U.S. Judge Orders Prisoner Freed After 43 Years in Solitary

WASHINGTON – U.S. Judge James Brady has ordered the release of Albert Woodfox, a member of the Black Panthers who has been held in solitary confinement for the past 43 years, accused of killing a prison guard.

Woodfox, 68, who always said he was innocent, could be freed immediately, since the judge decided that, given his age, his poor state of health and doubts that the state would provide “a fair third trial,” the best option was to set him free, according to local media.

The inmate had been tried and found guilty on two previous occasions, along with another two prisoners, for the death in 1972 of corrections officer Brent Miller at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly known as Angola.

The three prisoners, all blacks and members of the Black Panthers, were known as the “Angola Three,” and only Woodfox is still in jail, since the other two, Robert King and Herman Wallace, were released in 2001 and 2013, respectively.

When Miller was killed, Woodfox was in jail accused of armed robbery, and during those years he always said he was falsely accused in retaliation for his activism with the Black Panthers “aimed at improving conditions inside Louisiana’s notorious prisons.” 

16 Die in Shootout in Mexican Pacific Resort City

MEXICO CITY – At least 16 people died in a shootout between vigilantes and suspected criminals in Xolapa, a town outside the Mexican Pacific resort city of Acapulco, state officials said.

The victims of Saturday’s shootout were members of the United Front for Security and Development in Guerrero State, or FUSDEG, the Guerrero Attorney General’s Office said.

FUSDEG members engaged the gunmen in a shootout, the daily La Jornada reported, citing state officials.

An Efe reporter confirmed that nine people had died in a shootout involving the self-styled community police force just minutes before the information about the shootout came out.

The shootout occurred around 5:45 p.m. on Saturday and an investigation was opened to “determine the number of dead and wounded,” the AG’s office said.

The shootout involved vigilantes under the command of Salvador Alanis Trujillo and former FUSDEG members led by Ignacio Policarpio, the AG’s office said.

The two groups “apparently have an ongoing dispute over territory in the Acapulco-Chilpancingo corridor,” the AG’s office said.

Iran news in brief, 9 June 2015 - Evening Edition

Amitis - King ft. Snoop Dogg ( Iranian video )

White House: U.S. Still Investigating Origin of Cyberattack

WASHINGTON – The U.S. government continues to investigate the extent and origin of a cyberattack that compromised the personal information of 4 million current and former federal employees, the White House said Friday.

“No conclusions about the attribution of this particular attack have been reached at this point,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at his daily briefing when asked about stories in the Washington Post citing unnamed officials as placing the blame on Chinese hackers.

Officials are trying to determine whether the attack on the government’s Office of Personnel Management was carried out on behalf of a state, the spokesman said.

He referred, however, to previous comments from President Barack Obama expressing concerns about China’s activities in cyberspace and said that the administration would continue to raise the issue with Beijing.

Earnest said authorities may ultimately decide not to disclose what they learn about the origin of the hack.

“Even if a conclusion is reached about who is responsible, I can’t guarantee necessarily that our law enforcement professionals will assess that making that information public is in the best interest of their investigation,” he said.

China on Friday pointed to a lack of “scientific evidence” linking Chinese individuals or entities to the attack, which began in December but was only detected last month.

While unwilling to assign responsibility for the hack, Earnest took the opportunity to attack Republicans in Congress for failing to act on three cybersecurity measures the White House proposed in January.

“We need not just improved efforts on the part of the federal government, but improved coordination with the private sector on these matters, and that effort to coordinate requires congressional action,” the spokesman said.

“The fact is, we need the United States Congress to come out of the Dark Ages and come into the 21st century to make sure we have the kinds of defenses that are necessary to protect a modern computer system,” Earnest said.

Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy responded to the White House on Twitter: “The House has been leading on this issue for years. Unfortunately, many of these bills died in the Democrat-controlled Senate in 2012.”

Kremlin Says No Russian Troops in Ukraine

MOSCOW – The Kremlin reiterated on Friday that Russia has no troops in eastern Ukraine, in response to the accusations of the Ukrainian President, Petro Poroshenko, who estimated that more than 9,000 Russian soldiers are deployed in the conflict zone.

“There (in Ukraine) may be citizens of all the countries: both Ukraine and Russia, and may be citizens of European countries,” said the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, according to Itar-Tass.

“But there are no Russian Armed Forces there, about what our colleagues in Ukraine and our colleagues in Europe and Washington have been speaking all the time,” Peskov added.

Earlier on Friday, Poroshenko announced the arrest of a Russian citizen two days ago near the village of Marinka during fighting between Kiev forces and pro-Russian separatists, the most serious since a ceasefire reached in Minsk last February.

Peskov accused Kiev of “sabotage” to stir fighting in Marinka, while Poroshenko claimed that between 500 and 1,000 pro-Russian militants tried to storm the town, located nearly 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) west of Donetsk.

U.S. Helicopter Fired at from Mexico Side of Border

WASHINGTON – A U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing Saturday in Texas after being fired at from the Mexican side of the border, police said.

The spokesman for the police force in Laredo, Texas, Joe Baeza, conveyed the findings of the preliminary investigation to reporters, although he did not say if the gunfire struck the chopper.

CBP sources, meanwhile, said the helicopter landed in Laredo and no one was injured, although they also did not indicate whether or not it was hit by the gunfire.

The chopper was flying over a known drug- and people-smuggling route where gunfire is often heard, though rarely is it directed at border agents or their vehicles, Baeza said.