QUOTE OF THE DAY
“There is no doubt that this is one of Mother Nature’s worst kinds of storms that can be inflicted on the South, and that is ice. It is our biggest enemy.”
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, as the state prepared for a winter storm that the National Weather Service called potentially “catastrophic” Article, 1A
Package bomb kills Tennessee lawyer
LEBANON, Tenn. - Investigators said Tuesday that a package sent to a rural Tennessee home exploded, killing a lawyer who lived there and injuring a woman.
Killed was 74-year-old Jon Setzer, and 72-year-old Marion Setzer was in critical condition Tuesday at Vanderbilt University Hospital, police said.
Tennessee Bureau of Investigation officials declined to say what kind of package was sent to the Lebanon home.
Along with state investigators, agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were investigating at the home on a rural cul-de-sac.
Police on Tuesday afternoon announced an $8,000 reward for information that leads to a conviction in the case.
Authorities declined to say if Jon and Marion Setzer were married.
N.C.’s ‘Choose Life’ plate is struck down
A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that North Carolina’s attempt to offer a “Choose Life” license plate and not offer an abortion-rights plate was unconstitutional.
The ruling is the third time one of the Republican-led General Assembly’s anti-abortion laws has been struck down over the past three years.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled in a 3-0 opinion written by Judge James Wynn of North Carolina.
“Chief amongst the evils the First Amendment prohibits are government ‘restrictions distinguishing among different speakers, allowing speech by some but not others,’” Wynn wrote, quoting an unrelated U.S. Supreme Court decision.
“In this case, North Carolina seeks to do just that: privilege speech on one side of the hotly debated issue - reproductive choice - while silencing opposing voices.”
The license plates had never been offered because U.S.
District Judge James Fox in November 2011 temporarily blocked the law from going into effect. Then he ruled in December 2012 that the plates were unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination.
The state attorney general appealed, and the case was heard by the appeals court in Richmond, Va.
U.S., Italy arrest dozens in heroin probe
NEW YORK - The FBI and the Italian national police have arrested two dozen people in New York and Italy as part of an organized-crime investigation into cocaine and heroin trafficking from southern Italy to the United States, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.
The investigation is centered on the Ndrangheta, the Mafia group from the Calabria region of Italy, which had begun to establish a foothold in New York City, according to officials. The charges include narcotics trafficking, money laundering and firearms offenses.
The defendants include a Brooklyn resident, Franco Lupoi, whose father-in-law was described by the authorities as being a member of the Ndrangheta.
In 2012, the father-in-law, Nicola Antonio Simonetta, visited Lupoi in Brooklyn to work on plans to ship heroin into the United States, the authorities said. For suppliers, they intended to rely on Mexican drug cartels in Guyana, which would conceal narcotics in frozen-food containers aboard ships operated by a Guyanese company, the authorities said.
Ruling giving defense spy data is stayed
CHICAGO - A federal judge said Tuesday that she’ll wait for the appeals process to run its course before implementing her ruling that gives lawyers for a Chicago terrorism suspect access to secret documents spelling out how the U.S. government sought permission to spy on him.
The potentially far-reaching ruling last month was the first time any defense attorneys were granted permission to see such applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, established in 1978, U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman said at the time.
At a hearing Tuesday, she agreed to prosecutors’ request to stay her ruling, meaning the documents will remain closed at least until the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issues an opinion. Depending on the outcome, either side could then appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The question of whether the secret-court, or FISA court, application will be shown in its entirety to Adel Daoud’s attorneys is being closely watched nationwide. Daoud, a 20-year-old U.S. citizen from suburban Chicago, pleaded innocent to charges that he took a phony bomb from undercover agents and sought to detonate it by a Chicago bar in 2012.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 02/12/2014