Feds want stay on ‘don’t ask’ halt

Feds want stay on ‘don’t ask’ halt

SAN FRANCISCO

The federal government is asking the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its order last week demanding an immediate halt to the enforcement of the ban on openly gay troops in the military. The Obama administration filed an emergency motion late Thursday in response to the appeals court’s decision last week to lift its stay of a lower court’s ruling last year that found the ban, known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” unconstitutional.

Minn. leaders’ deal to end shutdown

ST. PAUL, Minn

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton and top Republicans agreed Thursday to end a budget impasse that prompted the longest state- government shutdown in recent history, after the Democratic governor surrendered on raising taxes. Dayton said the state government would be back in business “very soon,” but he didn’t say exactly when.

Final service in Mich. for Betty Ford

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich.

With a military honor guard carrying her coffin, Betty Ford returned Thursday to the church where she and her husband got married more than 60 years ago, a wedding that launched the unassuming Michigan couple on an unexpected path to the White House.

The former first lady’s children were joined for the final memorial service by prominent political figures and hundreds of mourners from Ford’s hometown of Grand Rapids. Outside Grace Episcopal Church, mourners stood in hushed silence as nine pallbearers removed her coffin from a hearse while softly counting out military cadence.

Thursday’s final service followed a public viewing in Grand Rapids that spanned two days.

Pentagon discloses biggest cyber-theft

WASHINGTON

The Pentagon on Thursday revealed that in the spring it suffered one of its largest losses ever of sensitive data in a cyberattack by a foreign government. It’s a dramatic example of why the military is pursuing a new strategy emphasizing deeper defenses of its computer networks, collaboration with private industry and new steps to stop “malicious insiders.”

William Lynn, the deputy secretary of defense, said in a speech outlining the strategy that 24,000 files containing Pentagon data were stolen from a defense- industry computer network in a single intrusion in March. He offered no details about what was taken but in an interview before the speech he said the Pentagon believes the attacker was a foreign government. He didn’t say which nation.

“We have a pretty good idea” who did it, Lynn said the interview. He would not elaborate.

Soldiers find biggest pot plantation

TIJUANA, Mexico

Mexican soldiers have found the largest marijuana plantation ever detected in Mexico, a huge field covering almost 300 acres, the Defense Department said Thursday.

The plantation is four times larger than the previous record discovery by authorities at a ranch in northern Chihuahua state in 1984.

The pot plants sheltered under black screen-cloth in a huge square on the floor of the Baja California desert, more than 150 miles south of Tijuana, across the border from San Diego.

Army Gen. Alfonso Duarte said the screening, which is often used by regular farmers to protect crops from too much sun or heat, made it difficult to detect from the air what was growing underneath.

Associated Press