NYC chokehold death ruled a homicide
NEW YORK -- A chokehold used by a police officer on a New York City man during his arrest for selling untaxed, loose cigarettes last month caused his death, the medical examiner announced Friday, ruling it a homicide.
Eric Garner, 43, a black man whose videotaped confrontation with a white police officer has caused widespread outcry and calls by the Rev. Al Sharpton for federal prosecution, was killed by "the compression of his chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police," said medical examiner spokesman Julie Bolcer.
Asthma, heart disease and obesity were contributing factors, she said. In the video, Garner can be heard repeatedly saying, "I can't breathe."
Chokeholds are prohibited by the New York Police Department. Prosecutors on Staten Island are investigating, and Attorney General Eric Holder has said the Justice Department is "closely monitoring" the inquiry.
A spokesman for Daniel Donovan, the Staten Island district attorney, said prosecutors were still investigating the death and were awaiting a full autopsy report.
Obama appeals health exchange ruling
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration on Friday asked the full U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington to reconsider a three-judge panel ruling that customers on the federal marketplace authorized by the health care overhaul are ineligible for subsidies to buy insurance.
"The text, structure, and purpose" of the overhaul "make clear that tax credits are available to consumers 'regardless of whether the exchange on which they purchased their health insurance coverage is a creature of the state or the federal bureaucracy,'" government lawyers wrote in a request for rehearing filed Friday.
The request is the first step in efforts to undo a 2-1 ruling from July 22 striking down an Internal Revenue Service rule providing the subsidies for needy customers on the insurance exchange run by the federal government.
The panel ruled that the language of the law limited the subsidies to eligible customers of state-run exchanges.
Hours after the court issued its ruling, a three-judge panel in Richmond, Va., addressed the same issue and unanimously found that the IRS had the discretion to write rules authorizing credits for both state and federal exchanges.
Oklahoma trial delayed in Aussie's death
DUNCAN, Okla. -- The trial for a man charged in the fatal shooting of an Australian baseball player has been postponed until April.
Chancey Luna, who has been charged with first-degree murder in Chris Lane's death and faces a possible death penalty, had been set for trial next month.
One of Luna's attorneys filed the postponement motion because he says the state is still working on providing defense lawyers with cellphone records.
The trial for Michael Jones, who also was charged in Lane's death, also has been postponed until April.
Lane was shot last summer while jogging along a Duncan road while visiting his girlfriend's parents.
U.S. tortured 9/11 suspects, Obama says
WASHINGTON -- The United States tortured al-Qaida detainees captured after the 9/11 attacks, President Barack Obama said Friday, in some of his most expansive comments to date about a set of CIA practices that he banned after taking office.
"We tortured some folks," Obama said at a televised news conference at the White House. "We did some things that were contrary to our values."
Addressing the impending release of a Senate report that criticizes CIA treatment of detainees, Obama said he believed the mistreatment stemmed from the pressure national security officials felt to forestall another attack. He said Americans should not be too "sanctimonious" about passing judgment through the lens of a seemingly safer present day.
At an April 2009 new conference, he said, "I believe that waterboarding was torture and, whatever legal rationales were used, it was a mistake."
-- COMPILED BY DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE STAFF FROM WIRE REPORTS
A Section on 08/02/2014