FBI probing suspect's recent conversion to Islam in Oklahoma beheading

from fox


Published September 26, 2014

FoxNews.com

 FBI officials are investigating a beheading at an Oklahoma food distribution center after co-workers said the suspect tried to convert them to Islam after his own recent conversion.

The suspect, Alton Nolen, 30, was recently fired from Vaughan Foods in Moore prior to Thursday’s attack. Moore Police Department Sgt. Jeremy Lewis toldKFOR that Nolen drove to the front of the business and struck a vehicle before walking inside. He then attacked Colleen Hufford, 54, stabbing her several times before severing her head. He also stabbed another woman, 43-year-old Traci Johnson, at the plant.

Lewis said Mark Vaughan, the company’s chief operating officer and a reserve county deputy, shot Nolen as he was stabbing Johnson, who remains hospitalized in stable condition Friday.

“He’s a hero in this situation,” Lewis told the station. “It could have gotten a lot worse.”

Nolen was apparently attacking employees at random, authorities said. The motive for the attack is unclear, but FBI officials confirmed to Fox News that they were assisting the Moore Police Department in investigating Nolen's background and whether his recent conversion to Islam was somehow linked to the crime.

The police department issued a statement saying, "After conducting interviews with Nolen's co-workers, information was obtained that he recently started trying to convert several employees to the Muslim religion. Due to the manner of death and the initial statements of co-workers and other initial information, the Moore Police Department requested the assistance of the FBI in conducting a background investigation on Nolan."

Nolen, according to state corrections records, was convicted in January 2011 of multiple felony drug offenses, assault and battery on a police officer and escape from detention. He was released from prison in March 2013.

Saad Mohammad, a spokesman for the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, told NewsOK.com that leaders of the society’s mosque are taking security precautions to protect Muslims who gather there from any potential retaliatory violence.

Mohammad said any anti-Muslim sentiments local residents might have could be heightened due to the beheadings and violence overseas by Islamic State militants.

“They have this ISIS thing on their minds and now this guy has brought it to America,” Mohammad told the website.

Lewis said he does not yet know what charges will be filed against Nolen, adding that police are waiting until he's conscious to arrest him. Authorities said he had no prior connection to either woman.

Moore Police Department officials have released 911 calls from the incident,OKCFox.com reports. During the recording, a caller tells an operator that a person is attacking someone in the building. Several gunshots can be heard in the background at the end of the call. 

A Vaughan spokeswoman said the company was "shocked and deeply saddened" by the attack.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

DNA evidence exonerates two half-brothers convicted of the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old girl

from time.com

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Oklahoma Death Row Inmate Died From Lethal Injection, Not Heart Attack

Updated: Sept. 2, 6:30 p.m.

Two half-brothers who were convicted in the 1983 rape and murder of an 11-year-old North Carolina girl were ordered free Tuesday, after a judge ruled that they had been wrongly imprisoned thanks to newly discovered DNA evidence.

North Carolina Superior Court Judge Douglas Sasser overturned the convictions of death-row inmate Henry Lee McCollum, 50, and Leon Brown, 46, who had been serving a life sentence. Both men originally confessed to the rape and murder of Sabrina Buie, who was found dead in a soybean field in rural North Carolina.

The ruling comes after an investigation by the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission that found no DNA evidence at the crime scene that could be traced back to McCollum or Brown.

But a cigarette found and tested in 2010 contained the DNA of another man, Roscoe Artis, who lived a block away from where the crime took place and is serving a life sentence for another murder and rape within weeks of Buie’s death.

“It’s impossible to put into words what these men have been through and how much they have lost,” said Ken Rose, a lawyer who represents McCollum, in a statement.

McCollum and Brown, both mentally challenged, initially signed statements saying they were responsible for Buie’s death. According to Brown’s defense lawyers, the two signed the statements believing they would go home afterward.

“When Henry gave his confession, he got up to walk out of the interrogation room,” says W. James Payne, a lawyer representing Brown. “He started to walk out the door.”

Both appealed their convictions over the years. In 2006, Brown filed a motion to test the DNA of a cigarette butt found at the crime scene. The results eventually excluded both McCollum and Brown. Several years later, the state’s innocence commission got involved and in July announced that DNA on the cigarette butt actually belonged to Artis.

That led to the scene Tuesday, in which Judge Sasser announced that the convictions for both men were to be overturned.

“I think I was crying harder than Leon,” says Ann Kirby, one of Brown’s lawyers. “To hear the word innocent in a courtroom is the pinnacle for any lawyer. It was history making.”

Both men had been imprisoned for three decades, McCollum being the longest-serving inmate on death row in North Carolina. Brown was on death row for five years until a retrial dismissed his murder charge.

“He always said, ‘They can go to the North Pole, and they’re not going to find anything,’” Kirby says, referring to Brown. “When we heard the verdict, we said, ‘They went to the North Pole.’ And he said, ‘They sure did.’”

Parents Who Took Ill Son Abroad Fight Order to Return to Britain

from nytimes




By KATRIN BENNHOLDSEPT. 1, 2014

LONDON — The wrenching tale of a British boy with a brain tumor and his parents, who were arrested after fleeing the country with him to seek treatment abroad, entered a new phase on Monday as the parents attended an extradition hearing in Madrid and refused to return to Britain.

At the hearing, the judge ordered Brett King, 51, and his wife, Naghemeh, 45, back into custody for a maximum of 72 hours pending further examination of their case, as well as medical feedback from the hospital in Málaga, Spain, where their 5-year-old son, Ashya, is being treated, according to reports in the Spanish news media, citing unnamed judicial sources.

After being told that Ashya would not benefit from proton beam radiation therapy — a cancer treatment not available to brain tumor patients in Britain but sometimes paid for by the National Health Service abroad — the Kings took their son out of the hospital against doctors’ orders on Thursday. They left Britain later that day, taking Ashya and his six siblings along.

A European arrest warrant was then issued by the British police, amid claims that Ashya’s life was in danger if he did not receive specialist medical attention. The family was arrested near Málaga on Saturday. Before the arrest, Mr. King posted a video of himself and Ashya on YouTube, denouncing the police hunt as “ridiculous.”

He said the family believed that proton beam treatment, despite what British doctors had told him, was the best available treatment for his son’s condition, a cancer known as medulloblastoma. They went to Spain, Mr. King said, to sell a house they owned there and to raise money for the treatment in the Czech Republic.

Mr. King said that the treatment his son had received in Southampton had seemed to him like “trial and error,” and that proton beam treatment, which targets brain tumors more directly than general radiation therapy, was recommended for this type of cancer on American, French and Swiss medical websites.

Reacting to the video, University Hospital Southampton said it had offered the family a second opinion and, if warranted, help with organizing treatment abroad. A spokeswoman for the National Health Service said, “Where doctors recommend it, the N.H.S. does fund proton beam therapy, including supporting 99 children last year to travel abroad for treatment.”

The proton therapy is available in only one hospital in Britain, the Clatterbridge Cancer Center in Wirral, and only for patients with rare eye cancers. But its use is reportedly being expanded to hospitals in Manchester and London.

After their parents’ arrest, Ashya’s siblings were not allowed to visit their brother in his hospital room in Málaga, which is reportedly under police guard. But his oldest brother, Danny, 23, told the BBC on Monday that he would get access later in the day.

The hearing on Monday in Madrid was held behind closed doors. The parents have not been charged with any crime under Spanish law. If the British authorities proceed with a formal extradition request, a decision will be made by a different panel of Spanish judges, but most likely not for several weeks.

Raphael Minder contributed reporting from Madrid.

Reagan Appointee 'Unravels FedEx's Business Model' In Court Ruling

from huffpost



Posted: 08/27/2014 5:29 pm EDT Updated: 2 hours ago

In a decision that one judge wrote "substantially unravels FedEx's business model," a panel of federal judges ruled Wednesday that FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery drivers are employees of the company, rather than the "independent contractors" that FedEx characterizes them as.

The decision by the panel for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined that FedEx Ground had misclassified 2,300 drivers in California and Oregon as contractors, opening the company up to hundreds of millions of dollars in wage claims. The ruling reversed a decision by a lower court that had stopped the plaintiffs' lawsuits from moving forward.

In concurring with his colleagues, Judge Stephen S. Trott used a quote attributed to President Abraham Lincoln to argue that employees are still employees even if a company wants to call them contractors.

"Abraham Lincoln reportedly asked, 'If you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?'" wrote Trott, an appointee of President Ronald Reagan. "His answer was, 'Four. Calling a dog's tail a leg does not make it a leg.'" (Exactly what Lincoln said, it should be noted, is a matter of dispute.)

Over the years, FedEx has been sued by workers dozens of times over its independent contractor model, though many of those lawsuits have been dismissed or held on appeal.

"We expect that the 9th Circuit's ruling will have a cascade effect on all other appeals pending around the country, and it really heralds the end of FedEx's way of doing business," said Beth Ross, an attorney who led the plaintiffs' case.

In a statement, FedEx Ground said it would ask for a review of the ruling by the entire 9th Circuit. The company also said it had legally strengthened its contractor model in 2011, and argued that Wednesday's ruling doesn't apply to its current labor model.

"We fundamentally disagree with these rulings, which run counter to more than 100 state and federal findings -- including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit -- upholding our contractual relationships with thousands of independent businesses," said Cary Blancett, FedEx Ground's senior vice president and general counsel.

FedEx is largely credited with having pioneered the "independent contractor" work model in the logistics industry. Under this system, workers function as self-employed drivers with their own routes, covering the costs of their own trucks, gasoline, uniforms and so forth.

While corporations claim the contractor system gives drivers flexibility and strong incentives as "small businesses," critics say it's simply a way to shift the costs of employment onto workers and avoid payroll taxes and workers'-compensation costs.

The basic question in lawsuits involving the independent contractor model is whether or not a company like FedEx still maintains control over the work itself. In Wednesday's ruling, the judges asserted that it does.

"Although our decision substantially unravels FedEx's business model," Trott wrote in his decision, "FedEx was not entitled to 'write around' the principles and mandates of California Labor Law."

As HuffPost reported earlier this year, this model has been widely adopted by other trucking and courier companies, many of whose drivers work long hours for low pay and little job security. One worker who drives for the delivery company Lasership, which is a major Amazon contractor, described the arrangement this way: "It's like they want us to be employees, but they don't want to pay for it."

In its statement, FedEx Ground said that due to recent lawsuits and regulations, the company had "taken a number of steps in recent years to enhance its operating agreements with the independent businesses that contract with the company."

Holder takes on Ferguson: AG ‘flooding the zone’ with investigators, heads to Missouri

from fox

Published August 19, 2014

FoxNews.com

Attorney General Eric Holder, one of President Obama’s longest-serving and most controversial deputies, is taking the lead in the federal government’s response to the roiling tensions in a St. Louis suburb over the police shooting of an unarmed man.

While the president, who is in Washington for two days of meetings, returns Tuesday evening to his family vacation in Martha’s Vineyard, Holder will head to Ferguson, Mo., where protests continue to give way to riots and looting on a nightly basis – straining law enforcement previously accused of being heavy-handed in their response.

From the White House, Obama is keeping a reserved tone by calling for calm on both sides, urging protesters to stay peaceful and police to show restraint. But at the Justice Department, Holder is committing what is being described as an “extraordinary” effort to investigate the local case.

“They’re basically flooding the zone [with investigators],” Thomas Dupree, former deputy assistant attorney general under the George W. Bush administration, told Fox News. “It’s an extraordinary level of commitment for an incident of this nature.”

Dupree said the response shows this case is something Holder “is personally invested in.”

Holder will visit Ferguson on Wednesday to meet with the FBI agents and other Justice Department personnel on the scene, as well as local community leaders. Holder’s Justice Department already has opened a federal civil rights probe – according to Politico, federal investigators are conducting hundreds of interviews and turning up information the local police haven’t – and conducted an additional autopsy of 18-year-old Michael Brown’s body.

A top DOJ official is heading to Ferguson Tuesday in advance of Holder’s arrival to work with local police.

Whether Holder and his department will ease or inflame tensions remains to be seen – it’s the same question that hangs over Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon’s decision to call in the National Guard.

Dupree voiced concerns that Holder is sending a signal to his department that there is a “correct outcome.”

“I don’t want to say they’ve prejudged it, but the statements he’s saying I think could lead people to conclude that there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things in the mind of the attorney general,” he said.

Holder said Monday that the “full resources” of DOJ are being committed, including more than 40 FBI agents on the ground.

“I realize there is tremendous interest in the facts of the incident that led to Michael Brown’s death, but I ask for the public’s patience as we conduct this investigation,” Holder said in a statement. “The selective release of sensitive information that we have seen in this case so far is troubling to me. No matter how others pursue their own separate inquiries, the Justice Department is resolved to preserve the integrity of its investigation. This is a critical step in restoring trust between law enforcement and the community, not just in Ferguson, but beyond.”

Holder also called for an end to violence and looting in Ferguson.

Holder, one of the few remaining members of the original Obama Cabinet, remains a lightning rod figure in Washington, for his role in several controversies. The Republican-led House voted to hold him in contempt of Congress in 2012, in connection with the botched Fast and Furious anti-gun-trafficking operation. His department more recently came under scrutiny for its surveillance of members of the media, and for allegedly not doing enough to investigate the IRS over alleged targeting of conservatives.

On matters of race, Holder has been outspoken. He called the country a “nation of cowards” on racial issues in 2009. As Obama did, he publicly identified with Trayvon Martin – the black teenager shot by George Zimmerman in Florida in 2012 – recalling incidents of racial profiling he faced as a young man.

This time, Obama has shied away from personalizing his response to the Ferguson shooting. But Holder is showing an acute interest in the case.

So far, his involvement is drawing praise from the state’s Republican senator, Roy Blunt, but also words of caution. Blunt said that he and Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill will join the attorney general on Wednesday, and that he’s been “pleased with my conversations with the attorney general and civil rights division regarding their helpful understanding that they aren't taking over this investigation, but are conducting a parallel review.”  

He called a “parallel federal investigation” into the death “important” but cautioned against DOJ taking on too large a role.

“While the federal government can assist with that investigation, the federal government should not assume the state and local governments' responsibilities,” Blunt said in a statement.

LET JOHN OLIVER EDUCATE YOU ON THE THOROUGHLY EVIL PAYDAY LOAN INDUSTRY

from esquire

By Ryan Bort on August 11, 2014

Last night John Oliver spent over 16 minutes of Last Week Tonight unpacking the atrocities of payday loans, one of the most flat-out pernicious industries in America.

Payday loans are quick, short-term loans meant to cover unexpected emergencies that are to be paid back with the borrower's next paycheck, hence the name. One in 20 households has taken one out at some point, it's a $9 billion dollar industry, and, most astonishing of all, there are more payday loan outlets in the U.S. than there are Starbucksor McDonald's. Believe it.

But it's not as simple as helping people out of a jam and getting paid back the next time a paycheck comes in. Payday loan companies are so lucrative because they trap borrowers in a vicious circle of debt that's nearly impossible to get out of. Oliver shows a montage of news footage reporting astronomical interest rates, some of which can climb as high as 1900 percent annually. Yes, it's a short-term loan, but if you can't pay the money back by the next pay period, you’re basically fked, and three-quarters of borrowers do in fact need to re-borrow to pay off the initial loan. Companies advertise that it's not a big deal if you can't make a payment and that they'll help you work it out, but all they'll offer is another loan, which only compounds how much you owe. As Oliver notes, "It's not often that a metaphorical slippery slope costs as much as an actual ski vacation." Or, if you prefer: "Payday loans are the Lay's potato chips of finance: You can't have just one, and they're terrible for you.”

The most stomach-turning part of all this is how shamelessly payday loan companies will circumvent whatever feeble regulation happens to get passed so they can continue to ruthlessly take advantage of people who need help. For example, in 2008, Ohio managed to cap loan rates at 28 percent for any short-term lender. The solution? Register as "mortgage lenders" instead of short-term lenders. Yes, $300 mortgages. Come and get 'em.

The bottom line is that payday loans aren't going anywhere. Too many people are making too much money. People need to make sure that borrowing money from Cash America, or the Cash Fairy, or Ace Cash Express, or any other payday loan outlet is an absolute last resort. Pawn your possessions, get a few bucks from your rich uncle, or, as Sarah Silverman notes in a PSA at the end of Oliver's piece, even get paid to defecate on someone, which makes more sense than taking out a payday loan. Watch below:

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Congress, Unhinged on Immigration

from nytimes

The Opinion Pages | EDITORIAL

By THE EDITORIAL BOARDAUG. 1, 2014

It was a remarkable two days of legislative dysfunction, even for congressional Republicans, who have been pushing the limits of unhinged governance.

The House speaker, John Boehner, tried on Thursday to pass a bill dealing with the crisis of migrant children at the Texas border — a harsh bill to deport the children more quickly to their violent home countries in Central America, and to add more layers of border enforcement. But it wasn’t harsh enough to suit the Tea Party, and it was pulled for lack of votes. The hapless House leadership had to drag members back from the start of a five-week vacation to try again on Friday.

The revised legislation sought to appease the hard-liners, who were insisting on swiftly expelling migrant children but also intent on killing the Obama administration’s program to halt the deportations of young immigrants known as Dreamers. Tea Party members believe, delusionally, that the program, called DACA, has some connection to the recent surge of child migrants, who would never qualify for it. On Friday night, the House passed a bill that dragged immigration reform so far to the right that it would never become law.

As Congress takes the rest of the summer off, there may be no two happier House Republicans than Steve King and Michele Bachmann, charter members of the “hell no” caucus that resolutely blocks all efforts at sensible immigration reform. The Senate’s attempt to address the border crisis, meanwhile, is also dead — filibustered by Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama. Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican who engineered the House revolt, was exultant. Nothing will happen there until September, if then.

Meanwhile, the border crisis is still a crisis and people are suffering. The Border Patrol and refugee programs will run short of money for aiding and processing traumatized children. Immigration courts will still be overloaded, due process will continue to be shortchanged or denied. Because House Republicans killed a comprehensive reform bill that passed the Senate more than a year ago, the larger immigration system, choked by obsolete laws, backlogs and bureaucratic breakdowns, still awaits repairs.

Eleven million people are still living outside the law with no way to legalize their status. Farmers and other business owners who depend on immigrant labor are still looking to Congress to bring order and efficiency to the system. They have been waiting for at least a decade. They will have to wait some more.

Congressional nihilism has created a vacuum. Now it’s President Obama’s job to fill it, to keep his promise to end the border crisis and find ways to redirect immigration enforcement and protect possibly millions of families from unjust deportation. Of course, regardless of what he does, the system will still be marked by chaos and pain. And the hard-liners will scream at any action he takes.

Having spent the summer howling about a catastrophe at the border, Republicans are now congratulating themselves for refusing to solve it.

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A version of this editorial appears in print on August 2, 2014, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: Congress, Unhinged on Immigration. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe