Jury: Prof wrongly fired
Jury: Prof wrongly fired
DENVER — A jury ruled Thursday that the University of Colorado wrongly fired the professor who compared some Sept. 11 victims to a Nazi, a verdict that gives the professor $1 and a chance to get his job back.
Then-Gov. Bill Owens was among the officials who had called on the university to fire Churchill after his essay touched off a national firestorm, but the tenured professor of ethnic studies was ultimately terminated on charges of research misconduct.
Churchill said claims including plagiarism were just a cover and that he never would have been fired if it weren’t for the essay in which he called World Trade Center victims “little Eichmanns,” a reference to Adolf Eichmann, a Nazi leader who helped orchestrate the Holocaust. Jurors agreed.
Ruling favors detainees
WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled Thursday that some prisoners in the war on terror can use U.S. civilian courts to challenge their detention at a military air base in Afghanistan, for the first time extending rights given to Guantanamo Bay detainees elsewhere in the world.
U.S. District Judge John Bates rejected U.S. arguments that three foreign detainees at Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan should be denied the right. He said non-Afghan detainees captured outside the country and moved to Bagram for a lengthy detention should have access to the courts to prevent the United States from being able to “move detainees physically beyond the reach of the Constitution and detain them indefinitely.”
Vt. gay marriage bill
MONTPELIER, Vt. — After impassioned pleas from gay and lesbian legislators sharing their own love stories in front of hundreds of partisans packing the chamber, the Vermont House on Thursday advanced a bill that would allow same-sex couples to marry.
After about five hours of debate, the House gave the bill preliminary approval on a 95-52 roll call vote. The margin was less than the two-thirds majority that would be needed for the 150-member House to override Gov. Jim Douglas’ promised veto. The Senate previously passed the bill 26-4, so a veto override is seen as likely there.
Statement on N. Korea
WASHINGTON — As North Korea fueled a multistage rocket Thursday for its threatened satellite launch, President Barack Obama promised a “stern” response, and Japan vowed to press for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council.
Senior U.S. defense officials said that trailers and vehicles carrying rocket propellant were in place at North Korea’s coastal launch site and that fueling had begun.
A U.S. counter-proliferation official said the fueling process could take “up to a few days.” But a senior U.S. intelligence official told The Associated Press that Pyongyang was on track for a projected Saturday launch.
The American officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence issues.
At the G-20 summit in London, Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak issued a statement agreeing on “a stern, united response from the international community if North Korea launches a long-range rocket.”
FDA can regulate tobacco
WASHINGTON — Anti-smoking forces won a long-awaited victory Thursday as the House passed legislation that would give the federal government key controls over the tobacco industry for the first time.
The measure, passed 298-112, gives the Food and Drug Administration authority to regulate — but not ban — cigarettes and other tobacco products.
The Senate could take up its version of the bill later this month, and supporters are confident they can overcome opposition from tobacco-state senators. The White House supports the legislation, a shift from the Bush administration which threatened to veto a House-passed measure last year.
Arrest in Swiss bank probe
In the first blow against U.S. taxpayers suspected of hiding billions in secret Swiss bank accounts, federal authorities arrested a Boca Raton, Fla., accountant Thursday morning in the luxury waterfront home he is accused of building with money concealed from the Internal Revenue Service.
Steven Rubinstein, 55, is the first American account holder to be criminally charged in the federal government’s ongoing probe of Swiss banking giant UBS.
His banking records were among the documents turned over by UBS in February under a $780 million settlement agreement with the U.S. government, according to a criminal complaint.
Combined dispatches