retaliate by restricting oil imports.
"We will not use the oil, but in other situations we will have to review the situation, adjust our policy and approach to conform to the new situation," Mr. Vaeedi said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/international/middleeast/08cnd-iran.html?hp&ex=1141880400&en=0f440bd6e708bfd0&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Just a Rail Hub? Or a New Sort of Compass for Europe?
By RICHARD BERNSTEIN
BERLIN, March 8 — Nobody in Berlin, it is safe to say, has failed to see it, the enormous construction site bristling with cranes in the middle of what used to be the desolate no man's land between the eastern and western halves of the city.
For a while it was an immense water-moving project as the Spree River, which cuts through Germany's capital from east to west, had to be diverted and then brought back to its original course.
And there was that highly filmed moment when the two halves of a 500-foot-long bridge that connect two office towers were lowered from the vertical to the horizontal position over an arched glass roof more than three football fields in length.
Now, finally, after 10 years of work and $850 million, the project — Berlin's new main train station, probably the only new central station to be built from scratch in Europe in a century or so — is scheduled to be completed and to open for business, just in time for the beginning of the World Cup soccer tournament here in June.
"We consider this station to be a central place between the former East and the former West Berlin," said Hartmut Mehdorn, the chief executive of the giant German railway system, Europe's largest. "But it's also a central place in Europe. We wanted to be a little bit symbolic in this sense, after the reunification of Germany and the joining of East and West."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/09/international/europe/09berlin.html?hp&ex=1141966800&en=bdcd4db15a801961&ei=5094&partner=homepage
March 8, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
Nipping and Tucking on Both Coasts
By MAUREEN DOWD
There is a crash of ideologies between the country's two most self-regarding and fantasy-spinning power centers. The Bush crowd cringes away from gay cowboys spooning, gay authors flouncing, transgender babes exploring and George the Dashing Clooneying in movies about the glories of free speech and the dangers of oilmen influencing policy.
But as I looked around Vanity Fair's slinky Oscar party on Sunday night, it struck me that the bellicose Bushies do share a presentation aesthetic with Tinseltown's trompe l'oeil beauties: you see no furrowed brows, no regretful winces, no unflattering wrinkles, no admissions of imperfection, no qualms about puffing up what you really have, no visible signs of hard lessons learned, and no desire to confront reality in the mirror.
Who ever thought Dick Cheney and Mamie Van Doren would have so much in common?
The White House is constantly trying to do laser resurfacing on its Iraq policy, to sandblast away the damage from its own mistakes. But its veneer may be beyond repair.
In Hollywood terms, we've reached an Indiana Jones crisis moment in our parlous protectorate. The cave is collapsing, the snakes are encroaching, the vehicles are exploding, the crushing ball is rolling down on us. The public has stopped buying the administration's sugary spin. The Washington Post reported yesterday that 80 percent of Americans — cutting across party lines — say sectarian violence makes civil war in Iraq likely. More than a third call it "very likely." Half also think the U.S. should begin withdrawing troops from Iraq, the poll found, and two-thirds say the president has no clear plan for Iraq.
The widespread resistance to the Dubai ports deal, even among newly fractious Republicans, indicates that Americans have lost faith in the president's competence — a faith shredded by the White House's obtuseness and lies on Katrina.
As Hollywood often does, the administration scorns introspection and originality. It sticks with the same worn themes: Stay the course. Victory's around the corner. Anyone who expresses skepticism is a defeatist, a softie on terrorism.
On "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Iraq was "going very, very well, from everything you look at." And at a Pentagon briefing yesterday, Rummy, who should have resigned in shame long ago, tried to blame the press, echoing Gen. George Casey in saying: "Much of the reporting in the U.S. and abroad has exaggerated the situation."
He added, "The steady stream of errors all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists."
After all the horrible mistakes in judgment the defense secretary has made — mistakes that have left our troops without proper backup and armor, created an inept and corrupt occupation, and confused soldiers into thinking torture was O.K. — it takes humongous gall to suggest that the problem is really the reporters.
Many experts say we're close to a civil war — or already in one. Even the U.S. envoy, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, told The Los Angeles Times on Monday that the invasion of Iraq had opened a "Pandora's box" of tribal and religious fissures that could devour the region. His words evoked a harrowing image of the bad spirits swarming up the mountain in Disney's "Fantasia" as Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" played.
He said that if there's another incident like the Shiite shrine's being blown up, Iraq is "really vulnerable."
The Pentagon says it'll look once more at the death by friendly fire of the football player and Army Ranger Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, because the first three inquiries had problems — one more sad illustration of the administration's cynical attempt not to let anything get in the way of its heroic, and dermatologically plumped up, story line for America.
Correction
My column of Feb. 18 said that Scooter Libby testified that "superiors" had authorized him to leak classified information about Valerie Plame. Rather, Mr. Libby testified that "superiors" had authorized him to leak classified information from an intelligence report to rebut critics and justify the Iraq war, not information about Valerie Plame.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/opinion/08dowd.html
The Philadelphia Inquirer
New faces in Pa. legislative races
587 people filed to run for Pa. elected office.
By Mario F. Cattabiani and Thomas Fitzgerald
Inquirer Staff Writers
State Rep. Mark Cohen hasn't faced a primary opponent in 22 years. The Philadelphia Democrat has one now.
Twenty-seven House and Senate members are calling it quits, the most since 1992.
And 587 candidates filed their nominating petitions by yesterday's deadline for the May 16 primary - nearly 200 more than the last legislative election and the most in at least a decade.
It's not your typical election year for the statehouse.
"If people are looking for an infusion of new faces and ideas, this is clearly the year," said Chris Borick, the director of Muhlenberg College's Institute of Public Opinion. "There hasn't been a better time in Pennsylvania politics, where change moves so glacially."
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14042913.htm
Candidates in Philadelphia
The Pennsylvania Department of State has received nominating petitions from the following candidates for the state legislature. Incumbents are marked with an asterisk.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14042960.htm
Contested U.S. and Pa. Races
Contested races in the primary occur for the following offices (incumbent marked by *):
U.S. Senate
Democrats: State Treasurer Bob Casey Jr.; Chuck Pennacchio (professor); Alan Sandals (lawyer).
Republicans:Sen. Rick Santorum*; John Featherman (real estate agent).
Based on fund-raising and polling, Santorum and Casey are each heavily favored to win their party's nomination. But Pennacchio and Sandals, both first-time candidates, are working the party's grassroots activists and Internet bloggers for support. Featherman ran unsuccessfully in the 2000 Senate race on the Libertarian Party ticket.
Lieutenant governor
Democratic:Catherine Baker Knoll*; Joseph Hoeffel (lawyer); Valerie McDonald Roberts (Allegheny County recorder of deeds); Gene Stilp (activist).
Knoll has been endorsed by Gov. Rendell but faces competition from Hoeffel, who served in the U.S. House. Roberts has little name recognition beyond Pittsburgh. Stilp, of Harrisburg, helped lead opposition to the legislative pay raise.
U.S. representatives
Sixth DistrictDemocrats: Mike Leibowitz, Lois Murphy.
Murphy, a lawyer, came within two percentage points of defeating Republican incumbent Jim Gerlach in 2004. Leibowitz is a developer from Haverford.
Eighth District. Democrats: Andrew L. Warren, Patrick J. Murphy.
Warren, a former Bucks County commissioner, quit his job as regional PennDot chief to run. Murphy, a lawyer, has gained national attention as one of several Iraq war veterans running to unseat incumbents.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14042928.htm
Key witness flips at trial in Faheem Thomas-Childs' slaying
Coached by her father, Taniesha Wiggins said only: 'I don't remember'
By Mitch Lipka
Inquirer Staff Writer
Just as Taniesha Wiggins was about to take the stand yesterday as the first prosecution witness in the 2004 murder of 10-year-old Faheem Thomas-Childs - a case that has become a symbol of the city's problem with witness intimidation - she asked to see her father, who was motioning to her.
He leaned over and spoke, sotto voce, to Wiggins, 18: "Just remember to say what I told you to say: 'I don't remember.' "
And she did just that for about two hours - despite repeated reminders from Assistant District Attorney Jason Bologna about her sworn statements, in writing and on videotape, to Philadelphia police detectives.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14042914.htm
Faheem's mother testifies at trial
She told of sending him off to school - and seeing him in the hospital.
By Mitch Lipka
Inquirer Staff Writer
Patricia Arnold remembers the message to her son Faheem Thomas-Childs - the same admonition she has given to all her children for years - when she sent him off to school on Feb. 11, 2004.
"Watch out for the cars, watch out for strangers, and if somebody's shooting, duck," Arnold said in testimony yesterday.
Faheem, 10, was shot in the head outside the entrance to his North Philadelphia elementary school that day, caught in the crossfire of what prosecutors said was a battle between drug gangs. Two of the alleged instigators of the gunfire, Kennell Spady, 21, and Kareem Johnson, 22, are on trial in the murder case.
Prosecutors remained confident even though several witnesses have backed away from statements they made to police about the gun battle, in which more than 90 shots were fired within minutes.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14051884.htm
Friend of missing escort was shot dead
By Barbara Boyer and Julie Shaw
Inquirer Staff Writers
The search for Michelle "Mikalena" Nau, the sometime escort and aspiring real estate agent missing for more than a month, took police yesterday to a Mayfair apartment where one of her friends was killed last week.
Investigators also checked a Dumpster in Fishtown where they believed her body might have been dumped and set on fire, and they planned to travel to a Chester County landfill.
Nau, 37, who had been renovating a home in Oxford Circle, was reported missing Feb. 16 by her family. Authorities combing through her cell-phone records found calls to George Conway, 48, a handyman who was shot to death March 1 in his apartment above a hair salon. Conway was described as a friend of Nau's, although investigators do not know how well the two knew each other.
Investigators were questioning two "people of interest" last night who were familiar with Nau's whereabouts before she disappeared, police said.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14051930.htm
Entercom named in payola suit
N.Y. Attorney General Spitzer said the radio-station owner, based in Bala Cynwyd, traded cash and gifts for airtime.
By Miriam Hill
Inquirer Staff Writer
Radio-station owner Entercom Communications Corp. of Bala Cynwyd traded airtime for cash and gifts from record companies to promote artists such as Jessica Simpson and Liz Phair, according to a lawsuit filed yesterday by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer.
The company denied Spitzer's allegations and said it was cooperating with his office.
Spitzer, an aggressive investigator known for collecting millions in fines from Wall Street analysts, mutual-fund companies, and others for questionable business practices, said the payments, often called payola, were encouraged by Entercom's top executives.
"By accepting secret payments in exchange for airtime, Entercom compromised its radio programming and violated state and federal laws," Spitzer said in a news release. "What makes this case especially egregious is the extent to which senior management viewed control of the airways as an opportunity to garner illegal payments from record labels."
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14051848.htm
Heart of the E.R.
By Natalie Pompilio
Inquirer Staff Writer
The young don't want to die.
They fight against the blood spilling from their bodies, the oxygen draining from their lungs. They will twist and shout and beg someone - any of these strangers surrounding them - to save their lives.
Amy Goldberg, chief trauma surgeon at Temple University Hospital, knows this. She has seen it, dozens of times, usually young black men struck down on the city's streets.
So it was on a recent winter night when police rushed in with an 18-year-old who had been shot once in the chest. His arms and legs flailed wildly as a team of doctors and nurses struggled to undress him and hold him down. He kept lifting his head, looking around wildly and trying to bite, despite one nurse's efforts to keep him still. His appearance didn't seem that dire: only a small amount of blood showed on his shirt and chest. There was no exit wound through his back.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14022259.htm
The story of Jennifer Anyayo
On Dec. 24, 2005, Jennifer Anyayo, 15, arrived at Philadelphia International Airport from Gulu, northern Uganda, where she lives and attends school. Accompanied by Abitimo Odongkara, a woman who splits her time between her homes in Philadelphia and Gulu, Jennifer came to the United States for surgery on severe burns she suffered years ago. This story is part of the Editorial Board's "All Join Hands" series.
Inquirer editorial writer Carolyn Davis and photographer Michael Wirtz will chronicle her medical treatment and her experience while she's in Philadelphia.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/special_packages/jennifer/
Dana Reeve: A hero of caring, research advocacy
By Elisa Ung and Jennifer Moroz
Inquirer Trenton Bureau
When the man best known as Superman became paralyzed, Dana Reeve devoted her life to caring for him.
And when Christopher Reeve died in 2004, she dedicated her life to carrying on his cause - fighting for a cure for spinal-cord injuries.
"Even in the darkest moment of her life, her thoughts were for others," said Wise Young, a friend and spinal-cord researcher at Rutgers University.
On Monday night, a selfless life came to an end when Mrs. Reeve, 44, a nonsmoker, died of lung cancer in a Manhattan hospital, orphaning the couple's teenage son.
Those who best knew the resident of Pound Ridge, N.Y., said Mrs. Reeve - who started out as a singer and an actress - was a woman of uncommon strength and devotion.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/14042915.htm
The Japan Times
Another architect fakes design strength
33 Sapporo buildings target of investigation
By ERIKO ARITA
Staff writer
Five Sapporo condominium complexes have been confirmed to have been built with faked earthquake-resistance data, the land ministry said Tuesday, and the city is investigating 28 more buildings the architect who compiled the data has said are not sufficiently quake-proof.
The Sapporo Municipal Government will not disclose the names and locations of the five complexes because it has determined there is no immediate threat to the residents and it is still investigating, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.
Ryoichi Asanuma, certified architect second-class, compiled the faked quake data for the five complexes.
Asanuma, who is based in Sapporo, has told city officials he faked quake resistance data on 33 buildings in Sapporo, and the city is now probing the remaining 28 sites, ministry officials said.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060308a1.html
Let foreign firms also donate, LDP urges
The Liberal Democratic Party has worked out legislation aimed at tapping more corporations for campaign funds by allowing certain foreign-owned companies to make donations, according to sources.
Current law bans foreigners and foreign corporations from making political donations.
In addition, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry considers companies owned at least 50 percent by foreigners or foreign entities to be banned from giving to political parties.
However, more and more overseas investors have become major stockholders in Japanese firms in recent years.
With the revision, the LDP appears to be hoping to secure donations from such companies.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060308a2.html
JAL's biggest union likely to accept 10% wage cut
Workers willing to sit down for talks now that Shinmachi has been ousted
The largest labor union at Japan Airlines Corp. is expected to agree to wage cuts averaging 10 percent for all employees in fiscal 2006, sources close to the union said Tuesday.
"There is now no reason not to enter negotiations" over the pay cut after JAL President Toshiyuki Shinmachi and two other top officials decided to step down from their posts, said one of the sources, who declined to be named. "Reaching an agreement is only a matter of time."
Monday and Tuesday, management briefed the Japan Airlines Workers' Union on a five-year management plan starting in fiscal 2006, according to the sources.
The plan was released Feb. 2 to win back public trust and passengers who are fleeing to rival airlines due to JAL's safety and financial problems.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nb20060308a1.html
Russia says all systems go for 'Dice-K'
NEW YORK (Kyodo) Businessman Daisuke "Dice-K" Enomoto has won Russian approval to begin cosmonaut training in preparation for a trip to the International Space Station in September, Space Adventures Ltd. announced Monday.
The U.S. space tourism company in Arlington, Va., said Enomoto has been certified as an orbital spaceflight candidate by the Russian Federal Space Agency.
The firm also announced the signing of a final contract for a flight on the Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft to the ISS by Enomoto, an investor and former executive of Internet services firm Livedoor Co.
"The first phase of training will include cosmonaut theoretical and physical training, along with Russian-language tutoring," Space Adventures said.
Enomoto, 34, a native of Matsudo, Chiba Prefecture, has said he will take a 10-day trip from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan to the ISS as the fourth private citizen and the first from Japan.
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20060308a3.html
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