LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY
“My deputies will arrest them and put them in pink underwear.”
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio,
vowing to arrest disruptive protesters of Arizona’s immigration law and stating that he’ll go ahead with a crime sweep targeting illegal aliens Article, 1AFBI asked to aid Pentagon files inquiry
WASHINGTON - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he asked the FBI to help the Pentagon investigate the leak of secret U.S. documents on the war in Afghanistan.
The leaking of the documents published by WikiLeaks.org is “potentially severe and dangerous” for U.S.
troops and their allies in the war, Gates said at a Pentagon news briefing Thursday.
“It is important that we have all the resources we need to investigate and assess this breach of national security,” Gates said. “We will aggressively investigate and wherever possible prosecute.”
Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, assailed Julian Assange, founder of the website that published more than 91,000 secret U.S. military reports from Afghanistan.
“Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good that he thinks he and his source think they are doing,” said Mullen at the briefing. “But the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.”
C-17 crash shortly after takeoff kills 4
ELMENDORF AIR FORCE BASE, Alaska - The crash of a military cargo plane on a training mission occurred just about a minute after it took off from a runway at an Alaska base, officials said Thursday.
Three of the men killed in the Wednesday evening accident were in the Alaska Air National Guard, and the fourth was on active duty at Elmendorf, Air Force Col.
Jack McMullen said Thursday.
Their names have not been released pending notification of relatives.
The C-17 was part of the 3rd Wing, based at Elmendorf in Anchorage. The crash sent a fireball hundreds of feet into the air about 6:14 p.m. during a training demonstration for a weekend air show, Lt. Gen. Dana Atkins said.
Challenges to EPA findings rejected
The Obama administration rejected challenges to its finding last year that climate change caused by emissions of greenhouse gases is a danger to public health.
The Environmental Protection Agency found that 10 petitions contesting the decision as flawed “provide no evidence to undermine our determination,” Administrator Lisa Jackson said Thursday in a statement. Industry groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have said the EPA’s carbon rules will be a drag on the economy.
The agency’s action removes a potential obstacle barring the U.S. from regulating carbon-dioxide emissions from cars, trucks, power plants, oil refineries and factories under the Clean Air Act. Congress has failed to pass legislation to limit carbon emissions that would mandate pollution cuts by statute.
Groups such as the chamber, Pacific Legal Foundation and Southeastern Legal Foundation asked the EPA to reconsider its decision, saying the finding was flawed or that the agency erred in evaluating scientific evidence, according to the EPA denial.
Up to 6,600 Arlington graves mixed up
WASHINGTON - Estimates of the number of graves that might be affected by mix-ups at Arlington National Cemetery grew from hundreds to as many as 6,600 on Thursday, and the cemetery’s former superintendent blamed his staff and a lack of resources for the scandal that forced his ouster.
John Metzler, who ran the historic military burial ground for 19 years, said he accepts “full responsibility” for the problems.
But he also denied some of the findings by Army investigators and suggested cemetery employees and poor technology were to blame for remains that may have been misidentified or misplaced. He said the system used to track grave sites relied mostly on a complicated paper trail vulnerable to error.
Metzler and his deputy, Thurman Higginbotham, were forced to retire after Army investigators found that as many as 211 graves were unmarked or misidentified.
Front Section, Pages 5 on 07/30/2010