5 men convicted of plot to topple Sears Tower

5 men convicted of plot to topple Sears Tower

MIAMI — It took three trials, three juries and nearly three years, but federal prosecutors finally succeeded Tuesday in convicting five Miami men of plotting to start an anti-government insurrection by destroying Chicago’s Sears Tower and bombing FBI offices. One man was acquitted.

When the FBI swarmed the downtrodden Liberty City neighborhood to make the arrests in June 2006, the administration of President George W. Bush hailed the case as a prime example of the Justice Department’s post-Sept. 11 policy of disrupting potential terror plots in the earliest possible stages.

Yet hours of FBI recordings of terrorist talk contrasted with little concrete evidence of an evolving plot, triggering two mistrials because juries could not agree on verdicts against ringleader Narseal Batiste or five followers. One of the original seven defendants was acquitted after the first trial.

Drug advised for pregnant women with swine flu

ATLANTA — Pregnant women should take prescription flu medicines if they are diagnosed with the new swine flu, health officials said Tuesday.

So far, the swine flu has not proven to be much more dangerous than seasonal influenza, and it’s not clear whether or not pregnant women catch swine flu more often than other people. But in general, flu poses added risks for pregnant women, said Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Pregnancy weakens a woman’s immune system, so that she’s more likely to suffer pneumonia when she catches the flu.

Pregnant women with asthma and some other health conditions are particularly at risk for complications.

Vatican defends pope as an ardent anti-Nazi

JERUSALEM — The Vatican defended Pope Benedict XVI on Tuesday as a man of strong anti-Nazi credentials and a peacemaker in the face of mounting Israeli criticism and Arab anger over the Israeli occupation.

Critics faulted the German-born pope for failing to apologize in a speech at Israel’s Holocaust memorial for what they see as Catholic indifference during the Nazi genocide — a controversy that threatened to overshadow his high-profile pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

Benedict delivered messages of peace Tuesday while visiting the holiest Muslim and Jewish sites in Jerusalem, the Dome of the Rock and the Western Wall.

Lawmakers adopt bill to punish Internet piracy

PARIS — French lawmakers in the lower house on Tuesday passed a bill that would cut the Internet connections of those who repeatedly download music and films illegally, creating what may be the first government agency to track and punish online pirates.

The bill passed 296 to 233 in a show of force by President Nicolas Sarkozy’s governing conservatives after an initial failure last month.

The Senate was likely to definitively pass the measure Wednesday. But even then, the battle will be far from over.

The bill defies a European Parliament measure passed last week prohibiting EU governments from cutting off a user’s Internet connection without first passing through a court of law. That still needs a final stamp after negotiations with the European Council.

’07 mine lawsuits settled

SALT LAKE CITY — The owner and operator of Utah’s Crandall Canyon mine on Tuesday settled lawsuits filed by the families of the miners and rescuers who were killed or injured by two cave-ins in 2007.

The settlement — the largest in Utah mining history — was signed by lawyers for the defendants and the families of the 12 men who were killed or injured.

Six miners were trapped by a thunderous collapse at Crandall Canyon on Aug. 6, 2007. Another collapse 10 days later killed three rescuers, including a federal mining inspector, and injured three others.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

Journalist thanks backers

TEHRAN, Iran — A joyful Roxana Saberi on Tuesday thanked those who helped win her release after four months in a Tehran prison. Her lawyer revealed that the American journalist was convicted of spying for the U.S. in part because she had a copy of a confidential Iranian report on the U.S. war in Iraq.

Saberi, who holds American and Iranian citizenship, had copied the report “out of curiosity” while she worked as a freelance translator for a powerful body connected to Iran’s ruling clerics, said the lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht.

Associated Press