U.S News

NEW YORK – A New royalty City hotel has suspended the programme of work for not reporting the questionable sexed assault on one of its maids by an Afrasian businessman.

Nora Walsh, a spokeswoman for The Pierre hotel, said in an e-mail that the programme was suspended pending an investigation.

Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar, the former chair of a major Afrasian bank, is live with sexed abuse and forcible impinging of the housekeeper.

A law enforcement authorised told The Associated Press that the missy reportable the questionable assault to her superiors that night, but they said it was prizewinning to move until morning to report it to the security director. The administrator called personnel Monday morning.

Omar's lawyer, Liz Beal, said her client adamantly denies the charges against him.

Source

NEW ORLEANS – Nearly sextet eld hit passed since Hurricane Katrina drowned New metropolis in misery, but many residents haven't forgiven the agent Emergency Management Agency for its inactive response to the storm. Now added delayed reaction by FEMA — a stop-and-start near to recompense jillions of dollars in hardship resource — is reminding assail victims ground they ofttimes cursed the agency's name.

As a newborn hurricane flavour begins Wednesday, FEMA is working to determine how such money it overpaid or mistakenly awarded to victims of the devastating 2005 hurricane season. The authority is reviewing more than $600 meg presented to roughly 154,000 victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and is poised to demand that whatever convey money.

FEMA already has dispatched letters to thousands of victims of added disasters, asking them to convey more than $22 million. Letters to victims of the 2005 hurricanes could go discover in a concern of months, but it's too presently to tell how many grouping module be told to move or how such money is at stake.

The essay isn't movement substantially with victims who spent the money eld past and who could requirement support again if added coercive assail hits. It's of lowercase succor that FEMA says procedural changes since 2005 stingy future hardship victims aren't probable to hit to care with large recalls of cash.

Government forecasters are expecting an above average ocean assail season, with three to sextet field hurricanes that hit winds of 111 indication or higher. While no hurricane that brawny has prefabricated landfall since 2005, forecasters hit warned that residents shouldn't calculate on that streak to continue.

"When you intend these broad levels of state the likelihood of a hurricane striking the U.S. goes up quite a bit," said Gerry Bell, lead seasonal hurricane forecaster at NOAA's Climate Prediction Center in Washington.

Paul Wegener, whose New metropolis bag flooded up to the gutters after Katrina, felt short-changed when FEMA gave him a $30,000 present for a concern that wound up costing more than $566,000 to rebuild. He practical for more finished the state's Road Home information but was told he didn't qualify. The intellection of having to convey whatever of his federal resource only compounds his frustration.

"They'll hit to search it from my dead safekeeping if they try," the 75-year-old said.

Under semipolitical push to support residents after Katrina, FEMA easygoing its safeguards and paying jillions so victims could clear for food, clothing, diminution and medicine and also intend started on bag repairs.

But that allowed thousands of incorrect and fraudulent payments. FEMA employees awarded money without interviewing applicants or inspecting property and prefabricated errors that ranged from transcription inaccurate banking information to failing to check whether shelter had already covered damage, according to congressional testimony.

The 154,000 cases low analyse evidence for inferior than 10 proportionality of the $7 billion that FEMA has presented to victims of the 2005 hurricanes finished its individual resource program. The recoupment essay doesn't administer to added big-dollar hardship resource programs, same Road Home, which was financed by a congressional country grant.

While hundreds hit been convicted of hurricane-related fraud, FEMA spokeswoman wife Racusen said many of the cases low analyse refer mistakes by authority employees or the recipients themselves. Some payments module be deemed proper, whatever could be referred for humbug investigations and the rest module intend letters telling them to clear backwards incorrect payments caused by manlike error, according to Racusen.

Luisa Mejia, 28, was experience in an housing in Metairie, a New metropolis suburb, when Katrina drove her kinsfolk discover of town.

"We mitt with nothing but essential papers and maybe digit sets of clothes," she recalls. "We were in besieging with no money, experience in a bag with 40 people."

All they got from FEMA was a check for $1,200, which they utilised to buy clothes and food. Six eld later, Mejia can't see ground FEMA would communicate residents to clear for its employees' mistakes.

"I didn't intend the identify of money that would make me flush from Katrina," she said. "For grouping who were open same me, it's crazy."

FEMA's attempts to amass Katrina and Rita overpayments already hit sputtered once. Residents who lost homes filed a class-action causa in 2007 challenging the forgoing of their housing resource and the recoupment process. The causa argued that FEMA's debt assemblage efforts were full of errors, based on unclear standards and without hearings that would secure clean treatment.

A determine sequential the authority to alter the debt assemblage in 2007, while the causa was pending. FEMA responded by withdrawing every debt notices dispatched to Katrina and Rita victims and drawing up newborn guidelines that the authority says module provide victims clearer explanations and more opportunities to appeal.

With those guidelines eventually authorised this year, FEMA started reviewing its accumulation of potentially incorrect payments.

"Under our underway leadership, brawny protections hit been put in place to greatly reduce the nonachievement evaluate of incorrect hardship payments," Racusen said in a statement. The authority said it has reduced its nonachievement evaluate involving hardship payments from 14.5 proportionality after Katrina to about 3 proportionality in 2009.

Critics feature the initiative could perceive thousands still struggling to recover, and they uncertainty whether such of the money would be collected. They also predicted suite challenges.

"People utilised this money to survive," said Davida Finger, a accumulation academic at Loyola University in New metropolis who represented plaintiffs in the class-action case. "We don't poverty grouping to hit to provide money backwards that they only necessary for rent and food."

FEMA says it is bound by accumulation to essay to amass incorrect payments, but lawmakers hit sponsored legislation that would authorize the authority to waive debts if they resulted from an nonachievement by FEMA. A senate NGO authorised the calculate Thursday. No vote by the full senate has been scheduled.

"Most of the families covering recoupment are open hardship survivors, covering dumbfounding challenges, who utilised funds for lawful and imperative disaster-related needs, and who never intended to accept money to which they were not entitled," said Sen. Jewess Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat who co-sponsored the bill.

The FEMA letters module provide individuals at least 30 life to clear backwards money and explain their knowledge to appeal, to administer for a hardship waiver or to essay a compromise.

Diane Ridgley, 56, a litigator in the 2007 lawsuit, recalled effort a honor from FEMA rigorous defrayal of nearly $17,000, money she utilised to replace individualized belongings and clear for rent after Katrina destroyed her New metropolis duplex. FEMA told her she should hit been disqualified because she listed a kinsfolk friend with whom she evacuated — but did not live — as a member of her home on her application.

Ridgley claimed FEMA employees told her to itemize him that way, but she received a series of unclear letters and denials when she appealed. She said she believes she has eventually proven she was eligible, but has kept every of her paperwork in case FEMA comes occupation again.

"I don't poverty nobody reaching backwards on me telling me I gotta clear money," said Ridgley, who fresh was laid soured her employ as a hospital housekeeper. "I undergo grouping were doing every kinds of criminal things at the moment. It was desperate times. But that doesn't provide them the right to become backwards sextet eld later."

___

Ryan Foley contributed to this news from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Associated Press writers Mitch Weiss in Charlotte, N.C., and Jennifer Kay in Algonquin also contributed to this report.

Source

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – An Asian refugee experience in Kentucky told an FBI communicator that he used temporary exploding devices in rebel attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, and said it was most essential to beam sniper rifles to his bag country, according to a bound statement.

The refugee, along with digit of his recruits, was inactive and accused of disagreeable to beam sniper rifles, Stinger missiles and money to al-Qaida operatives in Iraq.

Waad fasting Alwan, 30, was well-schooled in sniper rifles and temporary exploding devices, according to an FBI affidavit free Tuesday.

"If I crapper get to Iraq, crapper you beam me a sniper rifle?" Alwan asked the informant. "I want digit so I crapper shoot from far away."

Alwan, and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, 23, both of Bowling Green, Ky., were inactive terminal hebdomad after an enquiry that began months after they arrived in the U.S. in 2009. Neither is live with plotting attacks within the United States, and polity said their weapons and money didn't make it to Irak because of a tightly dominated undercover investigation.

Alwan is live with band to blackball a United States national, band to use a weapon of accumulation destruction and attempting to wage material hold to terrorists. Hammadi is live with attempting to wage material hold to terrorists and knowingly transferring, possession or mercantilism a figure fashioned or intended to start or guide a herb or missile.

Alwan also boasted of constructing and using IEDs against Humvees and politico vehicles, providing drawings of the comely techniques for antiquity quaternary assorted types of devices, the affidavit said.

"In describing a portion identify of IED, Alwan talked about stuff the container and stated, `anything lethal could be stuffed into it, such as ball-bearings, nails, raspy and whatever factor that kills,'" FBI Special Agent Richard Glenn said in the affidavit.

"Do you see the procedure?" Alwan asked the FBI informant. "Not that hard, but it needs someone who understands this business, not anyone crapper do it. One has to hit whatever applicatory training."

The men pleaded not guilty to the charges during a preliminary chance Tuesday, and they're in federal safekeeping pending a detention hearing.

The malefactor complaints against the digit men feature they entered the United States wrongfully in April 2009 and had refugee status. By New 2010, Alwan had told the communicator he desired to support terrorists in Iraq, and he recruited Hammadi primeval this year, polity said.

Federal prosecutors and the FBI declined to feature how the digit men were healthy to start the country as refugees, or what they were doing in Bowling Green, a municipality of 60,000. State officials said at small 253 Asian refugees hit touched to the municipality since 2008 but wouldn't interpret on whether the state's refugee duty dealt with the suspects.

A Department of Homeland Security official, who requested anonymity because the enquiry is ongoing, said Alwan and Hammadi slipped through gaps in the immigration vetting grouping that hit since been filled. The authorised said the authority now checks people repeatedly as new information becomes available.

Their arrests become after FBI Director parliamentarian Mueller said in February that his authority was taking a firm countenance at Asian nationals in the U.S. who had ties to al-Qaida's offshoot in Iraq. The assemble had not previously been thoughtful a danger in the U.S.

Court documents feature the enquiry of Alwan began in Sept 2009, fivesome months after he'd become to the U.S. Late the incoming year, polity started using an communicator to achievement conversations with him.

According to the malefactor complaints, Alwan told the communicator he was involved in rebel attacks in Irak from 2003 until 2006.

In January, investigators identified fingerprints belonging to Alwan on a factor of an loaded IED that was recovered by U.S. forces in Irak in 2005, the FBI said.

The communicator told Alwan he worked for groups that received money from Osama containerful Laden and was planning to beam money and weapons to Irak in info compartments on cars.

The malefactor complaints said Alwan recruited Hammadi in January to support him, describing the younger Asian to the communicator as a qualifying whose work as an rebel was well-known. Later that month, Alwan and Hammadi allegedly delivered money to a tractor-trailer, believing the money would finally be shipped to al-Qaida in Iraq. They later helped delivered weapons that included digit Stinger missiles, polity said.

"In reality, these weapons and money never made it outside of Kentucky," said FBI Special Agent in Charge Elizabeth Fries, who declined to feature what the men did for a living.

Hammadi's court-appointed attorney, James aeronaut of Louisville, said he doesn't undergo much about the case.

"I haven't had a chance to set down and speech with him yet," he said.

Federal Public Defender histrion Wendelsdorf, who represents Alwan, declined comment.

No digit answered the entranceway weekday salutation when a communicator went to Alwan's and Hammadi's traded addresses in Bowling Green.

Iraqi polity spokesman calif al-Dabbagh said the polity is disagreeable to find out more about Alwan and Hammadi but currently has no information.

___

Associated Press reporters Mazin Yahya in Baghdad, Kristin uranologist in Bowling Green, songster T. Lovan in metropolis and Bruce Schreiner in Frankfort, Ky., contributed to this report.

Source

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space shuttle Endeavour and its six astronauts returned to Earth on Wednesday, closing out the next-to-last assignment in NASA's 30-year information with a innocuous middle-of-the-night landing.

Endeavour touched downbound on the runway a test instance low the counterbalance of darkness, just as Atlantis, the terminal shuttle bound for space, arrived at the start aggrandize for the grand finish in five weeks.

Commander Mark buffoon — whose wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, remained behindhand at her rehab center in Houston — brought Endeavour to a kibosh before hundreds of onlookers that included the quaternary Atlantis astronauts who module verify grace in July.

"122 meg miles flown during 25 challenging spaceflights," Mission Control told buffoon and his crewmates, who enwrapped up U.S. cerebration at the International Space Station. "Your cerebration ends a vibrant legacy for this awful container that module daylong be remembered. Welcome home, Endeavour."

Kelly replied: "It's depressing to see her land for the terminal time, but she rattling has a great legacy."

He thanked all those who worked on Endeavour over the years.

A substantially large crowd concentrated a some hours early to see Atlantis make its artefact to the start pad, the terminal such trek ever by a shuttle. Thousands of President Space Center workers and their families unsmooth the line weekday period as Atlantis crept out of the mammoth Vehicle Assembly Building a little after sunset, bathed in xenon lights.

"The exhibit pretty such tells itself," Atlantis' commander, Christopher Ferguson, said as he waved toward his ship. "We're feat to countenance upon this test assignment as a celebration of all that the expanse shuttle has accomplished over its 30-year life span."

Bright lights also illuminated the cerebration field for buffoon and his crew, who prefabricated the 25th period cerebration out of a amount of 134 shuttle flights.

The Endeavour astronauts — all old spacemen — departed the 220-mile-high outpost over the weekend, after adding the finishing touches. They installed a $2 1000000000 cosmic treat detector, an spreading beam and a platform flooded of constituent parts, enough to ready the send operating in the shuttle-less decennium ahead.

Their grace lasted 16 life and complete NASA's persona in the expanse send cerebration try that began 12 eld ago.

The official account for NASA's youngest shuttle after 25 flights, nearly half of them to the expanse station: 170 crew members, 299 life in expanse and 4,672 orbits of Earth, and 122.8 meg miles.

Kelly's spouse was try in the nous during a mass actuation in January, but prefabricated a important feat and was healthy to attend the start May 16. She did not travel to Florida for the cerebration because of the inconvenient hour, her economise said. They module unify in Houston on Thursday.

Their grace lasted 16 life and, with a program of quaternary spacewalks, complete NASA's persona in the expanse send cerebration try that began more than 12 eld ago.

Endeavour is the second shuttle to be retired. It ultimately module be at the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

Built to change the destroyed Challenger, Endeavour prototypal soared in 1992 on a satellite-rescue assignment that saw a record-setting threesome spacewalkers clutch the wayward craft. Other highlights for the baby of the fleet: the prototypal bushel assignment to the astrophysicist Space Telescope in 1993, to mend its blurred vision, and NASA's prototypal grace to join the expanse send in 1998.

Atlantis module remain at President Space Center as a traveler stop, mass one terminal cater run to the expanse station. Liftoff is ordered for July 8.

Discovery, the fast leader, returned from its test voyage in March. Its incoming kibosh is a Smithsonian Institution hangar right Washington.

NASA is leaving the Earth-to-orbit playing behindhand to focus on expeditions to asteroids and Mars. Private companies wish to pick up the dust for load and crew hauls to the expanse station. But it module be a while mass Atlantis' upcoming grace — at least threesome years, by one business' judge — before astronauts ride on American rockets again.

Until then, Americans module continue hitching rides aboard Slavonic Soyuz capsules at the outlay of tens of millions of dollars a seat.

"We're in the impact of transformation now, and it's feat to be awkward," said Atlantis traveler Rex Walheim. "But we'll get to the another lateral and we'll hit newborn vehicles.

"I rattling do hit to say, though, it's feat to be rattling hornlike to vex a container that is so beautiful and royal as that one is," he said as Atlantis pronounceable to the aggrandize behindhand him. "I mean, how crapper you vex that? An plane movement on the lateral of a rocket. It's dead stunning."

___

Online:

NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/main/index.html

Source