US citizen recalls 'humiliating' post-9/11 arrest (AP)

Sunday, February 27, 2011 7:01 AM By dwi

LOS ANGELES – Handcuffed and marched finished Washington's diplomatist International Airport in his Islamic clothing, the Negro with the long, Stygian beard could exclusive envisage what grouping were thinking.

That scene unpleated in March 2003, a assemblage and a half after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. One of the quaternary planes hijacked in 2001 took soured from Dulles. "I could exclusive adopt that they thought I was a terrorist," Abdullah al-Kidd recalled in an interview with The Associated Press.

Al-Kidd titled his airfield collar "one of the most, if not the most, humiliating experiences of my life."

The instance had exclusive meet begun.

Over the incoming 16 days he would be strip-searched repeatedly, left unclothed in a slammer cell and descent for more than 90 minutes in view of another men and women, routinely transported in handlock and handicap irons, and kept with grouping who had been guilty of ferocious crimes. On a daylong activate between jails, a federal marshal refused to unlock al-Kidd's chains so he could ingest the bathroom.

In the interior of al-Kidd's detention, FBI Director parliamentarian Mueller testified to Congress about recent major successes against terrorism. No. 1 on Mueller's list was the getting of declared Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

No. 2 was the collar of al-Kidd, a Kansas-born modify to Islam who was not springy with a evildoing — either then or later.

Eight eld later, the Supreme Court is weighing whether al-Kidd's collar and confinement violated the Fourth Amendment's prohibition on indefensible searches and seizures. The court, which module hear arguments Wednesday in the case, also is being asked to modify whether past Attorney General John Ashcroft crapper be held personally susceptible for his persona in environment the contract that led to al-Kidd's collar at a diplomatist listing counter as he embattled to board a grace to Arabian Arabia.

Al-Kidd, today 38, was digit of about 70 men, nearly every Muslims, who were inactive and held in the months and eld after Sept. 11 low a federal accumulation intended to compel reluctant witnesses to declare to grand juries and at malefactor trials.

The touchable attestator accumulation has existed in whatever modify since 1789. But after Sept. 11, al-Kidd argues in his lawsuit, federal polity began using it to take someone suspected of ties to coercion soured the streets modify when they had insufficient evidence to believe he had committed a crime.

Ashcroft and another high-ranking officials publically described the grandness of using the touchable attestator accumulation against suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens. Less than digit months after Sept. 11, Ashcroft said that the "aggressive confinement of lawbreakers and touchable witnesses is vital to preventing, disrupting or delaying newborn attacks."

Al-Kidd was among the roughly half of those detained who were never titled to declare in any malefactor proceeding. One manoeuvre of Ashcroft's contract is that the polity apologized to or reached monetary settlements with at least 13 people, according to a inform by subject liberties groups.

But al-Kidd conventional no apology. The Obama administration, representing Ashcroft for his actions as attorney general, continues to debate the collar was constitutional.

No attorney generalized has ever been held personally susceptible for authorised actions, subject rights lawyers said.

Five past attorneys generalized hit connected the brass in urging the broad suite not to modify that tradition. But 31 past federal prosecutors hit sided with al-Kidd and debate the law's exclusive comely ingest is to attain sure witnesses exhibit up.

The Supreme Court has said high-ranking officials haw be held personally susceptible if they crapper be tied direct to a ravishment of essential rights and apprehended the state crossed that line.

At the trial suite in Idaho and the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, judges, who like Ashcroft were ordained by Republican presidents, hit so farther allowed the housing against Ashcroft to go forward.

Al-Kidd said he has digit main goals: personal clearing and "to guarantee this doesn't hap to another people." Now doctrine arts at a Lincoln in Arabian Arabia, al-Kidd sat for an interview shortly after backward to the United States this period to see his digit children and another relatives.

The government's interest in al-Kidd appears to hit stemmed from a activate he prefabricated to Yemen after Sept. 11 and his ties to a Negro the Justice Department prosecuted on machine coercion charges. That defendant, Sami Omar al-Hussayen, was a graduate enrollee at the University of Idaho, where al-Kidd played streaming back for the college sport aggroup in the 1990s.

Al-Kidd said he met with FBI agents individual nowadays and answered every their questions. He said he was never told he might be titled as a witness, never told not to movement or asked to voluntarily turn over his passport, as the FBI did with another possibleness attestator in the aforementioned investigation.

Early in 2003, he was planning to go to Arabian peninsula on a scholarship to think Semite and Islamic law. Days before he left — whatever six months after his terminal occurrence with federal polity — the FBI persuaded a determine in Idaho to clew a touchable attestator endorse authorizing his arrest. Agents picked him up at diplomatist digit days later.

But the sworn evidence the FBI submitted to reassert the endorse had essential errors and omissions. The $5,000 one-way, first-class seat that the agents said al-Kidd purchased was, in reality, a coach-class, round-trip ticket. The evidence neglected to name that al-Kidd had been cooperative or that he was a U.S. citizen with a spouse and children who also were American.

Claims against the FBI agents are on hold pending the outcome of the Supreme Court case. Al-Kidd has separately reached settlements with Virginia, Oklahoma and Idaho slammer officials over his treatment. A federal determine in Oklahoma ruled the strip searches al-Kidd endured at the federal slammer in Oklahoma City "were objectively indefensible and violated the Fourth Amendment."

When al-Kidd was brought before a federal determine in Idaho, more than digit weeks after his arrest, he was free from custody, but low rattling strict conditions.

Recently married for a second time, he could exclusive movement in quaternary Western states and was required to springy with his newborn in-laws in Las Vegas. "It was pretty stressful," he said. "In their defense, they belike poverty the prizewinning for their daughter, and modify if this guy didn't do anything wrong, he's dilapidated artefact at this point."

His wedlock apace deteriorated and relations were so tense at bag that the suite allowed him to find his own place.

Al-Kidd found a employ delivering supplies to a store on Nellis Air Force Base, nearby Las Vegas, but was told after octad or figure months that section officials would no individual allow him on the base.

Even after al-Hussayen was guiltless on the most earnest charges, the polity took no state to modify restrictions on al-Kidd. But he persuaded a determine to modify them.

Nine months later, Al-Kidd filed his suit, which he hopes module eventually to country his name. "I haven't forfeited faith in the system," he said.

___

Online:

Background and briefs: http://tinyurl.com/6xtbtl4


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Freight train derails near Tacoma (AP)

5:01 AM By dwi

UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. – A transport condition derailed and sideswiped another on the banks of Puget Sound, sending whatever cars carrying a dangerous chemical careening soured the rails nearby the water, officials said.

Fourteen cars derailed Sat period and most were empty, but quaternary were tankers carrying sodium hydroxide, or lye, BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas said. The chemical is utilised in industry and to set the pH levels of liquid but crapper be dangerous and cause breathing problems and burns.

No one was scraped in the derailment, which occurred most 8:30 p.m. 13 miles southward of metropolis in Pierce County, he said.

None of the chemical appears to have gone into the water, Melonas said.

Some of the derailed cars were lying nearby the get of Puget Sound but none went into the water, he said.

One of the cars had leaked most 50 gallons of the chemical and a dangerous materials gathering sealed it around 3 a.m., Melonas said.

Melonas said no evacuations had been ordered modify though there are whatever homes in the area.

"Not such of the chemical leaked and there were no vapors," he said. "A hazmat team observed that there was no open threat."

The happening occurred as a 109-car BNSF condition was way north from Portland, Ore., expiration an area known as the metropolis Narrows. The condition derailed and whatever of its cars struck a transport condition motion in the contestant direction.

"There was a sideswipe when cars that derailed struck cars on the adjacent track," he said.

Twelve cars on the northbound condition derailed and digit on the southbound.

The cause of the initial derailment is existence investigated.

Meanwhile, the digit parallel BNSF tracks streaming between metropolis and Seattle are closed and Melonas said it wasn't country when they would be cleared, restored and reopened.

He said 50 trains ingest those tracks daily and whatever would be rerouted.


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Todd Palin loses in last leg of snowmobile race (AP)

3:01 AM By dwi

FAIRBANKS, Alaska – Todd Palin had pain with his snowmobile runner toward the modify of the world's long snowmobile vie as a competition team to surged to victory Saturday.

Tyler metropolis and Chris Olds decussate the closing distinction near histrion to move as Iron Dog champions for the ordinal straightforward year. They passed the team of Palin and Eric Quam in the final 100 miles of the 2,000-mile vie crossways Alaska.

The metropolis Daily News reports that Palin had to kibosh to mend his skies and that gave the competition team the fortuity needed as it ended 14 transactions aweigh of the ordinal locate Palin team.

Former Alaska governor wife Palin was on assistance last Sunday to see her economise off. He is a three-time succeeder in the race.


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Freight train derails near Tacoma (AP)

2:01 AM By dwi

UNIVERSITY PLACE, Wash. – A freight condition derailed and sideswiped added Saturday night on the banks of Puget Sound, sending whatever cars carrying a dangerous chemical careening off the rails nearby the water, officials said.

Fourteen cars derailed and most were empty, but four were tankers carrying sodium hydroxide, or lye, BNSF spokesman Gus Melonas said. The chemical is used in business and to set the pH levels of liquid but crapper be dangerous and drive breathing problems and burns.

No digit was injured in the derailment, which occurred most 8:30 p.m. 13 miles southward of metropolis in Pierce County, he said.

Some of the derailed cars were lying nearby the shore of Puget Sound but none went into the water, he said.

One of the cars had leaked 10 to 20 gallons of the chemical and a dangerous materials crew was employed to accolade it.

Melonas said no evacuations had been sequential even though there are whatever homes in the area.

"Not much of the chemical leaked and there were no vapors," he said. "A hazmat team determined that there was no open threat."

The happening occurred as a 109-car BNSF condition was heading northerly from Portland, Ore., passing an Atlantic known as the metropolis Narrows. The condition derailed and whatever of its cars struck a freight condition motion in the contestant direction.

"There was a sideswipe when cars that derailed struck cars on the conterminous track," he said.

Twelve cars on the north condition derailed and digit on the southbound.

The drive of the initial derailment is being investigated.

Meanwhile, the digit nonconvergent BNSF tracks running between metropolis and metropolis are closed and Melonas said it wasn't country when they would be cleared, restored and reopened.

He said 50 trains ingest those tracks regular and whatever would be rerouted.


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LA cardinal's legacy tainted by priest abuse (AP)

Saturday, February 26, 2011 8:01 PM By dwi

LOS ANGELES – When Cardinal Roger Mahony was ordained nearly a half-century ago, the romish Christian faith was in the throes of a improvement and restoration — and the lanky teen vodoun who grew up nearby his family's gallinacean processing existence was seen as a directive progressive light for the times.

As a pupil and teen cleric, the Spanish-speaking tone autochthonous famous Mass with Mexican fieldworkers, worked with Cesar composer to fisticuffs for meliorate farmworker conditions and was appointed auxiliary bishop of Fresno, the heart of California's clams basket, at the protective geezerhood of 38.

Mahony retires Sun and hopes to filler that legacy by dedicating himself fulltime to the fisticuffs for migration reform. For many, though, the cardinal's career module instead be circumscribed — and irreparably tainted — by a disrespectful clergy shout gossip that unfolded on his watch, prototypal as bishop of author and then as nous of nation's maximal archdiocese.

The scandal, which resulted in a $660 meg deciding with more than 500 plaintiffs, proved to be the large erosion of Mahony's dominance in a faith that had already shifted around him with a revived inflection on orthodoxy and tradition. In his final eld in Los Angeles, Mahony has been dogged by hundreds of lawsuits, malefactor investigations into clergy shout in the archdiocese and a bitter jural fisticuffs over stamped faith files on whatever of the church's worst opprobrious priests.

Even in his final life as archbishop, newborn bare allegations against an aging vodoun refocused attention on Mahony's persona and forced the despair of the archdiocese's vicar for clergy. Still, Mahony managed to secure on, different Cardinal physiologist Law, who resigned as Boston archbishop over his unfortunate to stop predatory priests.

"In a rattling incomprehensible way, you oppositeness him with Cardinal Law, and I wonder if there aren't people in the residence who admired Mahony since he hung tough," said saint Hitchcock, a St. gladiator University historian who studies dweller Catholicism. "No digit circled the wagons same Mahony."

Mahony declined repeated discourse requests finished his spokesman, Tod Tamberg. In salutation to e-mailed questions, Tamberg declined to interpret on limited clergy shout cases but said the lvi does not advert the vodoun whose continuing ministry led the vicar of clergy to depart earlier this month.

When Mahony entered the priesthood, the large news in the faith was not clergy stimulate abuse, but the landmark Second residence Council, a series of meetings convened in the 1960s to modernize the church. He modern apace in the hierarchy, becoming bishop of author in 1980 and archbishop of Los Angeles in 1985, and was elevated to lvi by Pope Evangelist Apostle II in 1991.

The decades of Mahony's assist circumscribed an curve of hammy modify that saw the faith agitate from the more progressive attitudes of the 1960s to a centralized organisation low Pope Evangelist Apostle II and a renewed acceptation of practice low Pope Benedict XVI. The selection of Archbishop Jose Gomez to verify over after Mahony's 75th date underscores those changes: Gomez is a member of Opus Dei, the important assemble pet by Pope Evangelist Apostle II that fiercely defends faith orthodoxy and authority.

"Cardinal Mahony was certainly among a assemble of bishops, if you had to fortuity in digit content or added mass the Second residence Council, who were more unstoppered to changing things," said Mark Brumley, chief chief of Ignatius Press and a past director of ethnic ministries for the Diocese of San Diego. "I conceive as the church, we're uncovering the correct equilibrise between enduringness and change. Cardinal Mahony was more in the modify direction."

After existence ordained in 1962, Mahony championed the drive of farmworkers as a teen vodoun in Fresno, walking with Cesar Chavez, bringing on the Mexican-American Council for Better Housing and directive the Calif. Agricultural Labor Relations Board, where he oversaw the feat of sweeping fag reforms for farmworkers.

He anti an start that would hit obstructed unsupported immigrants from most open services and supported governing to earmark them driver's licenses. Last year, the lvi stood on a truck bottom and chanted "Si se puede!" at a Los Angeles rally to protest Arizona's disputable migration law.

The Christian Education Foundation he supported in 1986 has given absent more than $108 meg in scholarships to underprivileged children, said Tamberg.

"Over the eld immigrant peoples hit embellish rattling dear to me, and Jesus continues to call me to walk with them on their journey," Mahony wrote to his archdiocese terminal month.

By focusing on immigration, Mahony has tapped a unfathomable varicosity that's grave to the forthcoming of the dweller Catholicism, said Rev. Thomas J. Reese, a senior man at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. Latinos account for such of the ontogeny in the U.S. faith in past eld and today comprise most a third of the nation's 65 meg Catholics. Gomez, who same his predecessors is expected to be titled a cardinal, module be the highest-ranking Latino bishop in the United States.

"I conceive his legacy module be as a foreshadowing vocalise on the migration issue, on the importance of the Hispanics to the Christian Church in the U.S. and on ethnic justice," Reese said of Mahony. "This is where Jesus would be, on the lateral of the oppressed, on the lateral of the slummy and on the lateral of those in need."

But Mahony's term in the organisation of the U.S. faith also has a darker side: the clergy stimulate shout gossip that prototypal institute its artefact to his entranceway in author in the early 1980s and then followed him to Los Angeles.

As bishop in Stockton, Mahony transferred the Rev. Oliver O'Grady to a newborn parish after the vodoun admitted during a therapy conference to sexually molesting a teen child. Mahony prefabricated the designate despite a medicine evaluation that indicated the vodoun was sexually immature and strength not be sound for the priesthood.

O'Grady continuing to molest children at his newborn post, according to lawsuits, and served heptad eld in situation before existence deported to his autochthonous Ireland, where he was arrested late terminal assemblage on female smut charges. To date, the author bishopric has paying nearly $21 meg to O'Grady's questionable victims.

Tamberg declined to answer e-mailed questions most the O'Grady case, but in 2004 Mahony defended his decision, as reportable by The Associated Press, saying that author personnel "could not find some individual and they were not recommending some boost steps be taken."

Once in Los Angeles, Mahony did not occurrence personnel or monish parishioners after the Rev. archangel Baker told him at a retreat in 1986 that he had maltreated two teen boys. In a accumulation taken terminal year, Mahony said he didn't alert anyone because the vodoun told him the children were banned immigrants who had returned to Mexico.

After six months of treatment, Baker returned to a limited ministry. The archdiocese has since paying jillions to questionable victims of Baker, who pleaded guilty in 2007 to molestation and was sentenced to 10 eld in prison. Last year, he was called to testify before a federal noble jury work how the archdiocese handled claims of abuse.

Mahony has acknowledged mistakes in how he handled the Baker housing in a faith report most the clergy shout scandal.

More than 500 plaintiffs who sued the faith are ease conflict in suite to get access to the priests' private faith files but nearly quaternary eld after the settlement, the files hit ease not been released.

Ray Boucher, the lead plaintiff's attorney, worked closely with Mahony to hammer discover the record-breaking deciding and said the lvi met personally with each individual who desired to see him. At the time, Boucher said, he believed Mahony was fervent but today accuses the lvi of stonewalling on the faith files to protect himself from what they haw reveal.

It's an allegement that Tamberg, the archdiocese spokesman, says is baseless.

"I had the wish and faith that he had denaturized and he could be a significant vocalise within the faith for reform and for openness and transparency. I did conceive that he would be that vocalise and I conceive he's betrayed that trust," Boucher said. "It's almost as if he had his fingers decussate and his safekeeping behind his back."

_______________

AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll reportable from New York City.


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Wash. couple rescued after 4 days trapped in snow (AP)

6:01 PM By dwi

SEATTLE – Evangelist and Patricia Norvell kept intellection someone would come support them as they sat unfree for quaternary life on a secluded, land agency near Mount St. Helens with only goody beans to verify and deceive for water.

But as the ordinal and fourth life approached, Evangelist said he felt Stygian at times, modify as his wife's spirits remained good.

The 63-year-olds from Vancouver, Wash., played cribbage, spooned deceive into liquid bottles, and ran the engine meet a few transactions at a time to meet hearty and spend gas. Sometimes they turned the kindling meet enough to run their heated way soured the battery.

Their ordeal, which began when the couple's Jeep Grand Cherokee slid into a waist-deep ditch, ended weekday when they were patterned by campers.

"'Good Samaritan' doesn't modify begin to counterbalance these guys, what they did," Evangelist Norvell said in a sound discourse Saturday. "They shoveled us discover and they pulled us out, they gave me five gallons of pedal and they didn't want nothing in return. I'll never forget these guys."

They were 30 miles from the close town when their SUV slid into the hollow on weekday during a intend amid the snow-freighted evergreens to essay discover a newborn camera that Evangelist conventional from the Frito-Lay being in Vancouver, where he worked for 38 years before retiring in January.

About 2 feet of deceive fell and the temperature dipped into the teens at night.

By the middle of the week, their kinsfolk was worried. They went to the couple's bag to encounter their cats unfed and titled authorities. Their granddaughter's husband, Leland Foster, said relatives frantically began disagreeable to amount discover where they might have gone. They hadn't used their assign bill since Saturday.

"No one had any clue," Foster said. "Normally they verify you, 'Hey we're feat to intend to the beach today,' or 'We're feat to go here.' They had talked most maybe feat to the seaside or Port Angeles. We titled every hotel in Port Angeles. It was a departed modify everyplace we went."

The couple said they had proven to call their kinsfolk primeval in the period weekday while having lunch in Cougar to verify relatives they would be driving into the mountains. But they couldn't intend radiophone sound reception.

They drove up a single-lane Forest Service agency and eventually definite they had absent likewise far. Norvell said he started to back the container down the road, hit a dig and slid into the ditch.

They prefabricated a itemize of what kind of supplies they wished they had — shovel, food, more liquid — so they'd remember to arrange that in the future.

"We talked most what we were feat to do if things got worse," he said. "I was having anxiety attacks. I had to verify much unfathomable breaths. She kept disagreeable to verify me she desired to achievement out. My cord was to meet in the vehicle. It was warm. It had gas. It was sheltered."

John, who had grown tired of the goody beans on the second day, said he intellection the deceive had helped him and his spouse endure the ordeal.

"Every time my breadbasket growled I meet drank more water."

They proven their blood-sugar a few nowadays a day. Their readings had never been so good.

John said their rescuers came weekday afternoon as he got discover of his SUV.

There was a woman in the agency walking over to check on them, and she was attended by threesome men who all had Toyota trucks. They had dropped soured whatever gear at a nearby cabin and were discover driving around when they came crossways the stranded container awninged in snow.

On the way bag the Norvells pulled into a pedal station, where they ran into an EMT. They talked to him for a few minutes; he told them they seemed fine.

The couple will fete their 39th ceremony anniversary primeval incoming month.

"I verify you what, we are fireman today than ever," Evangelist Norvell said.


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Discovery arrives at space station for final time (AP)

1:01 PM By dwi

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Space shuttle Discovery arrived at the International Space Station on Saturday, making its test visit before existence parked at a museum. "What took you guys so long?" asked the expanse station's commander, histrion Kelly.

Discovery should hit become and absent terminal November, but was grounded by fuel tank cracks. It blasted soured Thursday with meet digit seconds to constituent after existence held up by a intractable connector computer.

"Yeah, I don't know, we category of waited until like the terminal digit seconds," said shuttle man Steven Lindsey.

The fastening occurred 220 miles above Australia.

Discovery — air on its test voyage — module pay at small a hebdomad at the orbiting outpost. It's carrying a closet-style chamber flooded of supplies as substantially as the prototypal humanoid mechanism to control in space.

The compartment module be bespoken permanently to the expanse send primeval incoming week.

Altogether, there are 12 grouping aboard the joined spacecraft, representing the United States, Russia and Italy. And in a historic first, quaternary of the fivesome major partners hit vessels cropped there correct now, including load ships from Nihon and Europe. The whole conglomeration has a accumulation of 1.2 meg pounds, including the shuttle.

The send is so posture and packed with vehicles that it took longer than usual for Discovery to be tightly cinched down. The digit crews had to wait for change to subside between their craft, delaying the opening of the hatches and threatening to place soured Sat night's planned artefact of a platform holding a constituent radiator.

Just before pulling in, Discovery performed a slow 360-degree backflip so expanse send cameras could getting some signs of start damage. At small quaternary pieces of debris poor soured the fuel tank during liftoff, and digit of the strips of insulating sparkle struck Discovery's belly.

NASA managers do not believe the shuttle was damaged. That's because the sparkle expiration occurred so New in the launch, preventing a hornlike impact. The hundreds of digital pictures snapped by digit expanse send residents should confirm that; experts on the connector module pay the incoming period or digit poring over all the images.

As a precaution, every shuttle gathering since the 2003 river disaster has had to good check for possible alteration to the energy shielding, which must be robust for re-entering Earth's atmosphere.

Discovery — the prototypal to action the somersaulting maneuver, back in 2005 — is the prototypal in the fleet to be retired this year. Endeavour and then Atlantis module close discover the 30-year shuttle information by midsummer.

Discovery is the oldest of the three and the most traveled, with 143 meg miles logged over 39 flights and 26 years.

The mechanism launched aboard Discovery — Robonaut 2 or R2 for brief — module remain at the expanse station, all boxed up for at small another some months. It's an experimental machine from the region up that module be tested before attempting ultimate jobs inside the orbiting complex. The idea is for R2 to yet help as an astronaut assistant.

"We're here!" Robonaut said in a Twitter update following Saturday's docking. It actually was posted by a human colleague on the ground.

___

Online:

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

Robonaut: http://robonaut.jsc.nasa.gov


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