In Georgia’s Fulton County, which includes the Democratic-voting city of Atlanta, a group run by members of former President Donald Trump’s administration last month sued so a Republican member of the local elections board could refuse to certify the results of the primary election.

And in Arizona, GOP lawmakers sued to reverse the state’s top Democratic officials’ requirement that local boards automatically validate their election results.

The past four years have been filled with battles over all sorts of election arcana, including one that had long been regarded as an administrative afterthought — little-known state and local boards certifying the results. With the presidential election looming in November, attorneys are gearing up for yet more fights over election certification, especially in the swing states where the victory margins are expected to be tight. Even if those efforts ultimately fail, election officials worry they’ll become a vehicle for promoting bogus election claims.

Trump and his allies have tried to use the tactic to stop election results from being made final if they lose. In 2020, two Republicans on Michigan’s state board of canvassers, which must certify ballot totals before state officials can declare a winner, briefly balked at signing off before one relented and became the decisive vote. Trump had cheered the delay as part of his push to overturn his loss that ultimately culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

During the 2022 midterms, some conservative, rural counties tried to hold up their state election results, citing the same debunked claims of voter fraud that Trump has made.

In New Mexico, rural county supervisors refused to certify the state’s primary vote until they were threatened with prosecution. In Cochise County in southeastern Arizona, two Republican supervisors who refused to certify the local vote totals said they had no doubt their own county’s tally was accurate but were protesting the counts in other counties that gave Democratic candidates for governor, attorney general and secretary of state their victories.

Responding to the certification controversies, Michigan’s Democratic legislature passed a law making clear that state and local canvassing boards must certify election totals. The two Arizona county supervisors are currently facing criminal charges filed by the state’s Democratic attorney general.

Democrats and nonpartisan groups say the thousands of local election oversight boards across the country aren’t the place to contest ballot counts, and that state laws make clear they have no leeway on whether to sign off on their staff’s final tallies.

“Election authorities don’t have the discretion to reject the results of an election because of their vibes,” said Jonathan Diaz of the Campaign Legal Center, adding that lawsuits and recounts are the proper recourse. “They’re there to perform a function. They’re there to certify.”

But some Republicans argue that’s going too far. Kory Langhofer, the attorney suing to overturn the election procedures manual’s directive in Arizona that was issued by the Democratic attorney general and secretary of state, said he didn’t support the effort to block certification in Cochise County in 2022. But, he argued, locally elected boards of supervisors have to have some discretion to police elections.

“It seems to me the system is stronger when you have multiple eyes on it,” Langhofer said. Of the efforts to block certification in 2020 and 2022, he added, “I hope that’s behind us.”

Democrats doubt that’s the case. They note that the America First Policy Institute, a pro-Trump organization run by former officials from his administration, filed the lawsuit in Georgia to let Fulton County Elections Board member Julie Adams vote against certifying elections. Adams’ four other board members voted to certify last month’s primary but Adams abstained last week, contending she couldn’t accept the results given prior election administration problems in the county.

“This action will re-establish the role of board members as the ultimate parties responsible for ensuring elections in Fulton County are free from fraud, deceit, and abuse,” the institute wrote in its release announcing the lawsuit. The group did not respond to a request for comment.

Fulton County is the heart of the Democratic vote in Georgia, and anything that holds up its totals in November could help make it look like Trump has a large lead in the state.

“Trump and MAGA Republicans have made it clear they are planning to try to block certification of November’s election when they are defeated again, and this is a transparent attempt to set the stage for that fight,” Georgia Democratic Party chair and Rep. Nikema Williams said in a statement.

In Michigan’s Delta County, clerk Nancy Przewrocki, a Republican, said the two GOP canvassers had requested a hand recount of the votes, which is beyond the scope of their position. The canvassers eventually voted to certify the May election after receiving a letter from the State Elections Director Jonathan Brater, which reminded them of their duties and warned them of the consequences of failing to certify.

Still, Przewrocki said she’s concerned about what could happen in November if a similar situation arises.

“I can see this escalating, unfortunately. I’m trying to keep our voters confident in our voting equipment, and this is completely undermining it when there’s really nothing there,” Przewrocki said.

Following the Delta County incident, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Attorney General Dana Nessel, both Democrats, issued a reminder to local canvassing boards throughout the state warning them of their legal obligation to certify election results based solely on vote returns. If they don’t, there will be “swift action to ensure the legal certification of election results,” along with “possible civil and criminal charges against those members for their actions,” Benson warned.

Michigan is an example of the futility of the tactic. The new state law makes it clear that canvassing boards can’t block certification, but Benson said in an interview that she still worries such an effort, even if legally doomed, would help spread false allegations about the November election.

“Misinformation and talking points emerge that enable others — particularly politicians — to continue to cast doubt on the accuracy of election results,” she said.

Riccardi reported from Denver and Cappelletti from Lansing, Michigan. Associated Press writers Jeff Amy in Atlanta and Morgan Lee in Santa Fe, New Mexico, contributed to this report.

At about 2 a.m. last Tuesday, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin stood on the Senate floor and explained why he opposed sending more aid to help Ukraine fend off the invasion launched in 2022 by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“I don’t like this reality,” Johnson said. “Vladimir Putin is an evil war criminal.” But he quickly added: “Vladimir Putin will not lose this war.”

That argument — that the Russian president cannot be stopped so there’s no point in using American taxpayer dollars against him — marks a new stage in the Republican Party’s growing acceptance of Russian expansionism in the age of Donald Trump.

The GOP has been softening its stance on Russia ever since Trump won the 2016 election following Russian hacking of his Democratic opponents. There are several reasons for the shift. Among them, Putin is holding himself out as an international champion of conservative Christian values and the GOP is growing increasingly skeptical of overseas entanglements. Then there’s Trump’s personal embrace of the Russian leader.

Now the GOP’s ambivalence on Russia has stalled additional aid to Ukraine at a pivotal time in the war.

The Senate last week passed a foreign aid package that included $61 billion for Ukraine on a 70-29 vote, but Johnson was one of a majority of the Republicans to vote against the bill after their late-night stand to block it. In the Republican-controlled House, Speaker Mike Johnson said his chamber will not be “rushed” to pass the measure, even as Ukraine’s military warns of dire shortages of ammunition and artillery.

Many Republicans are openly frustrated that their colleagues don’t see the benefits of helping Ukraine. Putin and his allies have banked on democracies wearying of aiding Kyiv, and Putin’s GOP critics warn that NATO countries in eastern Europe could become targets of an emboldened Russia that believes the U.S. won’t counter it.

“Putin is losing,” Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said on the floor before Johnson’s speech. “This is not a stalemate.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was one of 22 Republican senators to back the package, while 26 opposed it.

The divide within the party was on stark display Friday with the prison death of Russian opposition figure and anti-corruption advocate Alexei Navalny, which President Joe Biden and other world leaders blamed on Putin. Trump notably stood aside from that chorus Monday in his first public comment on the matter that referred to Navalny by name.

Offering no sympathy or attempt to affix blame, Trump posted on Truth Social that the “sudden death of Alexei Navalny has made me more and more aware of what is happening in our Country. It is a slow, steady progression, with CROOKED, Radical Left Politicians, Prosecutors, and Judges leading us down a path to destruction.”

Nikki Haley, his Republican presidential primary rival, said Monday that Trump is “siding with a thug” in his embrace of Putin.

Tillis responded to Navalny’s death by saying in a post, “History will not be kind to those in America who make apologies for Putin and praise Russian autocracy.”

Johnson, the House speaker, issued a statement calling Putin a “vicious dictator” and pledging that he “will be met with united opposition,” but he did not offer any way forward for passing the aid to Ukraine.

Within the Republican Party, skeptics of confronting Russia seem to be gaining ground.

“Nearly every Republican Senator under the age of 55 voted NO on this America Last bill,” Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt, elected in 2022, posted on the social media site X after the vote last week. “15 out of 17 elected since 2018 voted NO. Things are changing just not fast enough.”

Those who oppose additional Ukraine aid bristle at charges that they are doing Putin’s handiwork. They contend they are taking a hard-headed look at whether it’s worth spending money to help the country.

“If you oppose a blank check to another country, I guess that makes you a Russian,” Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville said on the Senate floor, after posting that conservative commentator Tucker Carlson’s recent controversial interview of Putin shows that “Russia wants peace” in contrast to “DC warmongers.”

Rep. Matt Gaetz, a leading opponent of Ukraine aid in the House, described the movement as “a generational shift in my party away from neoconservatism toward foreign policy realism.”

In interviews with voters waiting to see Trump speak Saturday night in Waterford Township, Michigan, none praised Putin. But none wanted to spend more money confronting him, trusting Trump to handle the Russian leader.

Even before Trump, Republican voters were signaling discontent with overseas conflicts, said Douglas Kriner, a political scientist at Cornell University. That’s one reason Trump’s 2016 promise to avoid “stupid wars” resonated.

“Some of it may be a bottom-up change in a key part of the Republican base,” Kriner said, “and part of it reflects Trump’s hold on that base and his ability to sway its opinions and policy preferences in dramatic ways.”

Trump has long praised Putin, calling his invasion of Ukraine “smart” and “savvy,” and recalling this month that he had told NATO members who didn’t spend enough on defense that he would “encourage” Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to them. He reiterated that threat days later.

Despite the reluctance within the GOP to continue supporting Ukraine, Russia remains deeply unpopular in the U.S. A July 2023 Gallup poll found that just 5% had a favorable view of Putin, including 7% of Republicans.

But Putin has positioned his country as a symbol of Christian conservatism and resistance to LGBTQ rights, while portraying himself as an embodiment of masculine strength. The combination has appealed to populist conservatives across the Western world. Putin’s appeal in some sectors of the right is demonstrated by Carlson’s recent tour of Russia, after which the conservative host posted videos admiring the Moscow subway and a supermarket that he says “would radicalize you against our leaders.”

“The goal of the Soviet Union was to be the beacon of left ideas,” said Olga Kamenchuk, a professor at Northwestern University. “Russia is now the beacon of conservative ideas.”

Kamenchuk said this is most visible not in Putin’s U.S. poll numbers, but in fading Republican support for Ukraine. About half of Republicans said the U.S. is providing “too much” support to Ukraine when it comes to Russia’s invasion, according to a Pew Research poll in December. That’s up from 9% in a Pew poll taken in March 2022, just weeks after Russia invaded.

When Putin attacked Ukraine, there was bipartisan condemnation. Even a year ago, most Republicans in Congress pledged support. But around the same time, Trump was lamenting that U.S. leaders were “suckers” for sending aid.

By the fall, the party was divided. Republicans refused to include another round of Ukraine funding in the government spending bill, insisting that Democrats needed to include a border security measure to earn their support.

After Trump condemned the compromise border proposal, Republicans sank the bill, leaving Ukraine backers no option but to push the assistance as part of a foreign aid package with additional money for Israel and Taiwan.

Several experts on Russia note that the rhetoric the GOP uses against Ukraine aid can mirror Putin’s own — that Ukraine is corrupt and will waste the money, that the U.S. can’t afford to look beyond its borders and that Russia’s victory is inevitable.

“He’s trying to create the perception that he’s never going to be beaten, so don’t even try,” Henry Hale, a George Washington University political scientist, said of Putin.

Skeptics of Ukraine aid argue the war has already decimated the Russian military and that Putin won’t be able to target other European countries.

“Russia has shown in the last two years that they do not have the ability to march through Western Europe,” said Russell Vought, Trump’s former director of the Office of Management and Budget who is now president of the Center for Renewing America, which opposes additional Ukraine funding.

But several experts noted that Putin has alluded to plans to retake much of the former Soviet Union’s territory, which could include NATO countries such as Lithuania and Estonia that the U.S is obligated under its treaty to defend militarily.

Sergey Radchenko, a professor at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies, noted that Russia for decades has hoped the U.S would lose interest in protecting Europe: “This was Stalin’s dream, that the U.S. would just retreat to the Western hemisphere.”

___

Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti in Waterford Township, Michigan, and Mary Clare Jalonick and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.

Hasta el domingo, el conteo indicaba que había participado el 62% del electorado, lo que representa un aumento del 0,4% respecto al 2008, cuando la nación eligió su primer presidente de raza negra.

La cantidad de votos emitidos también es un récord, aunque menos notable en vista de que la población aumentó. Hasta ahora se han contado 148 millones de votos y el demócrata Joe Biden se alzó con más de 75 millones, la cifra más alta jamás alcanzada por un candidato. Trump recibió más de 70 millones, la mayor cantidad jamás recibida por alguien que perdió la votación.

Estas cifras van a aumentar ya que se siguen contando votos. Los expertos, por su parte, ya están tratando de determinar qué fue lo que motivó tanta participación. Hay quienes afirman que fue consecuencia de la decisión de algunos estados de dar más tiempo y de ofrecer más formas de votar. Otros destacan las intensas pasiones que despertó Trump, a favor y en contra.

El resultado de todo esto fue la mayor participación desde 1968, según datos de la Associated Press y del United States Elections Project, que estudia el tema. Algunos expertos consideran que las tasas del 2020 pueden alcanzar niveles que no se veían desde principios del siglo 20, desde antes de que se permitiese votar a las mujeres.

“Cuesta imaginar que se puede llegar más alto”, dijo Michael McDonald, profesor de ciencias políticas de la Universidad de la Florida que dirige el Elections Project.

Un análisis de la AP indica que algunos de los aumentos más pronunciados en la participación se registraron en estados que flexibilizaron las normas para votar por correo. En dos estados que las ampliaron en forma significativa, Montana y Vermont, la participación subió más de un 10% en el primero y de un 9 % en el segundo respecto a las elecciones del 2016. El aumento más grande fue el de Hawai, donde subió más de un 14%.

Texas, que no amplió las reglas para el voto por correo pero dio al electorado más tiempo para votar en persona, registró un aumento de más del 9%, del 50% al 59%.

Muchos de los estados con los mayores aumentos en la participación –incluidos Arizona, Texas y Georgia– eran estados indecisos en los que los demócratas hicieron grandes esfuerzos por movilizar a la gente, incluso en tradicionales bastiones republicanos.

Hay quienes dicen que estas cifras confirman la importancia de la organización y de salir a la calle a captar votos.

“La gente vota cuando se le pide que vote”, dijo Seth Masket, profesor de ciencias políticas de la Universidad de Denver.

Un incremento en la participación, no obstante, no siempre ayudó a los demócratas. El partido perdió bancas en la Cámara de Representantes y no logró la mayoría en el Senado, aunque todavía hay una pequeña posibilidad de que la consiga cuando se decidan dos bancas en Georgia en una segunda ronda.

Hasta ahora, los demócratas no arrebataron una sola banca a los republicanos en el Senado.

Esto confirma que no es cierto que una alta participación ayude a los demócratas, como muchos creían.

Los resultados hacen que algunos demócratas se pregunten si no habrán cometido un error al decidir no ir de puerta en puerta y tratar de captar votos en persona por meses debido al coronavirus.

“Tal vez no llegamos a la gente que teníamos que convencer”, dijo Gilbert Hinojosa, presidente del Partido Demócrata de Texas. “Creo que es mucho más efectivo el contacto personal”.

La participación era más alta antes de 1920, en que las mujeres conquistaron el derecho a votar, porque mucha menos gente podía hacerlo. McDonald y otros creen que la elección del 2020 puede superar la marca de 1908, que fue del 65,7% y sigue siendo la más alta de la historia.

La participación más alta de después de la Segunda Guerra Mundial fue la de 1960, con un 63,8%, según McDonald.

Major charged in Fort Hood killings has no feeling in legs

FORT HOOD, Texas– The Army psychiatrist accused of killing 12 soldiers and one civilian at a military base 10 days ago is paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by two police officers, his attorney said Friday.

John Galligan said that Maj Nidal Malik Hasan feels no sensation in his legs and that his doctors at the San Antonio military hospital where he is confined have said he may not walk again.

“He’s pretty much paralyzed,” Galligan said.

Galligan met with Hasan on Thursday after military officials filed 13 charges of premeditated murder against him. If convicted, Hasan could face the death penalty.

The military has yet to make a formal decision on pursuing the death penalty, according to a spokesman at Fort Hood.

Hasan allegedly opened fire on unarmed soldiers filling out paperwork in advance of their deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. Officials said Hasan killed 13 people and wounded 29 before two civilian police officers shot him down.

A devout Muslim, Hasan was due to deploy to Afghanistan to counsel troops on the ground there. Federal counterterrorism investigators monitored e-mails Hasan exchanged with a virulently anti-American cleric in Yemen. Some of his fellow doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center feared he was too sympathetic to jihadists. But the Army promoted him to major and sent him to Fort Hood this summer in advance of his deployment.

President Barack Obama has ordered a review of how the case was handled. The Senate is set to start hearings this week.

Galligan is a former Army colonel who specializes in defending soldiers from nearby Fort Hood. Hasan, 39, will also be appointed a military defense attorney.

17 killed in blast as U.S. official visits

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Medics treat a boy injured in a bomb blast Friday at Peshawar’s Inter-Services Intelligence building, which houses officials of at Pakistan’s intelligence agency. The explosion, along with an attack that targeted police in Bannu, came hours before the U.S. national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, met with top Pakistani officials in the capital, Islamabad.

NATION

FAA vows faster contact with military on lost jets

The Federal Aviation Administration will revise procedures to ensure that the military is alerted more quickly when jetliners fly without radio contact, the agency’s administrator said Friday.

“We could have done better,” the administrator, Randy Babbitt, told reporters in discussing a Delta Air Lines flight that overshot Minneapolis on Oct. 21.

Pilots for Delta’s Northwest unit went past their destination by 150 miles and were out of radio contact with the FAA for 91 minutes, federal authorities have said. The FAA suspended the licenses of the two pilots on Oct. 27.

Babbitt said in an e-mailed statement that day that he was conducting an “internal review” and “will require retraining” on procedures.

Reprieve on raw oysters

ATLANTA — The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it will conduct further studies before implementing a plan to ban raw, untreated Gulf Coast oysters during months when they are most likely to be infected with a harmful bacterium.

The plan had had sparked outcry from Southern politicians who feared it will devastate an iconic regional industry.

The FDA proposal, set to take effect by summer 2011, was an attempt to prevent the average 15 deaths that occur in the United States each year from the consumption of raw oysters infected with the bacterium Vibrio vulnificus.

WORLD

Garbage haulers’ strike leaves Sicily in crisis

ROME — A strike by refuse collectors in Sicily has sparked a new garbage crisis, forcing schools to close while angry citizens are burning mountains of waste, a regional government leader said Friday.

“Around 50 towns and villages in the province of Palermo are submerged by waste, and in some towns the mayors have decided to close schools due to the emergency” Palermo regional President Giovanni Avanti said.

The Italian government was forced to act to end protests over waste piled up around the southern city of Naples in 2008.

In some Sicilian towns “tensions are rising, people are burning the rubbish skips; they can’t stand the mountains of rubbish that have accumulated any more,” Avanti said.

Major deal with Kurds

ISTANBUL — After months of dialogue, the Turkish government announced a plan on Friday to help end the quarter-century-long conflict with a Kurdish separatist movement that has cost more than 40,000 lives.

The plan will be debated by parliament, but the fact that it is being discussed at all is considered to be a landmark. For decades, Kurdish political parties were routinely banned, and the ethnic identity of the Kurds was not openly acknowledged, though they make up almost 15 percent of Turkey’s population.

The government’s plan would allow the Kurdish language to be used in all broadcast media and political campaigns, and restore Kurdish names to cities and towns that have been given Turkish ones. It would also establish a committee to fight discrimination.

Train derails; 7 killed

MUMBAI, India — At least seven people were killed and 25 injured when a New Delhi-bound train derailed near the western Indian city of Jaipur early Saturday, officials said.

Fifteen coaches of the Mandor Express jumped the track, and rescue teams were working to free trapped passengers, state Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot told reporters.

“Rescue operation is still on,” he said, adding the cause of the accident was being investigated.

India’s railway network, which ferries more than 18 million passengers daily, is plagued by crowding and outdated technology.

THE NUMBER

24 gallons

The estimated amount of water present in the roughly 100-foot crater created by the impact of two probes into the moon, NASA scientists said Friday.

The agency slammed the probes into the lunar surface so scientists could look for water vapor in dust kicked up by the impact. NASA said the find raises the possibility that astronauts one day could use lunar water when exploring the moon.

“Indeed, yes, we found water. … We found a significant amount,” said Anthony Colaprete, the mission’s principal investigator at NASA’s Ames Research Center. “The amount of water … is wetter than some deserts on Earth,” said Colaprete.

— Mark K. Matthews, Tribune Newspapers

The Interior Department, in a report released Thursday, sharply criticized the process by which those leases were auctioned in the last days of the Bush presidency.

But the report also opened the door for the department to reinstate or re-auction 30 leases on parcels that lie in existing oil and gas development areas or are “not near particularly sensitive landscapes.” It instructs the Bureau of Land Management to conduct a more thorough review of those parcels to see whether leases would be appropriate.

The auction was held in December, barely a month before Obama took office. Conservation groups challenged the lease sales in court, and incoming Interior Secretary Ken Salazar quickly ordered the 77 most controversial leases vacated while a review could be conducted.

Western Republicans in the Senate, led by Sen. Bob Bennett of Utah, retaliated by stalling the confirmation of David Hayes, Salazar’s choice to be his chief deputy. The Republicans relented after Hayes promised to personally conduct an expedited review of the leases.

The report released Thursday said the auction “deviated in important respects from the normal leasing process.” For example, it said, the Bureau of Land Management failed to notify the National Park Service about tracts that were a late addition to the sale, and the bureau refused to adequately consider the air quality impacts of the leases.

In 1986, his clinic in Wichita, Kan., was firebombed. In 1991, it was blockaded for six weeks. In 1993, he was shot through both arms. In March, Kansas prosecutors tried him on charges of breaking abortion laws; he was acquitted. In May, vandals cut wires to security cameras and made holes in the roof of Tiller’s clinic, Women’s Health Care Services, a fortified single-story building where abortion opponents keep a vigil.

But until Sunday, when a gunman shot Tiller, 67, to death in the foyer of his church, Tiller had survived and prospered.

In some instances, women and girls from around the world flew to Wichita to terminate pregnancies in the 22nd week or later. Some had discovered their wanted babies were seriously affected by genetic anomalies or other defects. Others were deemed too fragile physically or psychologically to carry a baby to term. But where supporters of legal abortion saw a savior, opponents saw a killer.

Tiller was working as a church usher at Reformation Lutheran Church and his wife, Jeanne, was in the choir, when he was gunned down about 10 a.m. Sunday.

Parishioner Adam Watkins, 20, told The Associated Press that he was sitting in the congregation when he heard a small pop.

“We just thought a child had come in with a balloon, and it had popped,” he said.

Another usher told the congregation to remain seated, then escorted Tiller’s wife out. “When she got to the back doors, we heard her scream, and so we knew something bad had happened,” Watkins said.

Later, Tiller’s attorneys released a statement from Tiller’s wife, his four children and 10 grandchildren.

“Today we mourn the loss of our husband, father and grandfather,” it said. “… This is particularly heart-wrenching because George was shot down in his house of worship, a place of peace.”

Later, Wichita police announced they had arrested a 51-year-old man about 170 miles away. Wichita police said he could be charged Monday with one count of murder and two counts of aggravated assault.

Tiller’s death comes as President Barack Obama, who supports abortion rights, has called for both sides of the debate to find common ground.

Obama said he was “shocked and outraged” by the killing.

Just two weeks ago, in a commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame, Obama issued a plea for respectful discourse, but said: “The fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable.”

Kelli Conlin, president of NARAL Pro-Choice New York, echoed that sentiment Sunday in a statement about Tiller’s death: “It is cold-blooded, vicious actions like today’s assassination that make it hard for those of us in the pro-choice community to find common ground with those on the other side.”

Abortion foes were quick to condemn the killing, the first since Dr. Barnett Slepian was killed by sniper James Kopp at his home in Amherst, N.Y., in 1998.

“It’s tragic,” said Rev. Pat Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, who attended Tiller’s trial in March. “The probability is that someone who opposed abortion did this. The reason we are pro-life is because we hate violence on any level. I don’t know of one legitimate pro-life leader who would not unequivocally condemn this.”

Troy Newman, the head of anti-abortion group Operation Rescue — who moved to Kansas from California to try to put Tiller out of business — said he was “shocked, horrified and numb.”

Chicago-area advocates on both sides of the debate also condemned the killing.

Toni Bond Leonard, Chicago-based board president of the National Network of Abortion Funds, said Tiller’s death was “sad and tragic.”

“Chicago clinics have always been very cautious to protect staff and the women who use them, and I don’t think that will change,” she said.

Eric Scheidler, a spokesman for the Pro-Life Action League who has participated in the long-running and sometimes heated protests at Planned Parenthood’s clinic in west suburban Aurora, called the shooting “reprehensible.”

Aurora Police spokesman Dan Ferrelli said officers are “aware of” the shooting, and the department continues to work with Planned Parenthood to keep the clinic safe.

– – –

Timeline of violence

A look at some cases of abortion-related violence:

Oct. 23, 1998: Dr. Barnett Slepian is fatally shot in his home in a suburb of Buffalo, N.Y. Militant abortion opponent James Kopp is convicted of the murder in 2003.

Jan. 29, 1998: A bomb explodes just outside a Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic (right), killing a police officer and wounding several others. Eric Rudolph later pleads guilty to that incident and to the deadly bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

Dec. 30, 1994: John Salvi opens fire with a rifle in two Boston-area abortion clinics, killing two receptionists and wounding five others. Salvi kills himself in prison in 1996.

July 29, 1994: Dr. John Bayard Britton and his escort, James Barrett, are slain outside a Pensacola, Fla., abortion clinic. Paul J. Hill, a former minister and anti-abortion activist, is convicted of murder.

March 10, 1993: Dr. David Gunn is shot to death outside a Pensacola, Fla., clinic, becoming the first U.S. doctor killed during an anti-abortion demonstration. Michael Griffin is convicted in the case.

— Associated Press

———-

Case tossed

Kansas was stopped from prosecuting Tiller in 2006: chicagotribune.com/tiller

But Boulder County District Atty. Mary Lacy on Tuesday defended her decision to arrest John Mark Karr on suspicion of killing 6-year-old JonBenet Ramsey–a move based solely on his repeated confessions to a journalism professor he had contacted by e-mail and phone.

Those confessions were lurid, but not always accurate or telling. For instance, Karr claimed to have suspended JonBenet by her wrists as he slowly choked her for his sexual pleasure, but the autopsy noted no marks on the girl’s wrists.

Still, Lacy said, she deemed him credible, in part because he was truthful when discussing other aspects of his life and in part because she mistakenly believed he had disclosed information only the killer would know. Those details turned out to be in the publicly available autopsy report.

The case against Karr collapsed Saturday when tests showed he was not the source of unidentified DNA found mixed with a drop of JonBenet’s blood at the crime scene. Lacy held that information quiet for two days while she contacted JonBenet’s father, John Ramsey, and the University of Colorado professor who had corresponded with Karr. On Monday, she dropped the case against Karr.

At a brief hearing here Tuesday, Karr, 41, sat silently in a blue jumpsuit as a judge ruled that he would be extradited to California within two weeks to face misdemeanor child pornography charges dating to 2001.

Since Karr’s arrest in Thailand two weeks ago–which Lacy followed with a news conference in Boulder–critics have suggested she could have found quieter ways to investigate the suspect in the 1996 slaying.

Lacy estimated the total public cost of the investigation, including Karr’s plane ticket back to the U.S., at $13,000.

Colorado Gov. Bill Owens on Monday had called the tab “extravagant” and an incredible waste; he said Lacy should be held accountable.

Addressing the criticisms, Lacy said she thought Owens would have a different view if he understood why her office had to act.

As for why she moved so quickly to arrest Karr, Lacy suggested her hand was forced. Once she shared Karr’s e-mails with Thai authorities, the government designated him “an undesirable person” and would have expelled him within days, she said. What’s more, Karr had begun to lavish attention on a 5-year-old girl.

In the first public accounting of the dead, the state’s chief medical examiner acknowledged that some victims may never be identified, and for many others the date and cause of death may never be known.

“These are horrible times,” Dr. Louis Cataldie, the medical examiner in charge of the effort, told reporters. “It’s extremely frustrating.”

Forensic experts said the effort has been compromised by the sheer scale of flooding over hundreds of square miles, the destruction of medical and dental records, the loss of physical evidence, and the rapid deterioration of corpses in toxic water and subtropical heat and humidity. Many victims lived in low-income areas where medical and dental care was often poor or haphazard.

Even those medical and dental records that weren’t destroyed by floodwaters have to be examined by epidemiologists to ensure that they aren’t contaminated, Cataldie said.

“It’s a much more difficult and time-consuming process than it would be under normal conditions,” said Terry Edwards, a Texas funeral director serving as operations chief of the temporary morgue in St. Gabriel, La., where 783 bodies have been examined and stored in freezer trailers.

In addition to 896 Katrina deaths reported in Louisiana, 220 people died in Mississippi and 19 in four other Southern states.

Dr. Frank Minyard, the coroner of Orleans Parish, said gunshot wounds have been found in seven bodies. He said a woman appeared to have been strangled with an extension cord. But distinguishing homicides and suicides will be difficult.

Ten corpses were recovered from the Louisiana Superdome and four from the city’s convention center, all of them adults, Cataldie said. But contrary to published reports, he said, none of the cases involved homicides.

“There have been some children recovered, but thank God there haven’t been that many.”

Of the 340 corpses Louisiana officials have tentatively identified, most came from hospitals and nursing homes. Almost all of the 32 victims identified by state officials Wednesday were found in nursing homes or hospitals, Cataldie said.

Then, after Gonzalez, her husband and more than 100 other employees and their families spent days trapped by floodwaters, Universal Health Services, the Pennsylvania-based corporation that owns Chalmette Medical Center, told its employees that they could count on only two more weeks of pay.

“They left me to die,” Gonzalez said. “And now nobody’s even called to say `Thank you.’ Nobody’s even called to say `I’m sorry.'”

In the days following Katrina, southeastern Louisiana’s hospitals became isolated deathtraps as power failed, waters rose and severely ill patients could no longer survive. Officials haven’t accounted for all the patients at the two-story Chalmette hospital, but medical staffers said at least four died, three of whom already were critically ill and had do-not-resuscitate orders.

But it is Universal Health Services’ behavior after the waters cleared that has infuriated residents of this devastated suburban region of 65,000 residents, where every neighborhood was inundated by floodwaters.

Officials at UHS say the anger is understandable in the aftermath of such a catastrophe, but they contend they did everything they could for their patients and employees. They say they tried to evacuate their hospital–albeit at least a day after emergency officials say they urged it –but that it was too late to get all the patients out.

The company, which had $3.9 billion in revenue last year and bills itself as the nation’s third-largest hospital management corporation, said it is trying to place employees with some of its 84 other facilities and has started a foundation to aid those who lost their homes.

UHS says on its Web site that the 2,800 employees at its three New Orleans-area hospitals, including the 900 who worked at Chalmette, will be paid only through Saturday and receive insurance coverage through the end of October.

Marc Miller, a vice president at UHS, said the cutoff of pay on Saturday could be subject to change. “This is a highly unusual situation,” Miller said. “No final determination has been made on salary and benefits.”

Jon Sewell, the hospital’s chief executive, said that as he and his employees were trapped in the hospital the most common question people asked was: Will I have a job?

Three weeks later, he has no answer for his workers.

Dr. Lee Domangue, the director of emergency medicine, said that late on Friday, Aug. 26, he heard the news about the storm turning toward New Orleans and made a frantic call to hospital administration.

“I said `Close the hospital,'” he recalled. “`You have a category five storm going right over you. You have a medical obligation to evacuate.'”

Domangue said the answer was no. Sewell said he doesn’t recall the conversation, but St. Bernard Parish emergency officials said they also pleaded with the hospital to evacuate fast.

“It was nothing less than depraved indifference,” said Dr. Paul Verrette, medical director of the parish office of emergency preparedness.

After meeting Saturday with parish officials, Sewell said he was convinced that the hospital needed to evacuate. As in prior storms, intensive-care patients were taken out first. Sunday morning, less than 24 hours before Katrina hit, the hospital began evacuating other patients.

But with medical facilities in New Orleans also scrambling to relocate their patients, Chalmette could not find any beds in Louisiana or surrounding states. Late Sunday, the hospital moved the 50 or so remaining patients to the second floor.

With patients still present, those employees on hand were required to remain on duty, something Chalmette hospital officials say is standard emergency procedure in the industry. About 150 staffers and their families hunkered down.

For the next three days after the hurricane hit, up to 400 evacuees took shelter on the second floor of the hospital.

Charlene Gonzalez’s three children have been promised by their employers that they won’t lose their jobs, as has her husband, who works at the port of New Orleans.

“Everybody’s been taken care of,” she said, “but UHS has left me high and dry.”

“My name is Keith Matthew Maupin. I am a soldier from the 1st Division,” he said into the camera. “I am married with a 10-month-old child. I came to liberate Iraq but I did not come willingly because I wanted to stay with my child.”

The Pentagon worked late Friday to confirm that the captured soldier was Maupin, of Batavia, Ohio, one of two soldiers listed as missing after their convoy was attacked April 9 outside Baghdad during a spate of kidnappings.

The other missing soldier is Sgt. Elmer C. Krause, 40, of Greensboro, N.C. Both were assigned to the Army Reserve’s 724th Transportation Company, based in Bartonville, Ill.

Seven civilians, all employees of American contractor KBR, a subsidiary of Halliburton Co. formerly known as Kellogg, Brown & Root, also were reported missing after the convoy attack.

The man who identified himself as Maupin appeared scared and glanced down occasionally during the taping. The gunmen, their faces covered by kaffiyehs, stood behind the soldier. According to Al Jazeera, one gunman said they were keeping Maupin to be exchanged for prisoners captured by U.S. forces. He said Maupin was being treated well. There was no mention of Krause.

Earlier, three Czech journalists and a Syrian-Canadian aid worker were released by their captors, and two others, a Danish businessman and a man from the United Arab Emirates, were reported missing.

In Fallujah, U.S. officials met for the first time with leaders from the besieged city. The American negotiators’ names were not released for security reasons.

Separately, The Associated Press reported that the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency has complained that some Iraqi nuclear facilities are being looted, with radioactive materials being transported out of the country.

The International Atomic Energy Agency sent a letter to U.S. officials three weeks ago informing them of the findings, the AP reported. According to a letter sent to the UN Security Council by the agency’s director, Mohamed ElBaradei, satellite imagery shows “extensive removal of equipment and in some instances, removal of entire buildings” from these sites.