New York

Attorney general to run for governor

New York Atty. Gen. Eliot Spitzer, whose white-collar crime investigations have sent a shudder through Wall Street, announced Tuesday he would run for governor in 2006.

The 45-year-old Democrat has long been known to be interested in the job, and the announcement only confirmed what some in the embattled financial industry have been bitterly suggesting for years — that he has his eye on higher office.

“The state is in dire need of leadership that will address budget issues, tax issues. We are bleeding jobs. We need reform in the process of government,” Spitzer told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Republican Gov. George Pataki has not said whether he will seek a fourth, four-year term, though the state GOP chairman has said he expects the governor will run.

New Jersey

Dogs banned near immigration violators

Jails and detention centers around the country must stop using police dogs to control immigration detainees as of Saturday under a new policy issued by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a division of Homeland Security, issued a memo to its field offices last month ordering them to refrain from contracting with lockups that use dogs around detainees.

The lockups will still be able to use the dogs to sniff for drugs or other contraband, and to guard regular prisoners who are not being held on immigration charges, said bureau spokesman Russ Knocke.

“We believe there are other effective tools that can be used,” he said.

Knocke said the department had received complaints about dogs being used against detainees, “but I wouldn’t suggest it was cause and effect in terms of the new policy. This is something we had been working on for a number of years.”

Immigrant-rights workers praised the decision, but said it was long overdue.

“We are encouraged at this victory,” said Eric Lerner, a leader of the New Jersey Civil Rights Defense Committee. “It’s clearly the result of the work of immigrants rights groups over the last 18 months since we exposed the use of dogs against detainees.”