Lighter terms sought for financial crimes

Lighter terms sought for financial crimes

WASHINGTON

The federal panel that sets sentencing policy eased penalties this year for potentially tens of thousands of nonviolent drug offenders. Now, defense lawyers and prisoner advocates are pushing for similar treatment for a different category of defendants: swindlers, embezzlers, insider traders and other white-collar criminals.

Lawyers who long have sought the changes say a window to act opened once the U.S. Sentencing Commission cleared a major priority from its agenda by cutting sentencing guideline ranges for drug crimes. The commission, which meets today to vote on priorities for the coming year, already has expressed interest in examining punishments for white-collar crime. And the Justice Department, though not advocating wholesale changes, has said it welcomes a review.

Israel, Hamas to extend cease-fire

CAIRO

Israel and Hamas agreed to extend a temporary cease-fire for five days, Egyptian and Palestinian officials announced Wednesday, potentially averting renewed violence and permitting the sides to continue to negotiate a substantive deal to end the war in Gaza.

Yet even as the extension was announced just minutes before a previous truce was set to expire at midnight, violence spiked, with Palestinian militants firing five rockets at Israel and Israel targeting sites across the Gaza Strip in response. It was not clear if the fighting was isolated or might shatter the truce.

Gay marriages in Va. could begin soon

RICHMOND, Va.

Same-sex couples could begin marrying as early as next week in Virginia after a federal appeals court refused Wednesday to delay its ruling that struck down the state’s gay-marriage ban.

The state also would need to start recognizing gay marriages from out of state next Wednesday, though the U.S. Supreme Court could effectively put same-sex marriages on hold again if opponents of same-sex marriage are able to win an emergency delay.

A county clerk in northern Virginia had asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond to stay its decision striking down the ban, issued in late July, while it is appealed to the high court.

Woman, 19, arrested in mother’s death

BALI, Indonesia

The body of a 62-year-old American woman was found stuffed inside a suitcase on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, and authorities Wednesday arrested her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend in relation to the death, police said.

The suitcase containing Sheila von Wiese-Mack’s body was found Tuesday inside the trunk of a taxi parked in front of the St. Regis Bali Resort in the island’s upscale Nusa Dua area, said Col. Djoko Hari Utomo, the police chief in Bali’s capital, Denpasar.

Von Wiese-Mack’s 19-year-old daughter, Heather Mack, and her 21-year-old boyfriend, Tommy Schaefer, were arrested Wednesday morning at a hotel in Bali’s Kuta area, about 6 miles away, Utomo said.

Pope in S. Korea

SEOUL, South Korea

As Francis became the first pope in 25 years to visit South Korea today, Seoul’s never-timid rival, North Korea, made its presence felt by firing three short-range projectiles less than an hour before he arrived, officials said.

Although North Korea declined an invitation to Seoul for the papal visit, Francis plans to reach out to North Korea during his five-day trip in a Mass for peace and reconciliation on the war-divided Korean Peninsula.

Associated Press