Briefs 1019

Obama pushes back on criticism of handling of Libya attacks; campaign turns to night of humor

NEW YORK (AP) — President Barack Obama on Thursday rejected criticism that his administration has offered a confused response to the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya, an accusation made repeatedly by Republican challenger Mitt Romney in their campaign for the White House. Of any breakdown that might have led to the killing of four Americans, Obama declared: “We’re going to fix it.”

On a campaign day where the politics of comedy were to flavor the presidential race, Comedy Central host Jon Stewart got serious in pressing Obama over the government’s changing explanation about the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi. When Stewart suggested that even Obama would concede his administration’s coordination and communication had not been “optimal,” Obama said: “If four Americans get killed, it’s not optimal. We’re going to fix it. All of it.”

Romney has pointedly questioned Obama’s handling of the matter and his honesty about it to voters. Those accusations led to the fiercest conflict of the presidential debate on Tuesday and will surely come to the fore again on Monday in the campaign’s final debate.

Appearing in a taping of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” Obama insisted information was shared with the American people as it came in. The attack is under investigation, Obama said, and “the picture eventually gets filled in.”

The exchange came on a day when Vice President Joe Biden compared the policies of Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, to a gun pointed at Americans, and after Romney’s son said he was tempted to “take a swing” at Obama when the Democrat questions the GOP candidate’s honesty.

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Scout “perversion” files from 1959-1985 show local officials helped hush up some abuse cases

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Again and again, decade after decade, an array of authorities — police chiefs, prosecutors, pastors and local Boy Scout leaders among them — quietly shielded scoutmasters and others accused of molesting children, a newly opened trove of confidential papers shows.

At the time, those authorities justified their actions as necessary to protect the good name and good works of Scouting, a pillar of 20th century America. But as detailed in 14,500 pages of secret “perversion files” released Thursday by order of the Oregon Supreme Court, their maneuvers allowed sexual predators to go free while victims suffered in silence.

The files are a window on a much larger collection of documents the Boy Scouts of America began collecting soon after their founding in 1910. The files, kept at Boy Scout headquarters in Texas, consist of memos from local and national Scout executives, handwritten letters from victims and their parents and newspaper clippings about legal cases. The files contain details about proven molesters, but also unsubstantiated allegations.

The allegations stretch across the country and to military bases overseas, from a small town in the Adirondacks to downtown Los Angeles.

At the news conference Thursday, Portland attorney Kelly Clark blasted the Boy Scouts for their continuing legal battles to try to keep the full trove of files secret.

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10 Things to Know for Friday

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and stories that will be talked about Friday:

1. OBAMA PUSHES BACK ON CRITICISM OVER LIBYA

The president insists he shared information with the American people as it came in.

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Ex-Penn State assistant Sandusky asks judge to overturn sex abuse convictions, grant new trial

BELLEFONTE, Pa. (AP) — Former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky asked a judge on Thursday to overturn his child sexual abuse convictions and grant him a new trial, claiming his lawyers lacked sufficient time to prepare and the statute of limitations for some charges had expired.

Sandusky’s lawyers made the filing at the courthouse in Bellefonte where he was sentenced two weeks ago to 30 to 60 years in prison after being convicted of abusing 10 boys, some on Penn State’s campus in State College.

“The defendant submits the court’s sentence was excessive and tantamount … to a life sentence, which the defendant submits is in violation of his rights,” they wrote.

The 31-page set of motions, technically not appeals because they were filed with the trial judge, cover a wide range of assertions, including insufficient evidence, improper use of hearsay testimony and erroneous rulings from the bench.

More than a third of the document explores ways Sandusky believes the rapid pace of the case violated his right to due process of law, as he went from arrest to trial in just over seven months. His lawyers said they were swamped by documents from prosecutors, they lacked time to interview possible witnesses and an expert and two assistants were not available at trial.

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Airstrikes in northern Syria kill at least 43, hammer city recently captured by rebels

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian warplanes hammered a strategic city captured by rebels, leaving behind scenes of carnage captured Thursday on amateur videos that showed a man holding up two child-sized legs not connected to a body and another carrying a dismembered arm.

Activists said airstrikes over the past two days on opposition targets across Syria’s north have killed at least 43 people.

The city of Maaret al-Numan, located strategically on a major north-south highway connecting Aleppo and Damascus, was captured by rebels last week and there has been heavy fighting around it ever since. Rebel brigades from the surrounding area have poured in to defend the town. Online videos have shown them firing mortars at regime troops, and they claimed to have shot down a government helicopter on Wednesday.

Since it was captured a week ago, the city in northern Idlib province and its surroundings have been the focus of one of the heaviest air bombardments since President Bashar Assad’s military first unleashed its air force against rebels over the summer.

Local activists in the city say warplanes are continuously overhead, and entire villages are largely deserted and peppered with destroyed homes.

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Military to clean Guantanamo legal offices said to be contaminated with rat droppings, mold

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) — Legal offices that are so contaminated with mold and rat droppings that lawyers in the Sept. 11 terrorism trial have been getting sick will get a full clean-up and be evaluated by safety experts, a military official said Thursday.

A “comprehensive” cleaning of the offices, which are primarily used by defense teams in the Guantanamo Bay tribunals, will begin by the end of the month and be finished in time for a hearing scheduled in December, said Army Capt. Michael Lebowitz, one of the prosecutors in the case of five prisoners charged in the Sept. 11 attacks.

“It’s almost like a fresh start,” Lebowitz told the case judge, who has been fielding complaints about the offices this week while presiding over a pretrial hearing at the U.S. base in Cuba.

The issue of the contaminated offices has repeatedly interrupted progress on more than two dozen pretrial motions this week. Defense lawyers had sought to postpone the hearing outright, which would have further delayed a case that has been plagued by delays.

A base official declared the offices unsafe in September because of mold and other problems, then the space was declared safe several weeks later after a cleaning. But lawyers distributed photos this week showing the walls and air conditioning units coated with mildew and mold as well as floors littered with what appear to be mouse and rat droppings. Pictures also showed a dead crab and lizard, both common at the tropical base on the Caribbean Sea.

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Army appeals court rules Fort Hood shooting suspect can be forcibly shaved before trial

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — An Army appeals court ruled Thursday that the Fort Hood shooting suspect can have his beard forcibly shaved off before his murder trial.

The U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the military trial judge’s decision to order Maj. Nidal Hasan to appear in court clean shaven or be forcibly shaved, according to a release from Fort Hood. The opinion came on the heels of last week’s hearing at Fort Belvoir in Virginia in which the court heard arguments from both sides.

Hasan, who did not attend the hearing, has said he grew a beard because his Muslim faith requires it, despite the Army’s ban on beards. A few exceptions have been made for religious reasons.

The appeals court also ruled that Col. Gregory Gross, the trial judge, properly found that the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not give Hasan the right to have a beard while in uniform during his trial. The court specifically upheld Gross’ previous ruling that Hasan did not prove that his beard was an expression of a sincerely held religious belief. The appeals court said that even if Hasan did grow a beard for a sincere religious reason, compelling government interests justified Gross’ order requiring Hasan to comply with Army grooming standards.

The appeals court also upheld six contempt of court findings against Hasan, starting about a month after he showed up in court in June with a beard. Gross fined him $1,000 for each instance.

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Bit by bit, US sees potential for building a wider Afghan network of anti-Taliban uprisings

AB BAND, Afghanistan (AP) — Fed up with the Taliban closing their schools and committing other acts of oppression, men in a village about 100 miles south of Kabul took up arms late last spring and chased out the insurgents with no help from the Afghan government or U.S. military.

Small-scale revolts in recent months like the one in Kunsaf, mostly along a stretch of desert south of the Afghan capital, indicate bits of a grass-roots, do-it-yourself anti-insurgency that the U.S. hopes Afghan authorities can transform into a wider movement. Perhaps it can undercut the Taliban in areas they still dominate after 11 years of war with the United States and NATO allies.

The effort in Ghazni Province looks like a long shot. The villagers don’t readily embrace any outside authority, be it the Taliban, the U.S. or the Afghan government.

American officials nonetheless are quietly nurturing the trend, hoping it might become a game changer, or at least a new roadblock for the Taliban. At the same time, they are adamant that if anyone can convince the villagers to side with the Afghan government, it’s the Afghans — not the Americans.

“If we went out there and talked to them we would taint these groups and it would backfire,” said Army Brig. Gen. John Charlton, the senior American adviser to the Afghan military in provinces along the southern approaches to Kabul.

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Texas judge rules for cheerleaders in lawsuit over Bible-themed football banners

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A judge ruled Thursday that cheerleaders at an East Texas high school can display banners emblazoned with Bible verses at football games, saying the school district’s ban on the practice appears to violate the students’ free speech rights.

District Judge Steve Thomas granted an injunction requested by the Kountze High School cheerleaders allowing them to continue displaying religious-themed banners pending the outcome of a lawsuit, which is set to go to trial next June 24, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said. Thomas previously granted a temporary restraining order allowing the practice to continue.

School officials barred the cheerleaders from displaying banners with religious messages such as, “If God is for us, who can be against us,” after the Freedom From Religion Foundation complained. The advocacy group says the messages violate the First Amendment clause barring the government — or a publicly funded school district, in this case — from establishing or endorsing a religion.

Gov. Rick Perry, who appointed Thomas, a fellow Republican, to the district court to fill a vacancy, issued a statement welcoming the ruling.

“Today’s ruling is a victory for all who cherish our inalienable right to freedom of speech and religious expression,” Perry said. “I am proud of the cheerleaders at Kountze ISD for standing firm in the knowledge of these endowed rights and their willingness to be an example in defending those rights, which a secular group has needlessly tried to take away.”

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Tigers rout Yankees 8-1 for 4-game ALCS sweep, advance to World Series vs Cards or Giants

DETROIT (AP) — Prince Fielder waved his arms franticly, gleefully calling off his teammates before catching the final out.

From the moment Fielder signed his massive contract in January, an entire city had been waiting for a moment like this.

Max Scherzer capped a stupendous stretch for Detroit’s starting rotation, and the Tigers advanced to the World Series for the second time in seven years by beating the New York Yankees 8-1 Thursday for a four-game sweep of the AL championship series.

Miguel Cabrera and Jhonny Peralta hit two-run homers in a four-run fourth inning against CC Sabathia, who was unable to prevent the Yankees from getting swept in a postseason series for the first time in 32 years.

“Yeah, we did it,” Cabrera said. “It’s an unbelievable feeling. … Four more wins, guys. Four more wins.”