QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We’re not looking back; we’re looking forward.The next three days are going to be challenging.We want to make sure we are as prepared as possible.” Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, who declared a state of emergency for 45 counties before the arrival of a winter storm that’s expected to drop 1 to 3 inches of snow on the region Article, 6A30 years given in Fast, Furious-tied death
TUCSON, Ariz. - A man convicted in the shooting death of a federal Border Patrol agent during a firefight that revealed the government’s botched gun-smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious was sentenced Monday to 30 years in prison.
Manuel Osorio-Arellanes, who is from El Fuerte in the Mexican state of Sinaloa, is the only person to be convicted in the Dec. 14, 2010, shooting death of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry near the Arizona-Mexico border.
U.S. District Court judge David Bury handed down the sentence, 360 months with credit for time served.
The shootout occurred just north of the Arizona border city of Nogales as Osorio-Arellanes and four other men who are accused of sneaking into the country to rob marijuana smugglers approached Terry and three other agents who were targeting such rip-off crews.
Osorio-Arellanes was wounded in the shootout and was the only person arrested at the scene. Four other alleged ripoff crew members fled to Mexico. Two of the four are now in Mexican custody, while two others remain fugitives.
Osorio-Arellanes maintains he was not the shooter who killed Terry, and prosecutors agree that evidence supports his claim. Still, they say he is liable because he was a voluntary participant in the rip-off crew.
Boston bombing trial estimate 3 months
BOSTON - The trial of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzkokhar Tsarnaev is expected to last three months, plus another six weeks if he is convicted and jurors have to decide whether he should be put to death, prosecutors said Monday.
The trial estimate was included in a joint status report filed in court Monday by federal prosecutors and Tsarnaev’s lawyers ahead of a Wednesday hearing.
In the report, defense lawyers say they want a trial date no earlier than September 2015. Prosecutors did not include a request for a trial date, but they said during a court hearing in November that they hoped to have the trial this fall.
Tsarnaev, 20, has pleaded innocent in the attack last April that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others.
Authorities say he and his older brother, Tamerlan, built and planted two pressure cooker bombs near the marathon finish line. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died after a shootout with police during an escape attempt four days after the marathon.
Foreign-massacre lie draws 10-year term
RIVERSIDE, Calif. - A former Guatemalan special forces soldier was sentenced Monday to a decade in an American prison for lying on a U.S. citizenship application about his role in a civil war massacre that decimated a village more than three decades ago.
Jorge Sosa, 55, who taught martial arts in Riverside County, was also stripped of his American citizenship after being convicted of failing to disclose his purported participation in the killing of at least 160 people in the village of Dos Erres.
The former second lieutenant was not formally tried in California for war crimes, but U.S. District Judge Virginia A.
Phillips noted that a jury found Sosa committed crimes in Dos Erres after comrades testified that he fired a weapon into a well filled with screaming villagers and stood by as soldiers under his command raped and killed women.
Sosa was arrested in Canada in 2011 and extradited to face charges in the U.S. He was convicted by a jury last year of making false statements and illegally obtaining citizenship in 2007.
New drug shortages down 24% in 2012
WASHINGTON - New drug shortages decreased in the U.S. as the Food and Drug Administration stepped up its vigilance on the matter, government auditors said.
There were 195 shortages of medicines reported in 2012, a 24 percent decline from the previous year and the first time since 2006 the U.S. saw a reduction in new drug shortages, the Government Accountability Office said Monday in a report. There were 73 new shortages through June 30, 2013, the office said.
The number of current shortages has increased every year since 2007 and remains high, the agency said, with 456 reported in 2012.
“From prolonged duration of a disease, to permanent injury, to death, drug shortages have led to harmful outcomes for patients of all ages,” the FDA said in a letter to Congress accompanying the report.
Manufacturing troubles cause most shortages, with suppliers slowing or halting production when they experience quality problems, according to the report.
Front Section, Pages 4 on 02/11/2014