Senate progresses on Patriot Act

May 26, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

WASHINGTON

Squeezed against a deadline, the Senate late Wednesday moved past a standoff over a four-year extension of the anti-terror Patriot Act before part of it expires. An agreement to have a test vote early today was the first progress all week toward resolving an impasse between Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and tea-party favorite Rand Paul, R-Ky., before three provisions of the act expire at midnight today. Just before he closed the Senate on Wednesday night, Reid said there likely would be votes on amendments to the extension.

Man gets life in Smart kidnapping

SALT LAKE CITY

Elizabeth Smart finally got her chance Wednesday to confront the street preacher convicted of holding her captive and raping her for months when she was just 14. Now 23, she stood tall in the courtroom — stoic, with an even voice and a strength Brian David Mitchell clearly lacked. Mitchell, frail and skinny with a long, peppery white beard, sang hymns softly and closed his hollow eyes, just as he did throughout his trial, just as he would moments later as the judge gave him two life sentences without parole. That did not stop Smart from looking right at him and coolly speaking her piece.

“I don’t have very much to say to you. I know exactly what you did,” said Smart. “I know that you know that what you did was wrong. You did it with full knowledge ... but I have a wonderful life now and no matter what you do, you will never affect me again.”

US orders some to leave Yemen

WASHINGTON

The State Department on Wednesday ordered nonessential U.S. diplomats to depart Yemen and urged all Americans there to leave as security conditions deteriorated with the country’s embattled leader refusing to step down. The decision to tell most nonessential personnel and the families of all American staff at the U.S. Embassy in San‘a to leave was a sign of Washington’s increasing concern about the situation in Yemen, where street battles between supporters and opponents of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh raged for a third day. The clashes have left at least 41 dead and dozens badly injured.

Egypt to open Gaza crossing

CAIRO

Egypt’s decision Wednesday to end its blockade of Gaza by opening the only crossing to the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory this weekend could ease the isolation of 1.4 million Palestinians there. It also puts the new Egyptian regime at odds with Israel, which insists on careful monitoring of people and goods entering Gaza for security reasons. The Rafah crossing will be open permanently starting Saturday, Egypt’s official Middle East News Agency announced. That would provide Gaza Palestinians their first open border to the world in four years, since Egypt and Israel slammed their crossings shut after the Islamic militant Hamas overran the Gaza Strip in 2007.

Soldier guilty of killing 2 comrades

FORT STEWART, Ga .

An Army sergeant was found guilty Wednesday of two counts of premeditated murder in the 2008 slayings of his squad leader and another U.S. soldier at a patrol base in Iraq, but he was spared the death penalty when the military jury didn’t return a unanimous verdict.

Sgt. Joseph Bozicevich of Minneapolis faces a sentence of life in prison, either with or without the possibility of parole. The death penalty is an option in a court martial only when there’s a unanimous guilty verdict for premeditated murder. The 12-member jury at Fort Stewart did not report exactly how it was split when it announced its verdict.

Associated Press