Hutaree militia walk from jail after charges dismissed

Hutaree militia walk from jail after charges dismissed
Anti-war protesters again denied permit for NATO summit march
Sandusky Penn State sex abuse trial delayed
House budget chair questions Pentagon budget cuts
Apollo's Black donates $48 million to Dartmouth College
Charges possible over 911 call that led to California police shooting
Wisconsin set to launch first governor recall in a decade
Richard Branson turns from adventuring to drug war critic
Arkansas court overturns ban on teacher-student sex
Lufthansa has "no intention" of ending JetBlue stake
Chicago, short of money, turns to private sector
"Pink slime" producer allows tour of plant to bolster image
Lawmakers to CFTC: keep swap dealer rule narrow
Shooter of Florida teen appears uninjured in video
Man arrested with fireworks at Philadelphia airport
Analysis: Chief Justice Roberts may cast deciding healthcare vote
U.S. court presses Dow Co in tax credit case
Robo-readers: the new teachers' helper in the U.S.
Four women charged in Ohio Amish hair-cutting attacks
Professor at Florida's FAMU suspended over hazing
Suspected U.S. gang members charged over youth prostitution ring
One in six seventh graders are victims of dating violence: survey
Ex-mine chief pleads guilty to 2010 blast charge
Final Hutaree defendants plead guilty to weapons charges
Gay clubs enjoy freedom to emerge at military academies
Bank of America gets $1 billion Baupost lawsuit dismissed
Tim Tebow apparel sales halted in Nike-Reebok feud
California school board blocks parent takeover bid
U.S. charges screaming, incoherent JetBlue pilot
Shooter of Florida teen appears uninjured in video
Firefighters gaining upper hand on Colorado wildfire
Public information restricted in case of slain U.S. teen
Apollo's Black donates $48 million to Dartmouth College
Anti-war protesters again denied permit for NATO summit march
Chicago, short of money, turns to private sector
Arkansas court overturns ban on teacher-student sex
"Pink slime" producer allows tour of plant to bolster image
Richard Branson turns from adventuring to drug war critic
Charges possible over 911 call that led to California police shooting
Wisconsin set to launch first governor recall in a decade

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DETROIT (Reuters) - Two members of the Midwest militia group Hutaree pleaded guilty to charges of possessing machine guns and temporarily walked out of jail on Thursday, two days after a judge rebuked prosecutors and dismissed more serious charges that the Hutaree plotted to attack the U.S. government. David Brian Stone Sr., the leader of the militia and his son Joshua Stone, each pleaded guilty to possession of a machine gun before Judge Victoria Roberts in federal court in Detroit. ...

Anti-war protesters again denied permit for NATO summit march

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CHICAGO (Reuters) - A judge on Thursday rejected a request from anti-war protesters to demonstrate during the NATO summit of world leaders in May, but organizers said they would protest anyway and hope to draw 10,000 people or more opposed to war in Afghanistan. "I can say definitively we are marching on May 20. We will hold a peaceful protest," leader Andy Thayer said. He said organizers would get together to decide whether to appeal to a higher court. Anti-war protesters want to march on May 20 and frustrated by the city's refusal to allow a march that day. ...

Sandusky Penn State sex abuse trial delayed

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(Reuters) - A Pennsylvania court on Thursday ordered the start of the child sex abuse trial of former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky delayed three weeks to June 5, citing logistical issues. Sandusky, 68, a former Penn State defensive coordinator, faces 52 counts of child molestation over accusations he abused 10 boys over a 15-year period. He has denied the charges and is under house arrest. The explosive scandal focused national attention on child sex abuse and led to the firing of Penn State's legendary head coach Joe Paterno and university President Graham Spanier. ...

House budget chair questions Pentagon budget cuts

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon budget for next year is dishonest and generals who have endorsed it on Capitol Hill are not giving Congress their "true advice," a senior Republican lawmaker on budget matters said on Thursday amid rising rhetoric over looming defense cuts. Representative Paul Ryan, head of the budget committee of the House of Representatives, said the defense budget President Barack Obama sent to Congress last month was driven by spending constraints and not by the new U.S. military strategy unveiled in January. "We don't think the generals are giving us their true advice. ...

Apollo's Black donates $48 million to Dartmouth College

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Apollo Global Management LLC co-founder Leon Black and his wife are contributing $48 million toward a state-of-the-art visual arts center at Dartmouth College that will open in September 2012, the university said on Thursday. The 105,000-square-foot facility will bear the Black family name and will house the departments of Studio Art, Film and Media Studies, and a Digital Humanities program. "This visionary gift recognizes the centrality of the visual arts in our lives," said Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim. ...

Charges possible over 911 call that led to California police shooting

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Prosecutors were considering charges on Thursday against a man accused of falsely claiming in a 911 call he was robbed at gunpoint, leading police who responded to shoot and kill an unarmed 19-year-old man. The caller, Oscar Carrillo, 26, was arrested on Wednesday in the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena and booked on suspicion of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Kendrec McDade. ...

Wisconsin set to launch first governor recall in a decade

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MILWAUKEE (Reuters) - Wisconsin is set on Friday to launch a special election that could oust Republican Governor Scott Walker from office because of his support for a law stripping labor unions of power, the first recall election of a U.S. governor since California nearly a decade ago. Almost a million of Wisconsin's 4.4 million voting-age population signed a petition to recall the controversial governor, nearly twice the number needed to force an election. ...

Richard Branson turns from adventuring to drug war critic

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, involved in such ventures as selling space travel to the affluent, is now pushing for people to have the freedom to get high here on Earth without risking going to jail. The British billionaire argues criminal punishment fails to stem drug abuse, and is calling on countries to decriminalize drug use and eliminate criminal penalties on narcotics consumers or even consider legalizing drugs. "The prohibition of drugs has worked no better than the prohibition of alcohol, and serves only to empower violent criminal cartels and harm U.S. ...

Arkansas court overturns ban on teacher-student sex

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LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - The Arkansas Supreme Court struck down a state law on Thursday that banned teachers from having sex with students under age 21, overturning a sexual assault conviction against a former teacher who had a consensual relationship with an 18-year-old student. In a 4-3 decision, the court vacated the conviction against David Paschal, a former teacher in the Elkins School District in northern Arkansas, because the girl was legally an adult during the relationship. ...

Lufthansa has "no intention" of ending JetBlue stake

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Deutsche Lufthansa AG has no intention of ending its investment in JetBlue Airways Corp, but the possibility remains that it could do so down the road depending on the capital needs of the German airline, its chief executive said on Thursday. Christoph Franz told reporters that Lufthansa's earlier announcement about offering convertible notes that can be exchanged for up to 46.7 million shares of JetBlue common stock is an attractive way "given current market conditions" to get financing. ...

Chicago, short of money, turns to private sector

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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, facing budget cuts from the debt-ridden state of Illinois and the federal government, turned to the private sector on Thursday to finance $7.2 billion in rebuilding of the city's aging subways, sewers and schools. Emanuel, who laid off hundreds of workers in his first year in office to close a $636 million gap in the city's $6.3 billion budget, said no taxes would be raised to pay for infrastructure he said would create 30,000 jobs over the next three years. ...

"Pink slime" producer allows tour of plant to bolster image

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SOUTH SIOUX CITY, Neb (Reuters) - A maker of the hamburger filler branded by critics as "pink slime" on Thursday allowed three state governors supportive of the beef industry and a handful of journalists to see it being made for the first time since a controversy erupted over use of the meat scraps. Beef Products Inc, the leading producer of the filler the industry calls "finely textured beef," opened its meat plant in South Sioux City, Nebraska in a remote area straddling Nebraska, Iowa and South Dakota. ...

Lawmakers to CFTC: keep swap dealer rule narrow

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two U.S. lawmakers warned regulators on Thursday not to cast too wide a net over companies that trade swaps as the agency works to finalize rules defining who is designated as a swap dealer. In a letter to Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler, the top Democrat and top Republican on the Senate and House of Representatives agriculture committees said they feared an overly broad definition would harm businesses that use swaps to hedge risks, such as oil price moves or interest-rate fluctuations. ...

Shooter of Florida teen appears uninjured in video

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SANFORD, Florida (Reuters) - The neighborhood watch volunteer who shot dead an unarmed black teenager in Florida appeared uninjured when he was brought into the police station on the night of the shooting, according to a video released by ABC News on Wednesday. George Zimmerman told police he shot Trayvon Martin inside a gated community on February 26 in self-defense after Martin attacked him and repeatedly bashed his head into a concrete walkway. ...

Man arrested with fireworks at Philadelphia airport

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(Reuters) - A Pennsylvania man was arrested at Philadelphia International Airport on Thursday after checkpoint agents found flash powder and fireworks in his carry-on bag, authorities said. The passenger, Joseph Picklo, 28, of Dallas, Pennsylvania, was being screened for a United Airlines flight to San Francisco when a plastic bottle filled with flash powder was found in his carry-on bag, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) said in a statement. The Transportation Safety Administration said in a statement M-80 fireworks also were found in the bag. ...

Analysis: Chief Justice Roberts may cast deciding healthcare vote

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - During three days of historic healthcare arguments at the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts presided with a steady calm and folksy charm. From his center seat on the nine-member bench, Roberts gently mediated as colleagues interrupted one another's questions this week. He offered a break in arguments on Tuesday so spectators in the packed courtroom could briefly stand and stretch, and then at the end of that Day Two, warmly told lawyers, "Counsel, we'll see you tomorrow. ...

U.S. court presses Dow Co in tax credit case

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - An appeals court heard arguments from Union Carbide and the U.S. government on Thursday as the company fought to use a tax credit retroactively for research it did in the 1990s to improve manufacturing processes. A decision in favor of Union Carbide would widen the scope of the research and development tax credit, part of the corporate tax code that costs U.S. taxpayers roughly $7 billion a year. Union Carbide is a subsidiary of Dow Chemical Co. The case involves process improvements researched in 1994 and 1995. ...

Robo-readers: the new teachers' helper in the U.S.

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(Reuters) - American high school students are terrible writers, and one education reform group thinks it has an answer: robots. Or, more accurately, robo-readers - computers programmed to scan student essays and spit out a grade. The theory is that teachers would assign more writing if they didn't have to read it. And the more writing students do, the better at it they'll become - even if the primary audience for their prose is a string of algorithms. That sounds logical to Mark Shermis, dean of the College of Education at the University of Akron. ...

Four women charged in Ohio Amish hair-cutting attacks

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CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors have expanded a hate crimes case against followers of Ohio Amish sect leader Samuel Mullet Sr., charging four more women with participating in a beard and hair-cutting attack last year. In all, 16 members of the group including Mullet now face charges in attacks that officials said were intended to humiliate the victims, since the Amish believe married men and women must abstain from cutting their hair. ...

Professor at Florida's FAMU suspended over hazing

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ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - A music professor at Florida A&M University, the school rocked by the hazing death of a marching band member last fall, has been suspended over allegations he joined in the ritualistic beating of fraternity pledges at his home, authorities said on Thursday. FAMU said one other professor had been suspended along with saxophone teacher Diron Holloway due to the alleged hazing incident during a party at Holloway's off-campus residence in the spring of 2010. ...

Suspected U.S. gang members charged over youth prostitution ring

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. authorities say they have broken up a prostitution ring and arrested five alleged gang members on charges they recruited teenage girls, including via Facebook, to sell sex and drugs in the Washington region. The suspects are accused of recruiting at least 10 girls between the ages of 16 and 18 to work as prostitutes, including a 17-year-old girl who told authorities she was forced to use cocaine and have group sex with 14 men. ...

One in six seventh graders are victims of dating violence: survey

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(Reuters) - Seventh-grade students have experienced alarming rates of physical violence at the hands of a romantic partner, including being shoved, grabbed, hit or kicked, a survey of middle schoolers showed on Thursday. Nearly one in six of 1,430 students surveyed, most of whom were just 12 years old, said they had experienced physical dating violence in the past six months, while more than one in three had witnessed such violence among their peers. ...

Ex-mine chief pleads guilty to 2010 blast charge

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The former superintendent of the West Virginia mine where 29 workers died in a 2010 explosion pleaded guilty on Thursday to a federal conspiracy charge that he tipped off employees to safety inspections. Gary May, 43, is the most senior executive with Massey Energy to face criminal charges in the Upper Big Branch blast, the worst U.S. mine accident in four decades. ...

Final Hutaree defendants plead guilty to weapons charges

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DETROIT (Reuters) - Two days after a federal judge dismissed a massive conspiracy case charging seven members of a Midwest militia group with plotting to wage war against the U.S. government, the group's leader and one of his sons pleaded guilty Thursday to one weapons charge each. David Brian Stone Sr., the leader of the group called the Hutaree, and his son Joshua Stone each pleaded guilty before Judge Victoria Roberts in federal court in Detroit to possession of a machine gun. ...

Gay clubs enjoy freedom to emerge at military academies

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NORTHFIELD, Vermont (Reuters) - When Joshua Fontanez began training as a cadet at Norwich University in 2008, he kept silent about his sexuality for fear of being expelled from the military school's Reserve Officer Training Corps. Now after the repeal of the U.S. military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, a gay pride group he helped found is staging a "Queer Prom" and a "Condom Olympics" as part of the first gay pride week at any of the nation's public and private military academies. Events kicked off on Monday. ...

Bank of America gets $1 billion Baupost lawsuit dismissed

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NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp on Thursday won dismissal of a lawsuit by investors who wanted the bank to buy back mortgage loans that underlie more than $1.06 billion of securities. The case is tied to risky home loans issued by Countrywide Financial Corp, which Bank of America bought in 2008. It was brought by investors under the name Walnut Place. The judge who threw out the lawsuit is the same one who will decide whether to approve a proposed $8.5 billion settlement with virtually all investors who lost money on Countrywide mortgage-backed securities, including Walnut Place. ...

Tim Tebow apparel sales halted in Nike-Reebok feud

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(Reuters) - Nike Inc has won a court order blocking rival Reebok International Ltd from selling New York Jets apparel bearing the name of the popular quarterback Tim Tebow, in a battle over licensing rights. The order issued late on Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel prevents Reebok from manufacturing, selling and shipping the alleged unauthorized apparel for the National Football League team and bearing Tebow's name. It also requires Reebok to offer to buy back such apparel from retailers and recall the products from shipping channels. ...

California school board blocks parent takeover bid

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ADELANTO, California (Reuters) - A group of activist parents in this impoverished community were thwarted again in their bid to become the first in the nation to seize control of a public school under a controversial "parent trigger" law designed to shake up chronically failing schools. Capping an emotional four-hour meeting, the board of the Adelanto School District in California's Mojave Desert voted 5-0 on Wednesday night to reject a petition invoking a 2010 state law that permits parents to effectively seize control of low-performing schools. ...

U.S. charges screaming, incoherent JetBlue pilot

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AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - U.S. authorities filed criminal charges on Wednesday against a JetBlue pilot who screamed over the radio, pounded on the door of the cockpit and was tackled by passengers during a chaotic flight from New York forced to make an emergency landing in Texas. Flight 191 was diverted to Amarillo, Texas, on Tuesday, following what federal authorities described as erratic behavior by captain Clayton Frederick Osbon, who passengers said was restrained after he pounded on the locked cockpit door. A U.S. ...

Shooter of Florida teen appears uninjured in video

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Firefighters gaining upper hand on Colorado wildfire

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DENVER (Reuters) - Firefighters battling a deadly wildfire in the foothills west of Denver said on Thursday they were gaining ground on the stubborn blaze, as the search continued for a woman who went missing inside the fire zone. The Lower North Fork Fire, which authorities believe was ignited by a controlled burn that went awry, has killed an elderly couple, scorched 4,140 acres, and destroyed 27 homes. "Our containment lines continue to grow and we're making good progress," incident commander Rich Harvey told reporters at a Thursday afternoon briefing. Crews have cut a 3. ...

Public information restricted in case of slain U.S. teen

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SANFORD, Florida (Reuters) - A special prosecutor investigating the death of an unarmed black teenager in Florida invoked an exemption on Thursday that allows authorities to deny the release of otherwise public information to the media. The national media has converged on this Orlando suburb to cover a story that has gripped the country and renewed a discussion about race relations in America. Despite this, public officials have told reporters not to bother asking questions. ...