FBI raids home of man in terror inquiry
NEW YORK, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- FBI agents Wednesday raided the Denver-area apartment of a man at the center of an inquiry into an alleged al-Qaida plot to attack New York, authorities said.
The agents, armed with a search warrant, arrived late Wednesday afternoon at the Aurora, Colo., apartment of Najibullah Zazi, ABC News reported. FBI officials would not comment on what the search of the apartment or another search of the Denver home of Zazi's aunt, Rabia Zazi, had turned up, ABC said.
Zazi's trip to New York City last week led to raids of homes in the city's Queens borough. Authorities told members of Congress those raids helped to disrupt a plot to attack the city, ABC said.
The network quoted unidentified law enforcement officials as saying the New York raids turned up 14 new backpacks, fueling concern terrorists may have planned to use the backpacks to carry suicide bombs. Zazi also had allegedly brought to New York instructions on how to build a bomb using household chemicals, ABC said.
Zazi, 25, an Afghan emigre, has not been charged. He told ABC News' Denver affiliate Tuesday that he had no connections to al-Qaida and said the FBI "got it wrong."
"I have nothing to do with al-Qaida -- any link or anything with al-Qaida," Zazi said.
His attorney, Arthur Folsom, said he had planned to take Zazi to the FBI office in Denver "to remove this dark cloud hanging over him."
Hofstra student recants gang-rape claim
HEMPSTEAD, N.Y., Sept. 17 (UPI) -- A Hofstra University student admitted Wednesday she lied when she told police she had been tied up and gang-raped in a dormitory men's room, authorities said.
Four men, including one student, who had been held on rape charges have been released, Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice said in a statement, Newsday reported.
At a hearing Wednesday night, Judge Robert Bruno of 1st District Court in Hempstead, N.Y., signed an order dismissing charges against the four men. Soon after, they were released from the Nassau County Correctional Center in East Meadow, N.Y., and family members embraced them.
The men were identified as Jesus Ortiz, 19, Stalin Felipe, 19, Kevin Taveras, 20, and Rondell Bedward, 21, all of the New York metropolitan area, Rice said.
Each of the men had been held on $500,000 bail and faced five counts of first-degree rape. Their accuser, an 18-year-old freshman, had said a fifth man, who police had not found by Wednesday afternoon, also had raped her.
Under questioning by prosecutors, the woman made a "full recantation" and admitted the encounter early Sunday had been consensual, the district attorney's office said. A law enforcement source told Newsday the men had told police the sex had been consensual when they were arrested.
A criminal investigation into the woman's statements will determine whether she is charged with a crime, said Eric Phillips, a spokesman for the district attorney. Prosecutors said they did not release the woman's name because she has not been charged and they fear for her safety.
She had told Nassau County police that she had been lured from an on-campus club, forced into a men's bathroom at a university dormitory, bound and raped.
White House says healthcare bill advances debate
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- A fifth healthcare proposal before the U.S. Congress is an important step that moves the nation closer to healthcare reform, the White House said Wednesday.
Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., introduced his 10-year, $856 billion plan online Wednesday as a way for the Senate Finance Committee, which he leads, to begin considering it next week. Among other things, Baucus's plan does not include a public option, proposing instead non-profit healthcare cooperatives as an alternative to private insurance. It also provides consumer protections by barring insurance companies from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, canceling coverage because of changes in health condition, or setting limits on coverage, Baucus said.
"I think there will be a continued legislative process that will tweak and change legislation, as there always is," White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. "I don't think the president looks at today as the end. I think Republicans, certainly (those) on the committee, will offer amendments to change the bill."
Gibbs said the administration hopes lawmakers will hear what their constituents say about the high cost of healthcare and why reform is needed.
"The cost of health insurance over that 10-year period increased 131 percent," Gibbs said. "Those are numbers that -- whether you're a family or a small business or a big business or a government -- are simply unsustainable over the long course."
Gibbs wouldn't say whether Baucus's bill tracked closer to what President Obama wants because "there are going to be those (lawmakers) that want to have amendments to change certain things. It has some important provisions in it and ... I think it makes progress on the issue."
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Afghan election panel says Karzai won
KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- Final, unofficial results from Afghanistan's presidential election show President Hamid Karzai won enough votes to avoid a runoff, an election panel said.
Wednesday's announcement by the government-appointed Independent Election Commission came the same day the European Union election monitoring commission said as many as 1.1 million votes cast in the vote were "suspect," the Christian Science Monitor reported.
The election commission said, if the totals stand, Karzai won 54.6 percent of the votes cast last month. One official recount is underway. However, the commission said voter turnout for the Aug. 20 election was 38 percent, well below the 70 percent of Afghans who voted in the country's first presidential election in 2004.
The preliminary results show Karzai's main challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, received less than 28 percent.
Reaction from the Karzai campaign organization to the EU's finding hinted at a growing frustration with outside influences in Afghanistan, the Monitor said.
Calling the EU statement "irresponsible and in contradiction with Afghanistan's constitution," Karzai's supporters said allegations of electoral impropriety were the responsibility of the Election Complaints Commission, a U.N.-backed national body that already ordered a recount of about 10 percent of polling stations.
The Wall Street Journal reported officials from Karzai's and Abdullah's camps are meeting with leaders from other candidates' campaigns to find ways to work together in the next government. Officials said an increasingly forceful Taliban insurgency has compelled candidates to look for ways to work together once the election is settled.
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FBI to investigate possible hate crime
MORROW, Ga., Sept. 16 (UPI) -- Police turned over the investigation of the alleged beating of a black woman by a white man in Morrow, Ga., to the FBI as a possible hate crime, officials said.
Morrow police arrested Troy Dale West of Poulan, Ga., after he allegedly attacked Tasha Hill at a Cracker Barrel restaurant, WSB-TV, Atlanta, reported. Witnesses said the victim, an Army Reservist, was entering the restaurant with her 7-year-old daughter when West was leaving. They said Hill asked West to be careful after the exit door nearly struck her daughter.
"The man slung open the door pretty hard and fast and I had to push my daughter out of the way. I turned to the man and I just said, 'Excuse me sir, you need to watch yourself, you almost hit my daughter in the face.' And from there it just went downhill," Hill told police.
West then allegedly threw her to the ground and began punching her and screaming racial slurs, the report said.
He was charged with battery, disorderly conduct and cruelty to a child in the first degree. The daughter watched the entire incident. Capt. James Callaway of the Morrow Police Department said authorities used video surveillance tapes and interviews with witnesses to bring charges against West, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution said.
Police called in the FBI under the federal hate crime laws.
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Bill would allow guns in Amtrak baggage
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 (UPI) -- A measure to put Amtrak passengers on the same footing as airline passengers, allowing guns in checked-through baggage, was passed by the U.S. Senate Wednesday.
The legislation, part of the transportation and housing appropriations bill, was approved 68-30. It would deny federal subsidies to Amtrak if it doesn't change its rules. The House version does not include the provision.
Domestic airlines allow licensed gun owners to transport their weapons in their checked-through baggage. One senator said the gun measure "is going to put a severe burden" on Amtrak, CNN reported.
But the measure's sponsor, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., noted other railroads in the country manage to shoulder that burden.
"Only the federally subsidized Amtrak prohibits law-abiding American citizens from exercising their Second Amendment rights in checked baggage," Wicker said.
Amtrak spokesman Steve Kulm said the railroad was mulling its response.
