LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY “I have not
forgotten about the
Benghazi debacle and still have many questions about what
transpired before,
during and after
the attack on our consulate.”Republican Sen.
Lindsey Graham of South Carolina,
who threatened
to block Senate consideration of President Barack Obama’s nominee
to head the CIA Article, 1A
In leaks case, GI gets prison credit
FORT MEADE, Md. - A military judge on Tuesday reduced the potential sentence for an Army private accused of sending reams of classified documents to the WikiLeaks website.
Col. Denise Lind made the ruling during a pretrial hearing at Fort Meade for Pfc. Bradley Manning.
Lind found that Manning suffered illegal pretrial punishment during nine months in a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va. She awarded a total of 112 days off any prison sentence Manning gets if he is convicted.
Manning was confined to a windowless cell 23 hours a day, sometimes with no clothing. Brig officials said it was to keep him from hurting himself or others.
The judge said that Manning’s confinement was “more rigorous than necessary.”
Manning faces 22 charges, including aiding the enemy, which carries a maximum of life behind bars. His trial begins March 6.
The 25-year-old intelligence analyst sought to have the charges against him thrown out, arguing that the military held him in unduly punishing pretrial conditions after his 2010 arrest.
Prosecutors conceded in December that Manning was improperly held on suicide watch for seven days and recommended he get seven days’ credit at sentencing.
U.S. will review
Arctic drill rigs
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A day after Royal Dutch Shell PLC towed a damaged floating drill rig to shelter from a remote Alaska island, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced the department will perform an “expedited, high-level assessment” of the 2012 Arctic offshore drilling season.
The administration is committed to exploring potential energy resources in frontier areas such as the Arctic, Salazar said in his announcement.
“But we also recognize that the unique challenges posed by the Arctic environment demand an even higher level of scrutiny,” he said.
Salazar announced the 60-day review shortly after the Coast Guard commander overseeing the Alaska district said he had ordered a formal marine casualty investigation of the Kulluk, which ran aground New Year’s Eve.
Lottery winner’s
exhumation set
CHICAGO - Authorities plan to exhume the body of a Chicago lottery winner poisoned with a lethal dose of cyanide as detectives move forward with a homicide investigation, the medical examiner said Tuesday.
Prosecutors, Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office are trying to unravel precisely how Urooj Khan, 46, was killed and have not publicly identified any suspects.
Khan’s death on July 20 was initially ruled a result of natural causes. But a relative’s request for a deeper look resulted in the startling conclusion months later that Kahn was killed with the poison as he was about to collect $425,000 in winnings.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 01/09/2013