Release for man convicted in '70 deadly Ariz. fire

PHOENIX (AP) ? Louis Taylor was just a teenager when he was convicted of starting a Tucson hotel fire that killed 29 people. He has since spent more than four decades in prison, consistently maintaining his innocence.

On Tuesday, Taylor is expected to be released as part of a deal with prosecutors that forces him to plead no contest in the case, but sets him free about a month after his 59th birthday.

Taylor was sentenced to 28 consecutive life sentences in the December 1970 fire at the Pioneer Hotel where employees of an aircraft company were celebrating at a Christmas party.

Many guests were trapped in their rooms as the blaze engulfed the building, and fire truck ladders were too short to reach the upper floors. Some people jumped to their deaths while others burned in their rooms. Most victims died from carbon-monoxide poisoning.

Taylor, who is black, contends he was wrongly convicted by an all-white jury after he says police failed to investigate other suspects. Reports at the time indicate Taylor was helping people escape the blaze before being arrested later that night. He was never charged in the death months later of a 29th victim from injuries sustained in the fire.

His appeals were exhausted after the U.S. Supreme Court denied him a new trial in 1983.

Reports in 2002 by CBS' "60 Minutes" raised questions about whether the fire was, in fact, arson.

Police at the time then began reviewing evidence, and a volunteer legal group, the Arizona Justice Project, examined case files to determine whether he received a fair trial. However, the lead fire investigator on the case told The Associated Press he stands by his determination that it was arson.

"Yes, definitely, there's no question about it," Cy Holmes, now 83, said Monday.

The Arizona Justice Project, which works on behalf of inmates believed to be wrongly convicted, asked a court in October to dismiss the case or hold an evidentiary hearing, noting several experts using modern forensic science could testify that it was indeterminable whether the fire was arson. The lawyers also contend prosecutorial misconduct at Taylor's trial when his defense was not provided with reports indicating no accelerants were found.

Attorney Michael Piccarreta said this weekend that Taylor still maintains his innocence but will plead no contest Tuesday to get out of prison quickly.

Piccarreta said Taylor's lawyers believe he would have eventually prevailed at a new trial, but the process could have taken more than a year, during which Taylor would remain in prison.

It wasn't immediately clear why prosecutors agreed to a deal that would set Taylor free, and messages left by the AP on Monday at the Pima County Attorney's Office were not returned.

Holmes, who runs Cy Holmes Fire Investigations in Elk Grove, Calif., said the techniques he used to determine the fire was arson are the same procedures used currently.

"Basically, what I did 42 years ago and the manner in which I did it is still valid today," he said.

Holmes said the new findings by Taylor's defense experts are based on incomplete information, noting much of the evidence was destroyed in the 1990s or disappeared after civil attorneys took possession when they sued the hotel.

He also added, "They didn't spend two full days digging through that place."

Holmes acknowledged he didn't find any accelerants, but said it was clear the fire was started in two places. His findings of arson were based, in part, on bats that were found in the hotel hallways, and the patterns in which they were burned.

Holmes defended his comments at the time profiling a potential suspect, some of which are now being used to accuse authorities of racism in the case.

He said he told the City Council after the fire, "He's probably a negro, and he's probably 18," basing his theory on years of experience investigating arson cases, Holmes told the AP.

"But that statement had nothing to do with Louis' prosecution," Holmes said. "I wasn't part of Mr. Taylor's guilt. I was just involved in determining whether or not the fire was arson."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/release-man-convicted-70-deadly-ariz-fire-184038341.html

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HTC One Pre-Sales Start At AT&T April 4 For $199.99, Smartphone Ships April 19

HTC's great aluminum hope, the HTC One, will be available on AT&T beginning April 19, with pre-orders starting April 4. The smartphone will cost $199.99 with a two-year agreement for the 32GB variety, with a 64GB version for $299.99 on a two-year contract, a U.S. launch exclusive for AT&T. Pre-orders for the phone start at 1 P.M. Central Time on April 4, if you're marking your calendars.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/OW5KWvc2aH4/

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Schumer: Gang of 8 Has 'Substantive Agreement' on Immigration Issues

WASHINGTON - Sen. Chuck Schumer said today that while there is not a final deal on immigration legislation just yet, the bi-partisan "Gang of Eight" senators working on immigration reform has reached a "substantive agreement" on the major components of an immigration plan.

"It is not a done deal. We have to draft the legislation. We have to have the group of eight sign off on the specific language, but we have substantive agreement on all the major pieces now between the eight of us," Schumer said in an interview with ABC News Sunday.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., made a similar statement today and said that he expects the parameters of the plan to be revealed next week.

"I think we've got a deal. We've got to write the legislation, but 2013, I hope, will be the year that we pass bipartisan immigration reform," Graham said on CNN's "State of the Union." "It's got to be written off. We haven't signed off. There are a few details yet. But conceptually, we have an agreement between business and labor, between ourselves that has to be drafted. It will be rolled out next week."

On Friday, business and labor leaders came to an agreement on a visa program for low-skilled immigrant workers, a major turning point in the debate on immigration reform.

In what the AFL-CIO described as the "W-Visa" program, 20,000 visas would be available for low-skilled workers beginning in April of 2015. The number of available visas would increase gradually in the following years but would never go above 200,000 or dip below 20,000 in any given year. Only 15,000 visas would be allocated to construction jobs each year.

"The fact that business and labor have come to an agreement overcomes the last major substantive hurdle we've had in our negotiations," Schumer told ABC News.

But the deal on a guest worker program does not mean the senate group's plan is finalized, because the Gang of Eight still has to hammer out details including border security and the path to citizenship and write the actual legislation.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., one of the members of the bipartisan group working on immigration, said today that reports of a final deal being reached are "premature," and he called for more hearings and discussion on the topic of immigration so that a "healthy public debate" is conducted.

"Arriving at a final product will require it to be properly submitted for the American people's consideration, through the other 92 senators from 43 states that weren't part of this initial drafting process," Rubio said in a statement. "In order to succeed, this process cannot be rushed or done in secret."

ABC News' Carlos Boettcher contributed to this report.

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Source: http://news.yahoo.com/schumer-gang-8-substantive-agreement-immigration-issues-230408180--abc-news-politics.html

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The most hated Star Wars character ever is coming to a USB port near you. For reals this time.

Source: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/04/jar-jar-noooo/

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U.S. deploys stealth fighters to South Korea

By Jack Kim

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea will strike back quickly if the North stages any attack, the new president in Seoul warned on Monday, as tensions ratcheted higher on the Korean peninsula amid shrill rhetoric from Pyongyang and the U.S. deployment of radar-evading fighter planes.

North Korea says the region is on the brink of a nuclear war in the wake of United Nations sanctions imposed for its February nuclear test and a series of joint U.S. and South Korean military drills that have included a rare U.S. show of aerial power.

The North, whose economy is smaller than it was 20 years ago, appeared to move on Monday to addressing its pressing need for investment by appointing a reformer to the country's ceremonial prime minister's job, although the move mostly cemented a power grab by the ruling Kim clan.

North Korea had said on Saturday it was entering a "state of war" with South Korea in response to what it termed the "hostile" military drills being staged in the South. But there have been no signs of unusual activity in the North's military to suggest an imminent aggression, a South Korean defense ministry official said last week.

"If there is any provocation against South Korea and its people, there should be a strong response in initial combat without any political considerations," President Park Geun-hye told the defense minister and senior officials at a meeting on Monday.

The South has changed its rules of engagement to allow local units to respond immediately to attacks, rather than waiting for permission from Seoul.

Stung by criticism that its response to the shelling of a South Korean island in 2010 was tardy and weak, Seoul has also threatened to target North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and to destroy statues of the ruling Kim dynasty in the event of any new attack, a plan that has outraged Pyongyang.

Seoul and its ally the United States played down Saturday's statement from the official KCNA news agency as the latest in a stream of tough talk from Pyongyang.

North Korea stepped up its rhetoric in early March, when U.S. and South Korean forces began annual military drills that involved the flights of U.S. B-2 stealth bombers in a practice run, prompting the North to puts its missile units on standby to fire at U.S. military bases in the South and in the Pacific.

The United States also deployed F-22 stealth fighter jets on Sunday to take part in the drills. The F-22s were deployed in South Korea before, in 2010.

On its part, North Korea has cancelled an armistice agreement with the United States that ended the Korean War and cut all hotlines with U.S. forces, the United Nations and South Korea.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS "NOT A BARGAINING CHIP"

Park's intervention came on the heels of a meeting of the North's ruling Workers Party Central Committee where leader Kim Jong-un rejected the notion that Pyongyang was going to use its nuclear arms development as a bargaining chip.

"The nuclear weapons of Songun Korea are not goods for getting U.S. dollars and they are ... (not) to be put on the table of negotiations aimed at forcing the (North) to disarm itself," KCNA news agency quoted him as saying.

At the meeting, Kim appointed a handful of personal confidants to the party's politburo, further consolidating his grip on power in the second full year of his reign.

The most surprising appointment came on Monday as former prime minister Pak Pong-ju was re-appointed as premier, although the move likely signaled another power struggle in Pyongang staged by the country's leader Kim Jong-un.

Pak is viewed as a key ally of Jang Song-thaek, the young Kim's uncle and also a protege of Kim's aunt and is viewed as a pawn in a power game that has seen Jang and his wife re-assert power over military leaders.

Analysts said the move would not likely change Pyongyang's approach to a confrontation that appears to have dragged the two Koreas closer to war.

Pyongyang's on-off negotiations saw it take part in nuclear disarmament talks for five years aimed at paying it off in return for abandoning its atomic weapons program. Those talks fell apart in 2008. Some experts say the talks gave the North grounds to pursue a highly enriched uranium program that took it closer to owning a working arsenal.

Songun is the Korean word for the "Military First" policy preached by Kim's father who used it to justify the use of the impoverished state's scare resources to build a 1.2-million strong army and a weapons of mass destruction program.

CALLS FOR RESTRAINT

White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said North Korea's announcement that it was in a state of war followed a "familiar pattern" of rhetoric.

China has repeatedly called for restraint on the peninsula.

However, many in South Korea have regarded the North's willingness to keep open the Kaesong industrial zone, located just a few miles (km) north of the heavily-militarized border and operated jointly by both sides, as a sign that Pyongyang will not risk losing a lucrative source of foreign currency.

Closure could also trap hundreds of South Korean workers and managers of the more than 100 firms that have factories there.

(Additional reporting by Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Editing by David Chance, Raju Gopalakrishnan, Ian Geoghegan and Ron Popeski)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/south-korea-vows-fast-response-north-u-deploys-043826040.html

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Egypt says will not discuss emergency loan with IMF

Attention, unemployed copyeditors: Macy's may soon have a job opening for you. The department store giant mailed a catalog to customers earlier this month which mistakenly offered a $1,500 sterling silver and 14-karat gold necklace for just $47. The heading: "SUPER BUY." The actual sale price was supposed to be $479, but Macy's printed the [...]

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-says-not-discuss-emergency-loan-imf-103701708.html

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US hand control of troubled area to Afghans

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) ? Afghan special forces took control of part of a troubled province bordering Kabul from U.S. troops on Saturday, ending a weeks-long dispute over abuse allegations that prompted Afghan President Hamid Karzai to order all American forces out of the area.

The handover highlighted the Karzai government's struggle to assert its authority over security matters on an accelerated timetable ahead of the scheduled withdrawal of most of coalition forces by December 2014.

The transfer of control in Nirkh district of Wardak province ? a gateway and staging area for militant attacks on the capital ? ends a rocky episode in the strained relationship between the U.S. and Karzai. The Afghan president had angrily insisted that U.S. forces leave Nirkh over the alleged torture, kidnapping and summary execution of militant suspects there ? charges U.S. officials firmly denied.

"As we pledged, our forces have transitioned Nirkh district to Afghan national security forces and they have now assumed full responsibility for security," U.S. Gen. Joseph Dunford, the top commander of American and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement. He said the rest of Wardak would transition "over time."

Karzai has had longstanding unease with U.S. special operations forces, which he blames for causing civilian casualties, and the 21,000 members of the Afghan local police who work with them. He has complained bitterly and publicly that the local police are "militias" and believes they are "outside his control," according to his spokesman Aimal Faizi.

U.S. special operations forces will continue to visit the Afghan team in Nirkh, and work throughout the rest of the province, said Maj. Gen. Tony Thomas, the top U.S. special operations commander in Afghanistan, told The Associated Press in an interview on Saturday.

"American special operations forces are integral in the defense of Wardak from now until the foreseeable future," Thomas said in the interview at Camp Integrity, the special operations compound on the outskirts of Kabul.

The Afghan president had originally demanded the U.S. special operations forces pull out of the entire province, but he scaled down his sweeping demand to just Nirkh district after negotiations with Dunford and other U.S. officials.

U.S. officials feared Karzai was close to banning U.S. special operations teams altogether when he declared earlier this year, while standing next to President Barack Obama in Washington, that all American forces would be out of Afghan villages by spring.

Karzai was eventually convinced to accept a more gradual transition for the country overall, just as he was with Wardak, with U.S. special operations forces leaving the villages sometime this summer.

"The last teams will go in this summer and from that point out, when we culminate (handover) an area, we'll bring the teams out," Thomas said.

"More importantly, we're setting up ... training centers that are run by Afghans," Thomas said. "We're working ourselves out of a job."

Currently, U.S. special operations teams go into an area, get to know the powerbrokers and tribesmen and then help train Afghan men selected by the locals.

To join the Afghan local police, also called the "ALP," recruits drawn from the local villages must be vouched for by village elders and then vetted by the Interior Ministry, including a background check by Afghan intelligence to rule out prior participation with the Taliban. If approved, they get rudimentary training on weapons safety and basic police skills and military tactics from the U.S. special operations forces partnered with them.

The combined U.S. and Afghan forces are stationed at posts throughout Afghanistan intended to extend security and Afghan government influence to more remote, Taliban strongholds that are beyond the geographic range of the conventional Afghan army and regular uniformed police.

Afghan and coalition officials say the back-country policemen have so eroded militant influence that they've become a top target for the Taliban. The bounty for killing a local policeman is $6,000 compared to $4,000 for a regular, uniformed policeman and $2,000 for an Afghan army soldier, one Afghan official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.

The units are so popular with local security officials that Thomas has more requests to start new units than he can fill. The Afghan interior ministry also has asked the U.S. to consider expanding the local police force by another 45,000 troops. Thomas said he now has to do his own analysis for Dunford, to determine if the coalition can afford to fund them and if Afghanistan needs that many.

Karzai has yet to be convinced. Among other things, Karzai has echoed human rights groups that have complained that some of the Afghan forces have preyed on locals, from shaking them down for cash to more serious charges.

U.S. and Afghan officials say the Afghan interior ministry has stepped up its oversight of the local police units and is responding to such complaints. Five local policemen accused of rape were charged last year and sentenced to lengthy jail terms, and Thomas said nine local police chiefs responsible for some of the units have been removed for being "negative influences."

Thomas points out that more than half of the 21,000-strong local police force ? some 12,000 policemen ? are now overseen by the Afghan interior ministry with no American special operation forces present.

"We provide the money, they own ALP," Thomas said.

___

Associated Press writer Rahim Faiez contributed to this report.

Follow Kimberly Dozier on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KimberlyDozier

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/us-hand-control-troubled-area-afghans-181813434.html

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