Carroll County Times

NATION/WORLD Wednesday, October 6, 2010, Page A5

Nation
AP PHOTO
Remembering 9/11 at memorial
The names of nine firefighters who died in
the line of duty were added to the State of
New York Fallen Firefighters Memorial in
Albany, N.Y., Tuesday. Above, New York Gov.
David Paterson speaks during the annual
remembrance ceremony at the memorial.
Conn. jury convicts man
in deadly home invasion
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A paroled burglar was
convicted Tuesday of murdering a woman and
her two daughters in their suburban home during
a night of terror that drew comparisons to “In
Cold Blood” and bolstered efforts to retain the
death penalty in Connecticut.
The mother was sexually assaulted and stran-
gled. Her two girls died of smoke inhalation after
the youngest was sexually assaulted, they were
tied to their beds and doused in gasoline, and the
house was set on fire.
Steven Hayes, 47, could be sentenced to death.
His attorneys have admitted his involvement and
will argue for a life sentence.
Times Square bomber sentenced
Gets life in prison,
warns of attacks
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK — The Pak-
istani immigrant who tried to
detonate a car bomb on a busy
Saturday night in Times
Square accepted a life sen-
tence with a smirk Tuesday
and warned that Americans
can expect more bloodshed at
the hands of Muslims.
“Brace yourselves, because
the war with Muslims has just
begun,” 31-year- old Faisal
Shahzad told a federal judge.
“Consider me the first droplet
of the blood that will follow.”
His punishment for build-
ing the bomb and driving it
into the heart of the city in
an SUV last May was a fore-
gone conclusion, since the
charges to which he pleaded
guilty carried a mandatory
life sentence, which under
federal rules will keep him
behind bars until he dies.
But the former budget ana-
lyst from Connecticut used the
courtroom appearance to rail
against the U.S., saying the
country will continue to pay
for occupying Muslim coun-
tries.
“We are only Muslims trying
to defend our religion, people,
homes and land, but if you call
us terrorists, then we are
proud terrorists and we will
keep on terrorizing you until
you leave our lands and people
at peace,” he told U.S. District
Judge Miriam Goldman
Cedarbaum.
Shahzad — brought into the
courtroom in handcuffs, and
wearing a long beard and
white skullcap — had in-
structed his attorney not to
speak, and Cedarbaum told
prosecutors she didn’t need to
hear from them.
That left the two free to spar
over his reasoning for giving
up his comfortable life in
America to train in Pakistan
“Brace yourselves,
because the war
with Muslims has
just begun.”
Faisal Shahzad
Man who tried to detonate a bomb in NYC
and carry out an attack author- became a citizen last year.
ities say could have killed an “I did swear, but I did not
untold number of pedestrians. mean it,” Shahzad said.
“You appear to be someone In his address to the court,
who was capable of education he said Osama bin Laden “will
and I do hope you will spend
be known as no less than Sal-
some of the time in prison adin of the 21st-century cru-
thinking carefully about sade” — a reference to
whether the Quran wants you the Muslim hero of the Cru-
to kill lots of people,” Cedar- sades. He also said: “If I’m
baum said. given 1,000 lives, I will sacri-
Shahzad responded that the fice them all.”
“Quran gives us the right to
defend. And that’s all I’m
Shahzad smirked when the
judge imposed the sentence.
doing.” Asked if he had any final
The judge cut him off at one words, he said, “I’m happy
point to ask if he had sworn al- with the deal that God has
legiance to the U.S. when he given me.”

Nevada tea party chairman

resigns over secret recording
LAS VEGAS — The chairman of the Tea Party
of Nevada resigned Tuesday after a recording was
made public capturing Republican Sharron Angle
badmouthing GOP leaders during a meeting with
the shadowy group’s U.S. Senate candidate.
The exit of chairman Syd James is another blow
to the candidacy of Tea Party of Nevada nominee
Scott Ashjian, who has been denounced by state
tea party leaders who say he has no connection
to the movement that advocates limited govern-
ment and tightfisted public spending.
In a statement, James said he was endorsing
Angle, whose uneasy relations with national Re-
publicans were laid bare in the tape, which
Ashjian recorded secretly and later released to
the Las Vegas Sun newspaper.

Driver cuts off truck,

abducted Calif. girl flees
FRESNO, Calif. — An 8-year-old girl who was
abducted by a stranger while playing outside a
Fresno home escaped from her captor Tuesday
morning after a driver recognized the suspect’s
vehicle and cut it off, police said.
The child was found in Fresno about 11 hours AP PHOTOS
after she disappeared around 8:30 p.m. Monday, A villager walks through his yard flooded by toxic mud in Kolontar, Hungary, Tuesday. Flooding caused by the
triggering a statewide Amber Alert. Police ar- rupture of a red sludge reservoir at an alumina plant in western Hungary has killed at least four people, rescue
rested Gregorio Gonzalez, 24, who they said was services said Tuesday. Six people were missing and 120 injured in what officials said is an ecological disaster.
a member of the Bulldogs street gang.

Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said the driver
recognized the red pickup truck from media re-
ports that showed surveillance video of the kid-
napper’s vehicle. When the driver saw a girl’s
head in the window, he cut the truck off and
forced it to stop, Dyer said. The suspect pushed
the girl out of the car, and she ran to safety, he
said.
The girl was taken to a hospital in good condi-
tion, but Dyer later confirmed she had been sex-
ually assaulted.
Lawyers: Student charged
in Rutgers case innocent
NEWARK, N.J. — Lawyers for one of the two
Rutgers University students accused of secretly
webcasting the sex life of a fellow freshman who
later committed suicide said Tuesday their client
is innocent.
Prosecutors have charged Molly Wei, of Prince-
ton, and fellow Rutgers freshman Dharun Ravi, of
Plainsboro, both 18, with invasion of privacy for
allegedly using a webcam to broadcast the en-
counter between Ravi’s roommate, 18-year- old
freshman Tyler Clementi, and a man who hasn’t
been identified.
Clementi jumped to his death off the George
Washington Bridge into the Hudson River three
days later. His death has led to nationwide soul-
searching over the plight of gay teenagers and to
mourning on the Rutgers campus. Prosecutors
are weighing whether to charge Wei and Ravi
with a hate crime.
Attorneys for Wei released a statement Tues-
day extending sympathy to the Clementi family
and saying Wei was innocent.
— Associated Press
‘Ecological catastrophe’
Hungary towns hit by toxic sludge
ASSOCIATED PRESS
KOLONTAR, Hungary — A
lethal torrent of toxic red
sludge from a metal refinery
engulfed towns in Hungary,
burning villagers through
their clothes and threatening
an ecological disaster Tuesday
as it swept toward the Danube
River.
The flood of caustic red
mud triggered a state of emer-
gency declaration by Hungar-
ian officials. At least four
people were killed, six were
missing and 120 injured, many
with burns.
Hundreds were evacuated
in the aftermath of the disas-
ter Monday, when a gigantic
sludge reservoir burst its
banks at an alumina plant in
Ajka, a town 100 miles south-
west of Budapest, the capital.
The torrent of sludge inun-
dated homes, swept cars off
roads and damaged bridges.
Named for its bright red
color, the material is a waste
product in aluminum produc-
tion that contains heavy met-
als and is toxic if ingested.
In Kolontar, the town clos-
est to the plant, Erzsebet
Veingartner was in her
kitchen when the 12-foot-high
wave of red slurry hit, sweep-
ing away everything in its
path.
“I looked outside and all I
saw was the stream swelling
like a huge wave,” the 61-year-
old widow said Tuesday as
she surveyed her backyard,
still under 6 feet of noxious
muck.
A villager cleans his home and yard flooded by toxic
“I lost all my chickens, my mud in Kolontar, Hungary, Tuesday.
ducks, my Rottweiler, and my
potato patch. My late hus- tection gear rushed to pour gloves as protection.
band’s tools and machinery 1,000 tons of plaster into the By Tuesday, about 35.3 mil-
were in the shed and it’s all Marcal River in an attempt to lion cubic feet of sludge had
gone,” sobbed the woman, bind the sludge and keep it poured from the reservoir,
who gets by on a $350 monthly from flowing on to the flooding a 16 square mile area,
pension. “I have a winter’s Danube some 45 miles away. Environmental Affairs State
worth of firewood in the base- Nearby, desperate villagers Secretary Zoltan Illes told the
ment and it’s all useless now.” waded through the toxic mud state news wire MTI.
Emergency workers wear- trying to salvage possessions He called the spill an
ing masks and chemical pro- with little more than rubber “ecological catastrophe.”

World
Nobel physics prize
awarded for discovery
STOCKHOLM — Two Russian-
born scientists shared the Nobel
Prize in physics Tuesday for
“groundbreaking experiments”
with the thinnest, strongest ma-
terial known to mankind — a car-
bon vital for the creation of faster
computers and transparent touch
screens.
University of Manchester pro-
fessors Andre Geim and Konstan-
tin Novoselov used Scotch tape to
isolate graphene, a form of carbon
only one atom thick but more than
AP PHOTO
100 times stronger than steel, and
showed it has exceptional proper-
Flash floods hit Indonesia ties, the Royal Swedish Academy of
Sciences said.
Residents gather to inspect the damage suffered by an area Experiments with graphene
affected by a flash flood in Wasior, Indonesia, Tuesday. Heavy could lead to the development of
rain unleashed flash floods and mudslides, killing dozens of new superstrong materials with
people in a remote corner of the country. which to make satellites, airplanes
and cars, as well as innovative elec- tor Qayum Pokhla said. Another
tronics, the academy said in an- 26 people were wounded, includ-
nouncing the $1.5 million award. ing police officers.
Geim compared the material to
ize the world. “It has all the poten- Donors pledge $11.7B
plastic in its ability to revolution-
tial to change your life in the same to fight AIDS, TB
way that plastics did,” he told The
Associated Press Tuesday. UNITED NATIONS — Donors
committed $11.7 billion Tuesday to
fight AIDS, tuberculosis and
Taliban steps up malaria for the next three years, far
attacks in Kandahar below the $17 billion needed to
meet U.N. goals to slow and beat
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — the killer diseases.
Two explosions rocked Kandahar The contributions to The Global
Tuesday, the second day of deadly Fund to fight the three pandemics
blasts in the southern Afghan city represented a more than 20 per-
where Taliban insurgents are fight- cent increase over the $9.7 billion
ing back against U.S. and Afghan pledged for 2008-2010, which U.N.
forces pushing into areas long held Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
by the insurgents. welcomed saying the money “is
A car bomb and a second, enough to give millions of people
smaller blast killed nine people, in- living in fear a new lease on life.”
cluding one Afghan policeman,
Kandahar provincial health direc- — Associated Press