LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
"People need to get home, need to get their houses straight and get back to work." George Johnson, a New Orleans resident who used back roads to sneak into the stormbattered city Article, 8A
U.S. must produce interrogation memos
NEW YORK - A Manhattan judge has ruled that the U.S.
government must either produce memos on waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods used by the CIA or explain why they should be kept secret.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein says the documents are "clearly responsive" to a lawsuit brought in October 2003 by the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil-rights groups seeking records on the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody abroad.
The judge gave the government until Oct. 3 to respond.
The U.S. attorney's office declined comment Wednesday. A Justice Department spokesman in Washington said the department was reviewing the judge's order.
Man pleads guilty in robbery, bomb plot
ERIE, Pa. - A man admitted in federal court Wednesday that he helped plot a bizarre bank robbery that ended when a bomb strapped around a pizza deliveryman's neck exploded and killed him.
Kenneth Barnes pleaded guilty to conspiracy and a charge of aiding and abetting.
According to Barnes, deliveryman Brian Wells got cold feet on the day of the robbery, refusing to put on the collar bomb after realizing it was real. Another plotter then fired a single shot from a gun, scaring him into putting it around his neck.
Barnes, 54, could be sentenced to life in prison, but his attorneys hope he will get a lighter sentence in exchange for his cooperation.
The investigation began when Wells, 46, walked into a PNC Bank branch on the outskirts of Erie on Aug. 28, 2003, with a pipe bomb locked onto his neck.
He presented a teller with a note demanding money and walked away with about $8,700.
Wells was cornered by police a short time later and told officers the bomb had been put on his neck at gunpoint. It exploded, killing him, as police waited for a bomb squad to arrive.
Club owners agree to settle fire suit
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - The owners of a nightclub where a 2003 fire killed 100 people have reached a tentative $813,000 settlement with survivors and relatives of those killed.
The settlement offer from Jeffrey and Michael Derderian was revealed in court papers Wednesday.
The settlement will be covered by their insurance policy since the brothers have received bankruptcy protection that shielded them from lawsuits. It and other settlements in the case require the approval of the judge overseeing the lawsuits and the more than 300 people who are suing, among other conditions.
More than $175 million has now been offered by dozens of defendants to the more than 300 people suing over the Feb.
20, 2003, fire at The Station nightclub in West Warwick.
It began when pyrotechnics ignited cheap packaging foam the Derderians had installed as soundproofing.
The agreement with the Derderians comes a day after a separate $1 million settlement with members of Great White, the 1980s rock band whose pyrotechnics triggered the fire.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 09/04/2008