Crack offenders can get early release

Crack offenders can get early release

WASHINGTON

As many as 12,000 people in federal prison for crack-related crimes can get their sentences reduced as a result of a new law that brought the penalties for the drug more closely in line with those for powdered cocaine, a government commission decided Thursday.

The decision by the U.S. Sentencing Commission applies to approximately 1 in 17 inmates in the federal system.

Congress last year substantially lowered the sentences for crack-related crimes such as possession and trafficking, changing a 1980s law that was criticized as racially discriminatory because it came down extra hard on a drug common in poor, black neighborhoods.

The question before the commission Thursday was whether people already locked up under the old law should benefit retroactively from the changes. The six-member commission unanimously decided in their favor.

Crews confident in effort against fire

LOS ALAMOS, N.M.

Firefighters were confident Thursday they had stopped the advance of a wildfire that headed toward the Los Alamos nuclear lab and the nearby town that now sits empty for the second time in 11 years, even as they battled the blaze that crept into a canyon that descends into the town and parts of the lab.

Of 1,000 firefighters on the scene, 200 were battling the blaze in Los Alamos Canyon, which runs past the old Manhattan Project site in town and a 1940s era dump site where workers are near the end of a cleanup project of low-level radioactive waste. The World War II Manhattan Project developed the first atomic bomb, and workers from the era dumped hazardous and radioactive waste in trenches along 6 acres atop the mesa where the town sits.

Woman charged for kissing preacher

RALEIGH, N.C.

A Bible-waving preacher protesting at a gay-pride event in North Carolina turned the other cheek — and got kissed on it by a 74-year-old female gay-rights supporter who now is charged with simple assault.

Joan Parker admits she kissed a preacher on the cheek at the event, proclaimed by the Salisbury mayor as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride Day.

“He was just waving his arms and has a Bible in one hand, up and down, and screaming at the top of his lungs, ‘sodomites’ and ‘you’re going to hell,”’ Parker said in a phone interview. “I thought he needed a hug. So I gave him a hug.”

At some point, Parker said, the preacher turned to yell to a man with a camera to take a picture of her. Also at some point, she kissed him — on the cheek, she said, not on the mouth.

Shiite militias step up attacks in Iraq

BAGHDAD

Shiite militias backed by Iran have ramped up attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, making June the deadliest month in two years for American forces. The militiamen’s goal is to prevent the U.S. military from extending its presence in the country past the end of this year.

Three separate militias have been involved in the attacks, particularly a small but deadly group known as the Hezbollah Brigades, believed to be funded and trained by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard and its special operations wing, the Quds Force.

The militia attacks — mainly in the Shiite heartland in southern Iraq — raise the prospect of increased violence against Americans if a residual U.S. force remains in the country past 2011, a possibility being considered by the Baghdad government to help maintain a still-fragile security.

Associated Press