Government to close 3 alien shelters
WASHINGTON -- The government said Monday that it will soon close three emergency shelters it established at U.S. military bases to temporarily house children caught crossing the Mexican border alone. It said fewer children were being caught and other shelters will be adequate.
A shelter in Oklahoma at Fort Sill is expected to close as early as Friday, the Health and Human Services Department said. Shelters in Texas at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland and in California at Naval Base Ventura County-Port Hueneme will wrap up operations in the next two to eight weeks, agency spokesman Kenneth Wolfe said. About 7,700 children had been housed at the three military bases since shelters there opened in May and early June.
Since Oct. 1 more than 57,000 unaccompanied children, mostly from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, have been caught crossing the Mexican border illegally.
A 2008 law requires that unaccompanied child aliens from countries that don't border the United States be handed over to the Health and Human Services Department within 72 hours of being apprehended. The children are cared for by the government until they can be reunited with a relative or another sponsor in the United States while they await a deportation hearing in immigration court.
Judge in USS Cole case won't step aside
FORT MEADE, Md. -- A newly appointed military judge refused on Monday to step down from the case of the Guantanamo Bay detainee accused of orchestrating the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, dismissing defense arguments about possible conflicts stemming from an earlier case.
Air Force Col. Vance Spath said a 2005 case he prosecuted has no bearing on his thinking in the current case.
Defense attorney Richard Kammen spent about two hours Monday quizzing Spath about his views on matters including the 2005 death-penalty case of Senior Airman Andrew Witt. Spath was the lead prosecutor in that case, in which Witt was sentenced to death for premeditated murder in the 2004 stabbing deaths of Senior Airman Andrew Schliepsiek and his wife, Jamie, in Macon, Ga.
Government prosecutors said they were satisfied that Spath could be impartial.
Witness: Not cozy with Virginia first lady
RICHMOND, Va. -- The key prosecution witness in former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell's trial testified Monday that he never saw any signs the governor's marriage was crumbling and that he never had any intimate physical contact with the first lady.
A prosecutor asked Jonnie Williams about Bob and Maureen McDonnell's marriage to counter a defense attorney's assertion last week that the first lady, feeling neglected by her frequently absent husband, had developed a crush on Williams and that he had led her on.
"I didn't know she had any interest in me until this past week," Williams said on the stand.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Dry asked specifically whether Williams and Maureen McDonnell had any intimate contact.
"I never had any contact with Mrs. McDonnell -- no physical contact, period," he said.
The McDonnells are charged with accepting more than $165,000 in gifts and loans from Williams, the former CEO of dietary supplements maker Star Scientific Inc., in exchange for helping promote his company's products. They could face decades in prison if convicted.
U.S. finds Rikers guards brutal on teens
NEW YORK -- The federal government said Monday the New York City Department of Correction had systematically violated the civil rights of male teenagers at Rikers Island by failing to protect them from the rampant use of unnecessary and excessive force by correction officers.
The office of Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, released its findings in a graphic 79-page report that described a "deep-seated culture of violence" against youthful inmates at Rikers, perpetrated by guards who operated with little fear of punishment.
The report, addressed to Mayor Bill de Blasio and two other senior city officials, singled out for blame a "powerful code of silence" among jail staff, along with a virtually useless system for investigating attacks by guards. The result was a "staggering" number of injuries among youthful inmates, the report said.
-- COMPILED BY DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE STAFF FROM WIRE REPORTS
A Section on 08/05/2014