QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We have turned the tables on the NSA and can say to them:We are watching you.”
U.S. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., after the House passed a bill to limit the National Security Agency’s powers.
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Arizona firefighters work to contain blaze
KACHINA VILLAGE, Ariz. — Hundreds of firefighters worked Thursday to protect communities on the edge of Flagstaff from a wildfire that is chewing up a scenic Arizona canyon with towering flames and burning entire trees down to nothing but ash. The human-caused Slide Fire started Tuesday and had burned more than 11.5 square miles in and around Oak Creek Canyon, a scenic recreation area along a highway between Sedona and Flagstaff that normally would be teeming with tourists as the Memorial Day weekend approaches. There were no reports so far of injuries or structures burned, although the fire grew tenfold from Wednesday and from 7.5 square miles earlier Thursday. Fire incident commander Tony Sciacca said Thursday night that crews have made good progress and some containment was expected to be announced by this morning. The fire still was 3 miles to 3.5 miles away from the residential areas of Forest Highlands and Kachina Village, where 3,200 residents remained under pre-evacuation warnings. Sciacca said 500 firefighters were assigned to the fire Thursday, with an additional 200 personnel expected later in the day.
Congress moves to fund vast VA probe
WASHINGTON — Stepping up Congress’ efforts to root out misconduct at the Department of Veterans Affairs, lawmakers Thursday moved to boost funding for a nationwide investigation into whether VA employees covered up long waits for medical care and to authorize subpoenas of VA officials to produce records and appear at a Capitol Hill hearing next week.
Even as a growing number of Republicans and some Democrats have called for his resignation, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki was on Capitol Hill on Thursday meeting with the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois.
A resolution also has been introduced seeking a House vote calling for Shinseki’s resignation.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, meanwhile, approved a VA spending bill that would provide an additional $5 million for a VA inspector general’s investigation, give the VA secretary give new authority to fire or demote employees, and freeze bonuses to senior VA employees until the review is complete.
Tennessee brings back electric chair
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Republican Gov. Bill Haslam signed a bill into law Thursday allowing Tennessee to electrocute death-row inmates in the event prisons are unable to obtain the drugs used in lethal injections, which have become more and more scarce since a European-led boycott of drug sales for executions.
Tennessee lawmakers overwhelmingly passed the electric-chair legislation in April.
Richard Dieter, the executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, said Tennessee is the first state to enact a law to reintroduce the electric chair without giving prisoners an option.
“There are states that allow inmates to choose, but it is a very different matter for a state to impose a method like electrocution,” he said.
Dieter said he expects legal challenges to arise if the state decides to go through with an electrocution, both on the grounds of whether the state could prove that lethal injection drugs were not obtainable and constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment.
FBI Guantanamo probe ends; no charges
MIAMI — An FBI investigation into a potential security breach that halted proceedings at the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal in April has ended without charges, the Justice Department said Thursday.
The FBI was investigating whether a member of the defense team for Ramzi Binalshibh, one of five prisoners at the U.S. base in Cuba charged in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, had facilitated “unauthorized communications” abroad, Justice Department spokesman Brian Fallon said.
In April, a lawyer for Binalshibh disclosed that the FBI questioned the defense security officer assigned to their team, a nonlawyer who assists with the handling of classified evidence. The disclosure halted pretrial hearings in the case because of a potential conflict of interest for defense lawyers charged with defending both their clients and potentially themselves if they were targets of any investigation.
A Section on 05/23/2014