LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“In short, human rights are in everyone’s interest.This is a message that the United States delivers every day, in every region.”
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton,
who said U.S. will continue to push for a panel to
probe purported crimes against humanity in Burma Article, this page
Missouri slayings' suspect captured
FULTON, Mo. - A man already facing theft charges was captured Thursday as a suspect in a series of fatal central Missouri shootings that had prompted police to warn anyone associated with him to flee the area.
Joshua William Maylee, 23, was taken into custody about 1:30 p.m. without incident in Cooper County, several dozen miles west of where the shootings occurred, said Sgt. Robert Bruchsaler of the Mid-Missouri Major Case Squad. Bruchsaler declined to immediately release more details.
Authorities have not discussed possible motives for the shootings, but records obtained by The Associated Press indicate one of the victims had received a stolen lawnmower from Maylee.
Maylee, of Holts Summit, has not been charged in connection with the shootings that left three people dead and one wounded, but police have said they want to question him. Before Maylee was captured, Bruchsaler encouraged people who had past encounters with him to contact law officers and move to a safe location.
A gunman killed Eugene Pinet, 48, and his 57-year-old wife Jackie at their home in the Holts Summit area early Wednesday. Jeffrey Werdehausen, 46, also was killed and his wife Gina, 41, was injured in a shooting at their home in the same area.
Official: Cyber-defense values privacy
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A high-ranking Department of Homeland Security official said the agency will protect Americans’ civil liberties and privacy while it partners with the military to protect the nation’s computer networks.
An agreement with the military announced two weeks ago “in no way changes our respective departments’ promises to protect civil liberties and privacy,” Rear Adm. Michael Brown said Wednesday at the National Symposium on Homeland Security and Defense in Colorado Springs.
Brown is assigned to homeland security as assistant secretary for cyber-security and communications.
The Homeland Security Department announced Oct. 13 that computer experts from the super-secret National Security Agency, part of the Defense Department, will work with homeland security to protect the computer networks that have become the backbone of financial, communication and transportation systems.
U.S. exempts 4 nations on child soldiers
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration has decided to exempt Yemen and three other countries that use child soldiers from U.S. penalties under the 2008 Child Soldiers Prevention Act.
In a memorandum to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, President Barack Obama said he had determined that “it is in the national interest of the United States” to waive application of the law to Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Yemen. He instructed Clinton to submit the decision to Congress with a written justification for the move.
Obama’s memo, released by the White House on Monday, did not include the justification. Administration officials have said, however, that cutting off military aid to those four countries as required by the law would do more harm than good. And they have said that continuing close cooperation with them can be a more effective way of changing their practices.
Jo Becker, children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch, said Obama backed the act when he was a senator.
“This is a groundbreaking law,” she said. “This is the first year it has taken effect, and he’s undercutting it.”
The law was signed by President George W. Bush but did not take effect until this year.
Standoff ends; officer among 3 dead
SAN DIEGO - A San Diego police officer was fatally wounded at an apartment complex during an eight-hour siege that ended Thursday when officers found the killer and a woman dead in a bedroom littered with guns, police said.
The standoff lasted until 6:45 a.m., when authorities blew a hole in the wall of the second-story apartment and found the two bodies, authorities said.
It was not immediately clear whether the two people killed themselves or died during the shootout. They were not immediately identified.
Authorities said officer Christopher Wilson, a 17-year veteran of the department, died at a hospital.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 10/29/2010