Supreme Court nominee

WASHINGTON — Reaching for history, President Barack Obama on Tuesday chose federal appeals judge Sonia Sotomayor to be the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court, championing her as a compassionate, seasoned jurist whose against-the-odds life journey affirms the American dream.

Republicans who will decide whether to make a fight of her confirmation said they want thorough hearings. However, defeating Sotomayor would be difficult in the heavily Democratic Senate, and even a major effort to block her confirmation could be risky for a party still reeling from last year’s elections. Hispanics are the fastest-growing part of the population and increasingly active politically.

Obama, eager to begin putting his imprint on the court, beamed as he introduced Sotomayor as a judge who displays both an impressive mind and heart, a jurist who takes on cases with "an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live.” He raved about her credentials, saying she would start on the job with more experience on the bench than any of the current nine justices had when they began.

Sotomayor, 54, would join Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the second woman on the court and the third in its history. She would succeed Justice David Souter.

Senate Republicans pledged to give her a fair hearing but cautioned they would question her rigorously and not be rushed.




by the associated press

Obama's NASA pick is a boost for manned spaceflight

President Obama's selection Saturday of former astronaut Charles F. Bolden Jr. to head NASA gives a boost to the agency's manned space program and its stated goal of returning humans to the moon by 2020.

During the presidential campaign, Obama had seemed lukewarm toward NASA and its hugely expensive human spaceflight program. Space enthusiasts were particularly worried after Obama staffers floated the idea of taking money from the agency to fund domestic programs.


But now, with the selection of a retired Marine general and astronaut to run the agency, observers are asking whether this means the president has suddenly gotten religion for manned spaceflight.

The answer, according to space policy experts and NASA watchers around the country, is a qualified yes.

They say Bolden's view on specific projects, such as extending the shuttle program beyond the 2010 retirement date chosen by the Bush administration, are still emerging, but his knowledge of the space agency's inner mechanics make him a strong voice for continuing manned flight.


"Clearly Charlie Bolden would not have taken the job if he were being asked to shut down human spaceflight," said John Logsdon, a space policy expert in Washington.

Bolden's name surfaced early and gained momentum, based on his record as an astronaut and his military record of flying more than 100 Marine combat missions in Vietnam. He would also be the first African American administrator of NASA.

The announcement was supposed to coincide with the return of the shuttle Atlantis on Saturday. But bad weather over Cape Canaveral in Florida caused shuttle controllers to wave off the landing for a second day. Rather than keep the guessing game going, the White House announced Bolden's selection.

Bolden, 62, would be the second astronaut to run the agency. Richard H. Truly, a retired Navy vice admiral and shuttle commander, led NASA from 1989 to 1992.

Bolden has been on four shuttle missions and was the pilot on the flight that put the Hubble Space Telescope in orbit in 1990. He lives near the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), who was among the crew on Bolden's first shuttle flight, played an important role in the selection. Nelson led the charge against Obama's first choice for administrator, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. J. Scott Gration, and was an early and vocal advocate for Bolden.

"I trusted Charlie with my life -- and would do so again," Nelson said.

Former NASA Administrator Mike Griffin called Bolden "a great choice."

"He deserves the status of national hero. This is a guy who has spent most of his life serving his country," Griffin said.

Logsdon said he believed the skepticism about Obama's support for manned flight was "misguided" from the first. The comment about taking money from NASA was made by a junior campaign aide, he said.

He added that a recent announcement of the administration's plans to review the Ares 1 rocket and Orion spacecraft, which are to replace the space shuttle by 2015, is not a shot across the bow of NASA's human spaceflight program.

He said it would be a review of the hardware, not the destination or goals.

Roger Launius, a space expert at the Smithsonian Institution, said it was too soon to know how aggressively Bolden would support President George W. Bush's plan of returning astronauts to the moon by 2020 and later going to Mars. Or whether Bolden would, as many expect, extend the life of the shuttle program to close the nearly five-year gap between the last scheduled shuttle flight and the first planned flight of the Ares-Orion system, a period during which NASA astronauts would have to beg rides on Soviet rockets.

"We don't know exactly what this means yet," Launius said. But "I think in Charlie Bolden you'll have an individual who will be strong enough to speak to the administration" when he thinks the agency is going in the wrong direction.

One possible stumbling block to Bolden's approval by the Senate could be new ethics rules designed to prevent conflicts of interest. An Obama executive order prohibits appointees from doing work that is "directly and substantially related" to a former employer or former clients.

Until March 2008, Bolden served on the board of directors for Rancho Cordova, Calif.-based GenCorp Inc., whose Aerojet subsidiary makes propulsion systems and maneuvering engines for the space shuttle and the Orion spacecraft. He would probably need a "limited waiver" from the regulations to head NASA.



From the L.A. Times

Obama picks Sonia Sotomayor for High Court

With his emphasis on the personal side of a judge's experience, President Barack Obama made much of Sonia Sotomayor's biography in his nomination speech Tuesday -- and can be expected to do so in the weeks ahead as well.

Much of the story is undoubtedly compelling. Judge Sotomayor, 54 years old, grew up in a poor family in the Bronx borough of New York. The daughter of Puerto Rican parents, she would be the first Hispanic on the court.

When Judge Sotomayor was 3, her family moved into the Bronxdale Houses, a public-housing complex with nearly 1,500 units today, a few miles from Yankee Stadium and right by a major expressway. At 8, she was diagnosed with diabetes. A year later, her father, a tool-and-die maker, died. Her mother, Celina Sotomayor, a nurse, raised her and her brother, Juan.

After graduating in 1972 from Cardinal Spellman High School, a Catholic institution in the Bronx, Ms. Sotomayor went to Princeton University on a scholarship, then Yale Law School.

At Princeton, Ms. Sotomayor was influenced by her Puerto Rican roots. A history major, she was one of a handful of students who created a study seminar on the history and politics of Puerto Rico, telling officials they felt the subject wasn't being addressed by existing courses.

Her 1976 senior thesis was titled, "La Historia Ciclica de Puerto Rico: The Impact of the Life of Luis Munoz Marin on the Economic History of Puerto Rico, 1930-1975." She won the university's Pyne Prize, the highest general honor conferred on an undergraduate, according to school officials.

Judge Sotomayor worked as an assistant district attorney for five years after law school, then at the New York law firm Pavia & Harcourt, where she focused on intellectual-property issues and worked with several corporate clients.

The peak of her career there came representing the Fendi brand, now owned by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA, on trademark actions, according to George Pavia, the firm's managing partner. By the mid-1980s, he says, the firm had accumulated thousands of illegal knockoffs of purses, shoes and other items through seizures, and was seeking a way to show that the Fendi brand name was being protected.

With Judge Sotomayor in charge, the firm decided to stage a large bonfire at Tavern on the Green restaurant. Refused a permit by fire officials, they instead called the media to witness a mass crushing of items in garbage trucks, an event called "the Fendi crush."

It was the pinnacle of our achievement, and Sonia was the principal doer," Mr. Pavia says.

Backed by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, she was named to the federal bench in the Southern District of New York in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush, then to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bill Clinton in 1998.

Divorced, with no children, Ms. Sotomayor would be the sixth Roman Catholic on the nine-member Court.


from the wall-street journal

OJ Simpson appeals

OJ Simpson appeals Vegas armed robbery conviction
By KEN RITTER – 10 hours ago

LAS VEGAS (AP) — O.J. Simpson has appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court to overturn his convictions for armed robbery and kidnapping during a a Las Vegas hotel room confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers.

The appeal arrived Tuesday at the Supreme Court in Carson City.

The former football star, actor and advertising pitchman asks the high court to throw out his conviction on grounds that include judicial misconduct, insufficient evidence, a lack of racial diversity on the jury and errors in sentencing and jury instructions.

The document criticizes the trial judge, Clark County District Court Judge Jackie Glass, and accuses prosecutors of improperly asking questions about allegations of witness intimidation in front of the jury.

"Cumulative error ... was so egregious and prejudicial that the defense could not get a fair trial," Simpson attorneys Yale Galanter and Malcolm LaVergne wrote in seeking the reversal.

Appeals in Nevada can take more than a year. Supreme Court spokesman Bill Gang said there was no way to know when the justices might rule.

"The amount of time it takes depends on the number and complexity of the issues raised," Gang said.

Simpson, 61, maintains that he was trying to retrieve property stolen from him when he and five other men confronted the two sports collectibles peddlers in a Las Vegas casino hotel room in September 2007.

Simpson and a co-defendant were convicted last October and sentenced in December. Simpson got nine to 33 years in state prison. He is housed at a prison in Lovelock, about 90 miles east of Reno.

He was acquitted in 1995 of charges he murdered his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. But he later was held liable for the deaths in a civil court case.



by the associated press

Smugglers’ plan

SAO PAULO — A plot to smuggle cellular telephones into a prison yard using a remote-control model helicopter has been foiled after Brazilian police officers discovered the high-tech toy in the trunk of a car outside a maximum-security lockup.

Police announced Monday they had confiscated the one yard-long model chopper near the Presidente Venceslau penitentiary in Sao Paulo state and arrested four people riding in the car.

Attached to the helicopter’s base was a basket-like container with nine cell phones wrapped in a disposable diaper, a police statement said. Another five cell phones were found inside the car trunk.

"The cell phones were obviously for jailed gang leaders who would use them to coordinate bank robberies and kidnappings and set up drug deals,” police Sgt. Ricardo Jock told the Globo TV network.

Police said one of the suspects arrested on Sunday acknowledged receiving $5,000 to buy and prepare the helicopter, and that he would have received the same amount again for landing it inside the prison.

Imprisoned Brazilian gangsters use cell telephones to coordinate activity outside and inside the prison system.


by the associated press

Shooting in Vienna causes riots

VIENNA, AUSTRIA — Investigators believe a sermon at a Sikh temple set off an attack that saw worshippers use a frying pan and microphone stands to fend off knife- and gun-wielding assailants who fatally shot a cleric, police said Monday.

The cleric’s death sparked riots in several northern Indian cities.

Witnesses said the Vienna temple attended by lower-caste Sikhs was attacked Sunday by Sikhs from a higher caste who accused one or both of the preachers of being disrespectful of the religion’s Holy Book.

The attack set off a brawl that wounded 16.

Six suspects are in custody and four have been identified as asylum-seekers, police spokesman Michael Takacs said.

In India, people responded by defying curfew and army patrols, attacking police stations and setting fire to the car of a senior officer and several trains. Police opened fire on mobs, wounding at least four people.



by the associated press

Iran chief asking for debate

TEHRAN, Iran — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, shown above, proposed on Monday a face-to-face debate with President Barack Obama at the United Nations if he is re-elected next month as Iran’s president.

But Ahmadinejad balanced the offer with a sharp rebuke to Washington and its allies over Iran’s nuclear program.

Obama has urged a "serious process of engagement” after Iran’s elections in an effort to end a nearly 30-year diplomatic chill. Last week, Obama said the U.S. might seek deeper sanctions if Iran did not respond positively to negotiations on its nuclear program.



by the associated press