WASHINGTON, D.C.
Cocaine-sentencing change urged
Current laws assume that crack users are more violent and dangerous than users of powder cocaine
The Obama administration on Wednesday signaled a sharp departure from 20 years of federal policy and called on Congress to close the huge disparity in prison sentences for those dealing crack versus powdered cocaine, agreeing with critics who say it is unfair to African-Americans.
Assistant Atty. Gen. Lanny Breuer said the administration believes the so-called mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines have undermined trust in the country’s judicial institutions, particularly among minorities.
Breuer and other witnesses testifying before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee said the policies, launched when authorities feared crack was becoming an epidemic in the mid-1980s, are based on faulty assumptions that have long since been discredited, including the belief that crack users are far more violent and dangerous to the community than users of powder cocaine.
Breuer said the administration and its Justice Department support a one-to-one even sentencing ratio, and that sentence enhancements should be reserved for people who use weapons in drug trafficking crimes.
Breuer said Atty. Gen. Eric Holder has established a task force that will review the issue to determine how to proceed fairly.
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CHINA
Police officer extinguishes suicide attempt
A Chinese police officer talks with a man Wednesday after using a fire extinguisher to end the man’s attempt to commit suicide by setting himself on fire in Chongqing’s Liberation Monument Square. The Xinhua news agency said the unidentified man was in serious condition at a city hospital, but provided no reason for his action. Such suicide attempts though rare, have occasionally happened as last-ditch protests against government failures to address complaints or as political demonstrations.
LEBANON
4 generals released
Lebanon released four generals held for nearly four years in the 2005 truck-bomb assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri after a U.N.-backed tribunal ordered them freed Wednesday, setting off celebrations with fireworks and dancing.
Their release from a Beirut prison left the international tribunal in the Netherlands with no suspects in custody after a four-year U.N. investigation.
The tribunal’s decision — after prosecutors said there was not enough evidence to justify detention — was a major setback to the pro-Western political faction led by Hariri’s son Saad.
His faction is struggling to hold onto its legislative majority. The opposition, dominated by the militant Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah, took up the cause of the four generals.
VATICAN CITY
Pope apologizes
Pope Benedict XVI apologized Wednesday to Native Canadians who were physically and sexually abused at church-run boarding schools they were forced to attend, saying he was sorry for their anguish and was praying they would heal.
Benedict met with a group of former students and victims and told them of his “personal anguish” over their suffering, they said. From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 Indian children in Canada were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools as an effort to assimilate them into Canadian society. The Canadian government has admitted that physical and sexual abuse was rampant in the schools, with students beaten for speaking their native languages.
NORTH KOREA
Threat of more tests
North Korea threatened Wednesday to conduct nuclear and missile tests unless the U.N. Security Council apologizes for criticizing its April 5 rocket launch.
Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry announced that the country “will be compelled to take additional measures for self-defense, including nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests” unless the Council apologizes.
The Council adopted a statement earlier this month denouncing the North’s April 5 rocket launch and calling for tightening sanctions.
Wednesday’s threat came days after the North said it had begun reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods at its Yongbyon nuclear complex — a move aimed at harvesting weapons-grade plutonium.
CALIFORNIA
LaHood plans probe
SAN FRANCISCO — A spokesman said Wednesday that Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood plans a full departmental review of the nation’s motor coach safety.
The news came a day after five people were killed when a bus carrying French tourists crashed in Soledad, Calif. The driver, John Egnew, 69, was among those killed.
Rae Tyson, a spokesman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, says the review was prompted by an April 21 hearing into a crash in January 2008 that killed nine people in Utah.
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The California Highway Patrol said Egnew lost control of the bus and smashed into a guard rail. The crash sent Egnew and at least two other people plummeting 60 to 70 feet.