Maryland

Iraq whistle-blower in protective custody

The Army reservist who tipped off investigators to abuse of Iraqi prisoners by his fellow soldiers is in protective military custody because of death threats, family members said Tuesday.

Spc. Joseph M. Darby, 24, received the threats after his role in the scandal was publicly revealed in May, his sister-in-law, Maxine Carroll, said.

Darby’s mother, Margaret T. Blank, of Corriganville, said soldiers moved his and his wife’s belongings out of their nearby apartment weeks ago. She said she gets a weekly call from the Army Reserve’s 99th Regional Readiness Command “telling me my son’s OK and my daughter-in-law’s OK, and that’s all I’ve heard from them.”

Seven members of Darby’s unit, the 372nd Military Police Company of Cresaptown, have been charged with abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad last fall.

Illinois

State to set up network to import prescriptions

Gov. Rod Blagojevich announced Tuesday that the state would set up an Internet network within the next month to help Illinois residents buy prescription drugs from Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom.

Other states, including Minnesota and Wisconsin, already have Web sites to help residents buy drugs from Canada, but Illinois is the first to tap into pharmacies in Europe.

Blagojevich has been a leading figure in the push to allow the purchase of prescriptions drugs from outside the United States.

Prescription drugs are often cheaper in Canada and other countries because of government price controls. For instance, a three-month supply of Lipitor, a cholesterol-lowering drug, that costs $214 in the United States can be bought for $144 in Ireland, $158 in the United Kingdom and $162 in Canada, the governor said.

Pennsylvania

Court OKs suspension of beer drinker’s license

A judge ruled the state could suspend the driver’s license of a man who lost his driving privileges after his doctor reported to police that he drank a six-pack of beer a day.

But the judge also said Keith Emerich may obtain restricted driving privileges as long as he uses a device that tests his blood-alcohol content before starting his car.

Emerich, 44, a printing company employee, was notified in April he would lose his license, about two months after he disclosed his drinking habit to doctors treating him for an irregular heartbeat.

A Pennsylvania law from the 1960s requires doctors to report any impairments in patients that could compromise their ability to drive safely.

Emerich has said he does not drive drunk and argued that he has reduced his beer drinking to weekends and has a clean driving record apart from a drunken-driving conviction when he was 21.

Virginia

Falwell to open conservative law school

The Rev. Jerry Falwell will open a law school this month in hopes of training a generation of attorneys who will fight for conservative causes.

“We want to infiltrate the culture with men and women of God who are skilled in the legal profession,” Falwell said in a telephone interview Tuesday with The Associated Press. “We’ll be as far to the right as Harvard is to the left.”

Graduates of the law school — part of Falwell’s Liberty University in Lynchburg, which is affiliated with his Baptist ministry — could tackle such issues as abortion rights and gay marriage, Falwell said. Classes begin Monday for the first-year class of 61 law students.

Classroom lectures and discussions will fuse the teachings of the Bible with the U.S. Constitution, stressing the connections between faith, law and morality, said law school Dean Bruce Green, who has experience in civil liberties litigation.