 In a March 2003 speech arguing for $1 billion in new spending on DNA-based crime fighting, then-attorney general John Ashcroft singled out the FBI's DNA database for its many successes. In Virginia, for example, he said authorities "have been able to solve 90 homicides and 196 non-homicide sexual assaults" by matching the DNA left at crime scenes to the DNA of prior offenders.What Ashcroft didn't explain was that a DNA match —a crime "solved" by the FBI's database — does not mean that an arrest was made, that a criminal was prosecuted or even that detectives considered a case closed. Just how many DNA matches lead to an arrest isn't known; no government agency keeps track. But a USA TODAY investigation found almost three dozen cases during the past five years — including a rape in Virginia — in which investigators failed to pursue potential suspects whose DNA matched evidence found at crime scenes....
http://www.usatoday.com
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Editor - 21:27:00 11-20-06
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 Selective Service: Ready for a draft |
Although Congress is unlikely to follow calls from a top Democrat to bring back the military draft, the United States does have a plan, if necessary, aimed at inducting millions of young men for service.The Selective Service System, an agency independent of the Defense Department, says it's ready to respond quickly to any crisis that would threaten to overwhelm the current all-volunteer military."We're the fire department," said spokesman Pat Schuback at the service headquarters in Arlington, Virginia."We're prepared to do the mission with whatever time period we're asked to do it in. Our current plan is 193 days and that was based on manpower analysis."With an active list of more than 15 million names, Schuback said an estimated 93 percent of all men in the United States between 18 and 26 have registered for the Selective Service, as required by law. ...
http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/11/20/selective.service/index.html?eref=rss_us
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Editor - 21:23:00 11-20-06
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| Students Told to Pay for School Mistake |
A computer glitch erroneously refunded dozens of Old Dominion University students thousands of dollars, and now the school is asking for the money back. School officials said 55 students are being told they must reimburse the school a total of about $323,000. ``Some of the students did not take this very well,'' President Roseann Runte said during a meeting of the executive committee of the Board of Visitors on Monday. Robert Fenning, vice president for administration and finance, said some students owe as little as $1,000, while some owe as much as $15,000. Some of the students had asked about the checks but were told they were legitimate, Fenning said. Officials said the affected students began as out-of-state students, who pay higher tuition than in-state students, and later switched their residences to Virginia. When the student records software was upgraded, it read the new addresses and applied them retroactively, issuing refund checks to those it perceived as having overpaid...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6229709,00.html
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Editor - 20:55:00 11-20-06
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| Guatemala fire kills 15 in market |
An enormous fire at Central America's largest open-air market Monday killed 15 people, including three minors, and sent up columns of smoke visible 10 kilometers (six miles) away. Witnesses said the blaze was sparked by a lit cigarette.The fire broke out in an area of illegal fireworks stands set up temporarily near a section of the permanent market where corn and beans are sold year-round, said fire department spokesman Ricardo Lemus, who confirmed the number of deaths. He did not have the ages of the minors, all of whom worked in the permanent market.The blaze quickly destroyed about 40 of the permanent market's hundreds of shops, which cover a 5- to 8-square-kilometer (2- to 3-square-mile) area.Lemus said the cause of the fire was still under investigation. One of the fireworks merchants, Carlos Balam, however, told The Associated Press that it was started by a lit cigarette that he saw one of his fellow vendors throw into the street....
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/11/20/guatemala.fire.ap/index.html?eref=rss_world
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Editor - 20:52:00 11-20-06
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| German nurse guilty of killing 28 patients |
A young German nurse was convicted yesterday of killing 28 patients by injecting them with a cocktail of lethal drugs. Stephan Letter was sentenced to life in prison for Germany's worst serial killing since the second world war.His victims, who were mostly over 75, were killed at a hospital in Sonthofen, a quiet alpine town in southern Bavaria sparking national outrage during a high-profile case that lasted nine months. Nicknamed the Sonthofen Nurse of Death by the media, Letter, 28, insisted he had been motivated by compassion. But the plea that he had wanted to put his victims out of their misery was rejected by the court. Judge Harry Rechner said the nurse "was at best superficially interested in the health of his patients". Letter was found guilty on 12 counts of murder, 15 of manslaughter and one of "mercy killing". ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1953184,00.html
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Editor - 20:50:00 11-20-06
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| Mexican leftist setting up parallel government |
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has toured the country as if taking a victory lap. He's named a Cabinet and called for donations to fund his government. Now the fiery leftist plans to be sworn in as the country's "legitimate president" on Monday as the country celebrates its 1910 revolution -- thumbing his nose at the country's highest electoral court, which declared conservative Felipe Calderon the presidential election winner by less than 1 percentage point. Based in Mexico City, the parallel government will not try to collect taxes or make laws. It will have one objective: to hamper Calderon during his six-year term that begins December 1. His supporters have pledged to block Calderon's swearing-in ceremony before the Mexican Congress, although they have not announced how they plan to do so. "We're not going to give the right free rein," Lopez Obrador said in a final stop in the southeastern state of Veracruz this weekend. "We're going to confront it."...
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/americas/11/20/mexico.dual.leaders.ap/index.html?eref=rss_world
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Editor - 20:45:00 11-20-06
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