NC repeals law that allowed condemned inmates to serve life if they could prove racial bias

NC repeals law that allowed condemned inmates to serve life if they
could prove racial bias

RALEIGH, N.C. – North Carolina has repealed a landmark law that had
allowed convicted murderers to have their sentences reduced to life in
prison if they could prove racial bias influenced the outcome of their
cases.
Gov Pat McCrory affixed his signature Wednesday.
Both proponents and critics say the repeal of the 2009 Racial Justice
Act will restart the death penalty in a state that hasn't executed an
inmate since 2006.
Republicans and McCrory said the law was so poorly crafted that it has
allowed nearly all of the state's 156 death-row inmates to launch
appeals under the law regardless of their race. They say the law
impedes the will of unanimous jury decisions.
But Democrats argue there's plenty of evidence and studies that show
those juries were racially biased.


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Fed Outlines Timeline for Winding Down Stimulus

Fed Outlines Timeline for Winding Down Stimulus
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said on
Wednesday that the central bank intended to reduce its monetary
stimulus later this year — and end the bond purchases entirely by the
middle of next year — if unemployment continued to decline at the pace
that the Fed expected.
Mr. Bernanke said that the Fed planned to continue the asset purchases
until the unemployment rate fell to about 7 percent, the first time
that the Fed has specified an economic objective for the bond-buying.
The rate stood at 7.6 percent in May.

The Federal Reserve also struck notes of greater optimism about the
economic recovery, saying in a statement released after a two-day
meeting of its policy-making committee that the economy was expanding
"at a moderate pace," the job market was improving and risks to the
recovery had "diminished since last fall."

In a separate forecast released at the same time, Fed officials
predicted that the unemployment rate would decline more quickly than
they had previously expected, falling to 6.5 percent to 6.8 percent by
the end of 2014. They had predicted in March that the rate would be
6.7 percent to 7 percent.

Stocks fell on Wall Street after Mr. Bernanke's remarks, with the Dow
Jones industrial average ending down 1.4 percent, or more than 200
points. The broader Standard & Poor's 500-stock index also lost 1.4
percent. Investors sold on his indications that the Fed would reduce
its stimulus efforts starting later this year.

The Fed said that it would continue for now to purchase $85 billion a
month in Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities, in
addition to holding short-term interest rates near zero. Both policies
are intended to ease financial conditions, to encourage economic
activity and to increase the pace of job creation.

Two of the 12 members of the Federal Open Market Committee dissented
from the decision. Esther George, president of the Federal Reserve
Bank of Kansas City, reiterated her concern that the Fed was doing too
much. James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St.
Louis, broke with the majority for the first time this year,
expressing concern about the sagging pace of inflation.

The improved outlook helps to explain why Fed officials have
increasingly suggested that they may seek to reduce the pace of asset
purchases in the coming months. The Fed has said that it will stop
buying bonds well before it begins to raise interest rates.

While the vast majority of the 19 Fed officials who participate in
policy continue to expect a first rate increase in 2015, 13 said they
expected the Fed to raise its benchmark short-term rate at least to 1
percent by the end of 2015, implying that increases would begin
relatively early in the year. In March, only 10 officials forecast
that rates would hit 1 percent by the end of 2015.

The Fed's forecasts have consistently overestimated the strength of
the economic recovery since the end of the recession. The central bank
has suspended its stimulus efforts twice in recent years, only to find
that it needed to do more. Officials have said that they are eager to
avoid repeating those mistakes. But there is growing optimism inside
the central bank that the Fed is finally doing enough.

The Fed is trying to encourage job creation through a loose monetary
policy, holding short-term interest rates near zero and purchasing $85
billion a month in mortgage-backed securities and Treasury securities.

Economic conditions have improved modestly since the Fed began this
latest round of asset purchases last September. The economy has added
about 197,000 jobs a month, on average, and the unemployment rate has
fallen slightly to 7.6 percent in May from 7.8 percent in September.
The impact of federal spending cuts so far has been smaller than many
forecasters, including the Fed, had expected.

But the economic damage of the recession remains largely unrepaired.
Job growth is basically just keeping pace with population growth. The
share of American adults with jobs has not increased in three years.
At the same time, the Fed's preferred measure of inflation has sagged
to an annual pace 1.05 percent, the lowest level in more than 50
years, as the economy continues to operate below capacity.
Despite high unemployment and low inflation, the Fed has shown no
interest in expanding the pace of its stimulus campaign. Officials say
that they are doing as much as they can. The debate instead has
focused on how soon the Fed can afford to start buying fewer bonds.
Such a deceleration is not likely before September, at the earliest,
but officials have sought to prepare investors for the change. In
particular, the Fed wants to underscore that a smaller monthly volume
of bond purchases still means that the Fed's portfolio would be
growing larger with each passing month. Indeed, the Fed argues that
such a change would not amount to a tightening of monetary policy
because the size of the portfolio is the source of the stimulus.

The Fed's chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, also has been at pains to remind
investors that a change in the pace of bond purchases does not
indicate a change in the duration of the Fed's plans to keep
short-term rates near zero, which it has said it intends to do at
least until the unemployment rate falls below 6.5 percent.

Investors, however, have responded skeptically. After all, the Fed
needs to slow down first before it begins to retreat. Interest rates
on 10-year Treasuries, a benchmark for the Fed's efforts to reduce
borrowing costs, rose to 2.20 percent on Tuesday from a low of 1.66
percent at the start of May.

"Fed officials have been trying to convince everyone that QE is a
flexible instrument and that the onset of tapering does not convey
information about the date of the first fed funds rate hike," Vincent
Reinhart, chief United States economist at Morgan Stanley, wrote
Wednesday. "We believe such a conclusion is false."

Moreover, some economists regard the volume of monthly purchases as
more important than the total amount of the Fed's holdings, meaning
that a reduction in monthly purchases would indeed tend to tighten
financial conditions.

The Fed also finds itself warring against psychology.

The Fed has established $85 billion as a baseline in the minds of
investors. That might not matter if the benefits of the program were
purely mechanical. But buying bonds is also a way for the Fed to
signal its determination to keep interest rates low for years to come.

The program, in other words, is an effort to instill confidence in
investors. And any reduction in the pace of purchases tends to
undermine that message.
For MOre Information visit www.nytimes.com

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small helicopter crashes in Minnesota neighborhood

small helicopter crashes in Minnesota neighborhood
News By foxnews

MAPLEWOOD, MINN. – A helicopter contracted for mosquito control
spraying crashed in a suburban neighborhood just east of St. Paul.

Police say the small helicopter crashed in the backyard of a home in
Maplewood, igniting the chopper and a detached garage. Maplewood Lt.
Kerry Crotty says no one was in the house or garage when the
helicopter went down shortly after 8 a.m. Police declined to say if
anyone was hurt.

Donna Basler lives four houses from the crash site and says she heard
a "big rattling type noise" but didn't know what it was. Basler says
she didn't hear a crash, but saw smoke billowing from the neighbor's
garage.

Metropolitan Mosquito Control District spokeswoman Jill Sederholm says
the plane was under contract to spray for mosquitoes in Maplewood.

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Merkel Challenges Obama on Surveillance

Merkel Challenges Obama on Surveillance
The News By (www.nytimes.com)

BERLIN — Challenged personally by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany
about American intelligence programs that monitor foreigners'
communications without individualized court orders, President Obama
said Wednesday that German terrorist threats were among those foiled
by such operations worldwide — a contention that Mrs. Merkel seemed to
confirm.
Their exchanges, in private at the start of his state visit and later
at a joint news conference, preceded Mr. Obama's speech to an
estimated 6,000 people at the Brandenburg Gate, near where the Berlin
Wall once stood and other American presidents — John F. Kennedy,
Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton — had paid tribute to the
German-American alliance against outside threats from communism to
terrorism.

"No wall can stand against the yearning of justice — the yearnings for
freedom, the yearnings for peace — that burns in the human heart," Mr.
Obama said in his speech.

He used the address to propose that the United States and Russia
further reduce their nuclear arsenals. Yet the anticipation of the
speech at the historic site was offset by attention to the controversy
over the revelations of the breadth of American surveillance programs,
which include both Prism, an effort to monitor foreign communications
at American Internet companies like Google, as well as a vast database
of domestic phone logs.

"We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this
information, not just in the United States but in some cases here in
Germany," Mr. Obama said during the news conference. "So lives have
been saved."

He did not provide any details. But Mrs. Merkel, who acknowledged that
Germany has received "very important information" from the United
States, cited the so-called "Sauerland cell" as an example of such
antiterrorism intelligence cooperation.

In that case, four Islamic militants were sentenced to up to 12 years
in jail in 2010 for plotting terrorist attacks against American
targets in Germany. They were apprehended in 2007 and confessed in
2009. The Central Intelligence Agency was presumed at the time to have
tipped off the German authorities, and the case has gotten renewed
attention in Germany since the recent leak that exposed the Prism
program for monitoring foreign communications.

That news has been controversial in Germany, where both the Nazi era
and the postwar surveillance in Communist East Germany have fostered
deep concerns about privacy and civil liberties, and the issue was
expected to loom large in the meeting of the two leaders. Mrs. Merkel
said at the news conference that she and Mr. Obama had talked at
length about the American programs, even indicating that the topic
took precedence over their discussion of subjects like the global
economy and the conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan. She made clear
that she had expressed her own concerns, despite her stated
understanding of the need for such intelligence efforts.

"Although we do see the need," Mrs. Merkel said, such activities must
be balanced by "due diligence" to guard against unwarranted invasions
of privacy. "Free democracies live off people having a feeling of
security," she added.

Mr. Obama, repeating defenses he has made to Americans, described how
he had made sure when he took office that the intelligence programs
"were examined and scrubbed." He emphasized that the United States
monitored metadata on phone numbers that were linked to suspected
terrorist activities, and did not eavesdrop on the content of calls or
e-mails without getting a court order. "So the encroachment of liberty
has been strictly circumscribed," he said.

"We do have to strike a balance, and we do have to be cautious about
how our governments are operating when it comes to intelligence," Mr.
Obama said, adding, "This is not a situation in which we are rifling
through the ordinary e-mails of German citizens or American citizens
or French citizens or anybody else."

Mrs. Merkel looked at him he spoke beside her, expressionless but
seeming to listen intently. "It's necessary for us to debate these
issues," she replied. "People have concerns."
The public interplay between the leaders reflected a mutual respect
and even personal closeness that they have developed over recent
years, despite some of their policy differences. Mr. Obama noted that
he had given her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America's highest
civilian honor, and said that spoke to their relationship. He called
the chancellor "Angela" and she, in German, used "du," the familiar
form of the pronoun "you" in addressing him.

On some of the other issues — particularly regarding efforts to
provide more aid to the Syrian insurgency, and plans for international
forces to leave Afghanistan next year — the two leaders agreed,
reflecting discussions they had on Monday and Tuesday in Northern
Ireland with other heads of state at the meeting of the Group of 8
industrialized countries.

Mrs. Merkel, at the news conference, agreed with Mr. Obama that
Syria's president, Bashar al-Assad, had lost legitimacy because of his
government's bloodshed and should not be part of the new government
that the United States, Germany and other European allies sought in
Syria. And both expressed hope for resolution even as they
acknowledged the strong opposition to regime change from the Russian
president, Vladimir V. Putin, Mr. Assad's ally and chief arms
provider, who forced the Group of 8 to soften its statement this week
on Syria.

Mr. Obama and Mrs. Merkel were vague about their different approaches
to the global economy. The Obama administration has pressed euro zone
countries, in particular Germany, to provide stimulus or at least
soften the demands for continued austerity measures and budget cutting
from indebted European nations. The continent continues to weather
recessions long after the American economy has returned to slow
growth.

On an unseasonably hot day, under cloudless skies, Mr. Obama's state
visit began with the usual ceremonial pomp and red-carpet welcomes. He
first went to the Schloss Bellevue, an 18th-century summer palace now
used by Germany's nonpartisan president, to meet the current
officeholder, Joachim Gauck. Then he continued to the modern
Chancellery building for the business of the day with Mrs. Merkel:
their private meeting, lunch and the news conference, which preceded
the customarily formal dinner.

Berlin was unusually calm, its residents apparently heeding
authorities' pleas to avoid the historic city center, which was
heavily policed and cordoned off near the Brandenburg Gate.

German newspapers carried large headlines, "Welcome to Berlin," with
the Berliner Morgenpost's in English. But the left-leaning Berlin
Daily Taz jabbed Mr. Obama with a headline in English, "Mr. Obama,
open this gate!" along with a photo not of the Brandenburg Gate but of
the prison for terrorism suspects in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, that Mr.
Obama, as a presidential candidate, promised to close. The headline
paraphrased Mr. Reagan's line at the Brandenburg Gate when it was part
of the Soviet Union's Berlin Wall separating the Communist East from
democratic West Berlin, and spoke to the resonance of the issue here.

A German reporter asked about it at the news conference. "It's been
more difficult than I hoped" to close the prison given Congressional
resistance, Mr. Obama said, but added that he was going to "redouble"
his efforts.

Amnesty International held a modest protest at the Potsdamer Platz, a
sprawling public square near the Ritz-Carlton hotel where Mr. Obama
and his family are staying. Surrounded by dozens of police officers
patrolling the plaza or looking on from the occasional patch of shade,
14 people in bright orange jumpsuits chained themselves together and
chanted, "Yes, you can! Close Guantánamo!"

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Country legend Slim Whitman dies at age 90

Country legend Slim Whitman dies at age 90

News By (http://www.foxnews.com/)
Country singer Slim Whitman, the high-pitched yodeler who sold
millions of records through ever-present TV ads in the 1980s and 1990s
and whose song saved the world in the film comedy "Mars Attacks!,"
died Wednesday at a Florida hospital. He was 90.
Whitman died of heart failure at Orange Park Medical Center, his
son-in-law Roy Beagle said.
Whitman's tenor falsetto and ebony mustache and sideburns became
global trademarks -- and an inspiration for countless jokes -- thanks
to the TV commercials that pitched his records.
But he was a serious musical influence on early rock, and in the
British Isles, he was known as a pioneer of country music for
popularizing the style there. Whitman also encouraged a teen Elvis
Presley when he was the headliner on the bill and the young singer was
making his professional debut.
Whitman recorded more than 65 albums and sold millions of records,
including 4 million of "All My Best" that was marketed on TV.
His career spanned six decades, beginning in the late 1940s, but he
achieved cult figure status in the 1980s. His visage as an ordinary
guy singing romantic ballads struck a responsive chord with the
public.
"All of a sudden, here comes a guy in a black and white suit, with a
mustache and a receding hairline, playing a guitar and singing `Rose
Marie,"' Whitman told The Associated Press in 1991. "They hadn't seen
that."
For most of the 1980s, he was consistent fodder for Johnny Carson's
monologues on late night NBC-TV, and the butt of Slim Whitman
look-alike contests.
"That TV ad is the reason I'm still here," he said. "It buys fuel for the boat."
"I almost didn't do them. I had seen those kinds of commercials and
didn't like them. But it was one of the smartest things I ever did."
He yodeled throughout his career and had a three-octave singing range.
Whitman said yodeling required rehearsal.
"It's like a prize fighter. He knows he has a fight coming up, so he
gets in the gym and trains. So when I have a show coming up, I
practice yodeling."
Born Ottis Dewey Whitman Jr. in Tampa on Jan. 23, 1923, he worked as a
young man in a meatpacking plant, at a shipyard and as a postman.
He was able to get on radio in Tampa and signed with RCA Records in
1949 with the help of Col. Tom Parker, who later became Presley's
longtime manager. RCA gave Whitman the show business name Slim -- he
was a slender 6-foot-1 -- to replace his uninspiring birth name.
In 1952, Whitman had his first hit record, "Love Song of the
Waterfall," which 25 years later became part of the soundtrack of the
movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Another Whitman hit from
that year, "Indian Love Call," was used to humorous effect in the 1996
"Mars Attacks!" -- his yodel causes the Martians' heads to explode.
He crossed paths with Presley in July 1954 when he starred at a
concert in a Memphis park just as Presley -- mistakenly billed as
"Ellis Presley" in one ad for the show -- was launching his career.
According to Peter Guralnick's book "Last Train to Memphis," Presley's
brief, energetic turn on stage caused a wild reaction from the crowd.
When Whitman came on for his performance, he told the audience: "You
know, I can understand your reaction, `cause I was standing backstage
and I was enjoying it just as much as you."
With Whitman's early hits, he became a star on the "Louisiana Hayride"
radio show.
His version of "Rose Marie," the title song from the venerable
operetta that spawned "Indian Love Call," became a huge hit in England
in 1955, staying at No. 1 on the charts for 11 weeks.
Whitman's other hits included "Have I Told You Lately That I Love
You," "Red River Valley," "Danny Boy" and "I'll Take You Home Again,
Kathleen."
"The material I did was lasting material," Whitman said in 1991. "A
lot of people thought I wasn't doing anything, but I was in the
studio. The biggest factor is the material you choose. You hunt, you
cut."
He was survived by his daughter, Sharon Beagle, and his son, Byron Whitman.
Whitman told the AP in 1991 that he wanted to be remembered as "a nice guy."
"I don't think you've ever heard anything bad about me, and I'd like
to keep it that way. I'd like my son (Bryon) to remember me as a good
dad. I'd like the people to remember me as having a good voice and a
clean suit."


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Chrysler agrees to recall of Jeeps at risk of Fire

Chrysler agrees to recall of Jeeps at risk of Fire

News By (www.foxnews.com) DETROIT – Chrysler avoided a showdown with
government safety regulators Tuesday, agreeing to recall 2.7 million
older Jeep Grand Cherokee and Liberty SUVs that could be at risk of a
fuel tank fire.
Earlier this month the company defiantly refused the government's
request to recall the Jeeps. But Chrysler now says it will go ahead
with the recall after getting calls from concerned customers.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration contended that the
Jeep's gas tank could rupture if hit from the rear, causing a fire.
NHTSA said 51 people had died in fiery crashes in Jeeps with gas tanks
positioned behind the rear axle.
The recall covers Jeep Grand Cherokees from model years 1993 through
2004 and Jeep Libertys from 2002 through 2007.
Chrysler said Tuesday that dealers will inspect the vehicles and
install trailer hitches to protect the gas tanks. The company said
vehicles without hitches will get them, as will those with broken
hitches or hitches that aren't from Chrysler.
In a statement, Chrysler maintained that the vehicles aren't
defective, despite prior statements to the contrary from NHTSA.
Chrysler wouldn't say how much the trailer hitches would cost.

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NSA chief defends surveillance, says helped prevent terror plots more than 50 times since 9/11 Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/18/nsa-chief-defends-surveillance-says-helped-prevent-terror-more-than-50-times/?test=latestnews#ixzz2WcuJmqD8

News By (http://www.foxnews.com)The National Security Agency and
Justice Department mounted a vigorous defense of the government's
controversial surveillance efforts on Tuesday, with NSA chief Gen.
Keith Alexander claiming they have helped prevent "potential terrorist
events" over 50 times since 9/11.
Officials insisted the programs protect Americans from unwarranted
intrusion, as they began to shed light on the scope of the secretive
effort in a rare public hearing.
Disclosing new details, a top FBI official claimed the surveillance
efforts helped disrupt a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. FBI
Deputy Director Sean Joyce said NSA officials discovered the scheme
while monitoring a known extremist in Yemen, who was in contact with
an individual in the U.S. After initiating surveillance, Joyce said,
they were able to detect "nascent plotting" to bomb the stock exchange
and ultimately disrupt the plot.
Joyce also discussed another case in which the NSA used the program to
tip off the FBI about an individual's "indirect contacts" with
terrorists overseas. This "terrorist activity" was disrupted as well,
he said, without going into detail.
The administration had not previously discussed those two cases. Joyce
also confirmed prior claims that the program helped detect information
about the 2009 plot to bomb the New York subway system and a plot
involving a Chicago resident to bomb a Danish newspaper.
It's unclear whether authorities might have been able to disrupt these
plots without the help of the phone- and Internet-record collection
programs. But Alexander staunchly defended those programs against
mounting criticism, pushing back after a string of reports based on
leaks of classified information raised widespread privacy concerns.
Alexander, speaking before the House intelligence committee, said the
programs "have protected the U.S. and our allies from terrorist
threats across the globe," pointing to the intelligence community's
ability to better connect the dots as a reason why there hasn't been
another 9/11-style attack.
Specifically, he said they helped prevent terror "events" more than 50
times in more than 20 countries since 2001. Alexander said he plans to
provide details on all the cases to lawmakers in a classified setting
on Wednesday.
The session involving two of Washington's most secretive bodies comes
as an NSA leaker, former contractor Edward Snowden, threatens to
reveal more government secrets from his hiding spot in Hong Kong.
Alexander has already gone to Capitol Hill several times since Snowden
revealed details earlier this month about the government programs to
discuss the agency's budget and meet privately with congressional
members. But Tuesday's meeting marked the first time Alexander has
spoken publicly about the agency-led surveillance programs.
Some lawmakers, and many civil liberties groups, have complained that
these programs have given the government too much power to monitor
people around the world.
Alexander, though, said the program "does not compromise" privacy and
civil liberties.
Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Mich., echoed the comments, claiming
incomplete information has been leaked that creates an "inaccurate
picture" of the program.
Deputy Attorney General James Cole tried to offer a point-by-point
rebuttal of the criticism. He stressed that authorities, when they
gather phone records, cannot immediately find out the identity or
location of the callers. Further, he said "we don't listen in on
anybody's calls."
He said only certain people have access to the information, while
saying the so-called toll records are not protected by the Fourth
Amendment. He said the courts have found people cannot have a
reasonable expectation of privacy as to who and when they call.
Further, he said authorities can only target people who are non-U.S.
citizens and non-permanent residents, and those who are overseas.
The meeting comes one day after Snowden, the former NSA contractor who
gave the classified documents to journalists, conducted an online chat
for The Guardian in which the self-proclaimed whistleblower wrote:
"Truth is coming and it cannot be stopped."
Among the most pressing questions now are which programs and how many
of them either compile phone or email records or allow analysts to
eavesdrop on conversations or read electronic messages.
Attorney General Eric Holder said Friday the leaks were "extremely
damaging" and vowed that the person responsible would be held
accountable.
However, he did not mention Snowden by name or say formal charges have
been filed, saying only that the case is under investigation.
President Obama said in an interview with PBS that the case has been
referred to the Justice Department for investigation and "possible
extradition."


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/18/nsa-chief-defends-surveillance-says-helped-prevent-terror-more-than-50-times/?test=latestnews#ixzz2WcuX2dOy

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