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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Stanley Tookie Williams, a founder of the Crips street gang, is trying to head off a Dec. 13 execution by asking the California Supreme Court to reopen the case, his attorneys said Friday. Among other things, Williams' representatives say forensic testing may have falsely sent him to death row. Williams' lawyer wants California's justices to allow the reexamination of evidence that showed a shotgun registered to Williams was used to kill three people during a motel robbery in 1979. They said conclusions that a shell casing found at the scene matched the shotgun were based on...

ABOARD USS IWO JIMA (NNS) -- USS Iwo Jima (LHD 7) successfully got underway from its current berth in downtown New Orleans Sept. 21 as Hurricane Rita raged across the Gulf of Mexico. With the successful onload of supplies and personnel, including 647 Marines of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (24 MEU), Iwo Jima began its trek down the Mississippi River to safer, open waters. The multipurpose amphibious assault ship has been moored in downtown New Orleans since early September, serving as a command and control hub and providing relief and recovery efforts as part of Joint Task Force (JTF)...

Give Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger credit for not rushing to follow his counterparts in Arizona and New Mexico by declaring a state of emergency over illegal immigration. No doubt the anti-immigration zealots would be encouraging such a move. Schwarzenegger surely knows, as all Californians do, that illegal immigration has an enormous impact on the state. There are an estimated 2.4 million undocumented workers working on the state's many farms, in restaurants, on street corners and in homes. This shadowy and unknown subculture - the largest of any state in the union - causes uncountable impacts on the state in terms of...

MEGA FIX N.Y. Times continues to avoid TWA 800 connection Posted: August 18, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Yesterday, the New York Times reported that State Department analysts had warned the Clinton administration in July 1996 about the dangers of Osama bin Laden's impending move to Afghanistan. Deep in the article, the Times reports that the State Department assessment was "written July 18, 1996." Nowhere in the article does the Times mentioned what happened the day before. What happened on July 17, 1996, is that TWA Flight 800 exploded on a beautiful summer night only 12 minutes out...

SACRAMENTO – Staring at potential payouts in the billions of dollars, the U.S. oil industry is maneuvering to escape responsibility for cleaning up after MTBE, the now-banned toxic gasoline additive that has seeped into drinking water across the country. If the campaign is successful, critics say taxpayers will be forced to pick up the unpaid bill. Oil producers have attached so much importance to immunity from liability that the issue has taken a place right alongside opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and tax breaks as Congress crafts a broad new energy policy. The House has already approved legislation sponsored...

CHICAGO (Nov. 11) - It's a lesson children learn even before their ABCs - say you're sorry when you hurt someone. But it's now being taught in the grown-up world of medicine as a surprisingly powerful way to soothe patients and head off malpractice lawsuits. Some malpractice-reform advocates say an apology can help doctors avoid getting sued, especially when combined with an upfront settlement offer. The idea defies a long tradition in which doctors cultivated a Godlike image of infallibility and rarely owned up to their mistakes. The softer approach, now appearing in some medical school courses and hospital policies,...

On Monday, December 8, 2003, President Bush signed into law a Medicare prescription drug benefits package designed to help American seniors pay for their medications. This month, the Kerry campaign released a TV ad attacking President Bush’s Medicare record stating, “The very next day George Bush imposes the biggest Medicare premium increase in history while prescription drug costs still skyrocket.” There are several problems with this ad, namely that fact that 1) Kerry skipped the December 8 vote and 2) Kerry voted to support the increase in Medicare premiums that he now criticizes. The Kerry campaign offers no specifics on...

<p>SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) - Some 3,000 Orange County teachers have agreed to reduce their salaries by 4 percent over the next two years to help avoid layoffs and larger class sizes in their financially strapped Santa Ana Unified School District.</p>

<p>December 31, 2003 -- Count on one less out-of-towner at tonight's New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square. Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) offered his regrets yesterday, telling The Post that he'd avoid the Times Square crowd because it's a "tempting target" for terrorists.</p>

<p>Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson, due to leave the lower house next year, is once again fishing for support of a measure to revise the legislative term-limits law and delay his exit.</p> <p>Just last spring, private polls showed voters had no appetite for a couple of proposed revisions.</p>

The Bush administration pledged yesterday for the first time that the United States will not torture terrorism suspects or treat them cruelly in an attempt to extract information, a move that comes as the deaths of two Afghan prisoners in U.S. custody are being investigated as homicides. "All interrogations, wherever they may occur," must be conducted without the use of cruel and inhuman tactics, the Pentagon's senior lawyer wrote after members of Congress and human rights groups pressed the White House to renounce abusive tactics reported by U.S. government officials. On a day when President Bush asserted that his administration...

Iraq Says It's Destroying More Missiles 58 minutes ago By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press WriterBAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq (news - web sites) was destroying at least seven more Al Samoud 2 missiles on Monday, quickening the pace in an attempt to avoid war. U.N. weapons inspectors said Iraq would hand over a report about its unilateral destruction of anthrax and VX nerve agent. AP Photo Latest news: · Iraq Says It's Destroying More Missiles AP - 58 minutes ago · U.N. Faces Lobbying on Iraq Resolution AP - Mon Mar 3, 1:49 AM ET · U.S. Says Iraqi Jets Entered...

Bush: last chance to avoid war Julian Borger in Washington and Patrick Wintour Thursday September 5, 2002 The Guardian President George Bush signalled yesterday that he was prepared to back a last-ditch United Nations ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to accept stringent weapons inspections or face invasion. The president will lay out his demands in an address to the UN general assembly next Thursday, which will be portrayed as Saddam's last chance to avoid a war. It will also define US policy on inspections and its willingness to use force after a period of deep divisions and confusion within the Bush...

NEWARK, N.J., Jul 04, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Mohamed El Filali like some other Muslims across the nation plans to avoid large public gatherings over the holiday for fear he'll be mistaken for a terrorist by edgy law enforcement officers or suspicious citizens. "As a Muslim, especially during this specific holiday, I have a concern of being racially profiled by the police and the federal agents," said El Filali, an official with the American Muslim Union based in nearby Paterson. In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks, carried out by Islamic extremists, El Filali's fears are...