Peterson’s jury finally set
REDWOOD CITY —After almost three months of jury selection, Scott Peterson knows who will decide his fate.
Among the jurors are a former social worker who handled child abuse cases, an ex-Colma police officer once charged with assaulting a cop, and a woman whose first husband was killed while serving a prison sentence for murder. “There you are. You’re it,” Judge Alfred Delucchi said Thursday after the panel was settled. “Unless you’re dead, you’re it.” Read the story here.
Peterson juror profiles
Here are thumbnail sketches of the 12 jurors and six alternates selected Thursday for Scott Peterson’s murder trial. It took more than two months to select the jury of six men and six women. Opening arguments begin Tuesday before Judge Alfred Delucchi in San Mateo County Superior Court in Redwood City.
Juror 1
A white man, appears to be in his 30s or early 40s. He’s coached 500 children in youth sports, including a sheriff’s son. He said he hadn’t followed the case. “I couldn’t tell you what happened yesterday in the news,” he said during jury selection. Read more here.
No pact yet on license bill
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger met on Thursday with the Democratic Latino Caucus to discuss one of the thorniest issues before him – a bill that would allow illegal immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. No agreement was reached on the governor’s chief concern – ensuring criminal background checks can be done on applicants – but both sides described the one-hour meeting as “fruitful.” “We all seemed very committed to addressing this issue, but we’re not there yet,” state Sen. Gil Cedillo, the author the bill, said after emerging from the meeting in the governor’s office. Read the story here.
A Model in Fighting People Smugglers
After the discovery in recent weeks of two major immigrant-smuggling safe houses in Los Angeles, federal officials say they would like to duplicate in Los Angeles the immigration enforcement measures used in this sprawling desert city. Immigration officials here talk about “a love affair” of cooperation with Phoenix police to tackle often-brutal smuggling rings. Armed with intelligence from police investigators, federal agents here often round up gang members who are illegal immigrants — many of them juveniles — for deportation. Read the story here.
THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW
Run for your lives! It’s instant global warming! Yes, from the category of “you’re really going to have to check your brain at the door”, comes this disaster flick, which gives up super destructive weather, followed by an ice age, all in a matter of days.
As in many of these movies, there’s just one guy that sees it all coming – in this case, he’s paleoclimatologist (now that’s a title!) Jack Hall, played by Dennis Quaid. In all fairness though, his computer simulations see this happening hundreds of years from now, not in weeks. But who wants to make a movie that spans hundreds of years?
This movie takes shots, quite openly, at the Bush administration as evidenced by Hall’s efforts to warn the government. There’s a guy who plays the Bush role, who, in his first scene, asks a guy even more clearly playing the Cheney part, “what do you think we should do?” The audience howled – but it gets worse as the Cheney guy completely blows off Hall and blathers on about things he thinks are more important than the destruction of the planet – jobs and the economy. (more…)
Wednesday, May 26th, 2004
Becoming Muslim
My first seventeen years have been a bit different than the youth experienced by most Americans. I grew up on an extremely rural goat ranch in Western Riverside County, California, where my family raises on average 150 to 200 animals for milk, cheese, and meat. My father is a halal butcher [a butcher who slaughters in an Islamic manner -ed.] and supplies to an Islamic Food Mart a few blocks from the Islamic Center in downtown Los Angeles. My father was raised agnostic or atheist, but he became a believer in One God when he picked up a Bible left on the beach. He once had a number of Muslim friends, but they’ve all moved out of California now. My mother was raised Catholic, so she leans towards Christianity (although she, like my father, disregards the Trinity). I and my siblings were/are home-schooled, and as you may know, most home-school families are Christian. In the last 8 or so years, we have been involved with some home-schooling support groups, thus acquainting me with fundamentalist Christianity. It was an eye-opening experience. Read more of what Adam has to say about Becoming Muslim as well as America here.
Impasse Feared on Driver’s Licenses
Months of talks between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration and a key legislator have failed to lead to an agreement on extending driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants, bringing the Capitol to the brink of a showdown over one of the most contentious issues from last year’s recall campaign. The emerging deadlock is a notable exception to the generally smooth bipartisan relations that have prevailed in the Capitol this year. Some Democrats are accusing the governor of abandoning assurances that he would help write a new license law to replace the one they reluctantly repealed nearly six months ago at Schwarzenegger’s urging. Read the story here.
A Model in Fighting People Smugglers
After the discovery in recent weeks of two major immigrant-smuggling safe houses in Los Angeles, federal officials say they would like to duplicate in Los Angeles the immigration enforcement measures used in this sprawling desert city. Immigration officials here talk about “a love affair” of cooperation with Phoenix police to tackle often-brutal smuggling rings. Armed with intelligence from police investigators, federal agents here often round up gang members who are illegal immigrants — many of them juveniles — for deportation. Read the story here.
Feds: Al Qaeda Plans to ‘Hit the U.S. Hard’
“Disturbing intelligence indicates Al Qaeda’s specific intention to hit the United States hard,” Ashcroft said in a press briefing at the Justice Department. Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller said federal officials were on the lookout for seven people — six men and one woman — who they believe are connected to the terror plans. “They all pose a clear and present to America—they all should be considered armed and dangerous,” Ashcroft said. “For the next few months, we have reason to believe there will be a heightened threat to United States’ interest around the world,” said Mueller, who stressed that because no firm details are known about such an attack, it’s imperative to find the seven individuals. Read the story here.
Gang-rape accuser admits lying to police
A young woman who has accused three teenagers of gang rape admitted lying to police about a videotape that depicts her having consensual sex with one of the defendants and denied saying she looked like a porn star on the tape. The 18-year-old woman, identified as Jane Doe in court, said she was ashamed of the videotape, which showed her and Keith Spann having sex a month before the alleged gang rape. She saw the tape on July 4, 2002, a day before the alleged attack. She told police a few days later that she had not seen it. Read the story here.
Tuesday, May 25th, 2004
Fabricating a Statistic in the Immigration Debate
Illegal immigration is one of California’s most contentious and frustrating public policy issues, but it does have one positive feature: It continues to be an exciting laboratory for experimentation in the new math. The latest example comes courtesy of state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks), who readers may remember from his having guarded the conservative flank as a candidate in last year’s recall election. A few weeks ago Sen. McClintock wrote an editorial column built around the following irony: “This year, nearly 7,500 qualified California residents — who would otherwise be entering California state universities as incoming freshmen — are likely to be turned away for lack of funds. Meanwhile, approximately 7,500 illegal immigrants will receive heavily subsidized university educations at a cost of between $45 million and $65 million annually at those same universities.” Read the story here.
Subsidizing illegal immigration hurts legal California Residents
By SEN. TOM McCLINTOCK
This year, nearly 7,500 qualified California residents, who would otherwise be entering California state universities as incoming freshmen, are likely to be turned away for lack of funds. Meanwhile, approximately 7,500 illegal immigrants will receive heavily subsidized university educations at a cost of between $45 million and $65 million annually at those same universities. Is it just me, or is there something wrong with this picture? Read the story here.
Geragos says key evidence was withheld
Scott Peterson’s attorney claims prosecutors interviewed a former law enforcement officer who said he saw Laci Peterson being abducted. “Last week, the prosecution turned over reports disclosing an interview with a witness who saw Laci Peterson being pulled into a van by at least two men,” attorney Mark Geragos says in documents filed Monday in San Mateo County Superior Court. “This eyewitness, who has been a sworn peace officer, has apparently been known to the prosecution since December of 2002, yet he was only interviewed within the last week,” Geragos wrote. Read the story here.
Senate moms defend roles
Several senators donned kitchen aprons and scarlet M’s Monday to protest remarks by a pastor who said female lawmakers with small children at home were “sinful.” Sen. Debra Bowen said the domestic revolt was to point out that the lawmakers with children “can do as good a job being parents as they can being legislators.” Bowen and other lawmakers said they were furious to learn that the Rev. Ralph Drollinger, who leads a Bible study class for lawmakers, wrote in a Bible lesson that women lawmakers with young children at home are sinners. Read the story here.
Monday, May 24th, 2004
Bush to Present ‘Clear Strategy’ on Iraq
Facing political discord over the war in Iraq, President Bush tries to reassure voters Monday that hundreds of Americans have not died in vain, and to tell the world he has a blueprint to create a democratic nation. Five months before the U.S. election and just five weeks before the June 30 hand-off of political power in Iraq, Bush travels late Monday to the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa., to give the first in a series of speeches about the future of Iraq. Bush will give a televised speech tonight. Read the story here. Tonight, at 5pm, KFI will be broadcasting the President’s speach and right after we will get Capt. Dale Dye on to get his take on the war in Iraq.
Cavallo wants to know: Is a pool stick bigger than a penis?
On May 20, Joseph G. Cavallo-one of the nine lawyers for three teenagers charged with videotaping themselves gang rape an unconscious 16-year-oldprepared Judge Francisco Briseno’s courtroom for what defense had billed as its “Perry Mason moment.” A full-time audio-visual specialist for the defense pushed aside the prosecutor’s 27-inch televisions for his own setup: four high-tech television monitors in the jury box and a 50-inch Hitachi plasma screen-courtesy of wealthy Assistant Sheriff Don Haidl, whose son, Greg, is one of the defendants. A natty Cavallo nodded to jurors, cleared his throat, jingled loose change in his pants pockets and stared at Jane Doe, the alleged victim, seated in the witness box. The defense lawyer had waited impatiently for nearly two years to grill the girl and couldn’t resist a cheap shot, calling her hair “dish water colored.” Many in the courtroom’s public seating area consider Doe beautiful, articulate and, given her ordeal and her age, remarkably composed. Read the story here.
Jacko hits the (baby) bottle
Just when you thought the train wreck that has become Michael Jackson’s life couldn’t get any weirder: Former child star Macaulay Culkin’s reclusive father, Kit, says he once discovered his young son, Rory, sitting on the floor with Jackson, both of them sucking on baby bottles. In an exclusive interview with Inside Edition’s Stacey Gualandi, airing at 7 tonight on Fox, Culkin, the father of the Home Alone star, who famously became one of Jackson’s child friends, previewed some of the material in a book he is preparing. Read the story here.
Friday, May 21st, 2004
Haidl jurors questioned on sex lives
Jurors in the video-rape trial of Gregory Haidl and two others were queried about their sex lives before being impaneled for the high-profile trial. Inquiries about their Internet and movie-viewing habits, their use of sex toys and whether they’re “sexually adventurous” were among 122 questions on the juror survey, which was released this week. Read the story here. Read the jury questionnaire here(.pdf file).
Witness IDs self as teen raped on tape
A teenage girl broke down in tears on the witness stand Thursday when she saw for the first time a portion of an amateur videotape that prosecutors say depicts her being gang-raped by three young men. The now-18-year-old woman at first hesitated to identify herself in the first few seconds of a 21-minute video made when she visited the three defendants during a post-July 4th party at a Corona del Mar home. Read the story here.
New details on scale of Iraq prison abuse
WASHINGTON - Previously secret sworn statements by detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq describe in raw detail abuse that goes well beyond what has been made public, adding allegations of prisoners being ridden like animals, sexually fondled by female soldiers and forced to retrieve their food from toilets. The fresh allegations of prison abuse are contained in statements taken from 13 detainees shortly after a soldier reported the incidents to military investigators in mid-January. The detainees said they were savagely beaten and repeatedly humiliated sexually by American soldiers working on the night shift at Tier 1A in Abu Ghraib during the holy month of Ramadan, according to copies of the statements obtained by The Washington Post. Read the story here.
License issue, budget linked
SACRAMENTO - As the legislative session enters its final months, some lawmakers expressed frustration with the slow pace of negotiations with Gov. Schwarzenegger on a bill to grant driver licenses to undocumented immigrants. One assemblyman said Thursday that the issue could become an obstacle to approval of a 2004-05 budget. “It raises a real concern. We’re talking about maintaining the integrity of the negotiations,” said Assemblyman Manny Diaz, D-San Jose, one of the leaders of the 24-member Latino Legislative Caucus. Read the story here.
