Lawyer: Suspect is paralyzed
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
