Washington, D.C.

Dean campaigning to be chairman of DNC

Former presidential candidate Howard Dean, once the early front-runner for the Democratic nomination whose candidacy stumbled, has decided to seek the party’s chairmanship.

“The Democratic Party needs a vibrant, forward-thinking, long-term presence in every single state,” Dean wrote in a letter to members of the Democratic National Committee. “We must be willing to contest every race at every level. We can only win when we show up.”

Dean joins a field that includes former Indiana Rep. Tim Roemer, former Texas Rep. Martin Frost, Democratic activists Simon Rosenberg and Donnie Fowler, former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb and former Ohio Democratic Party chairman David Leland.

Texas

Elephant’s art for sale on eBay for tsunami aid

While working elephants are helping remove debris left from the post-Christmas tsunami disaster, Rasha, a Thai-born elephant residing at the Fort Worth Zoo, is doing her bit to help.

Rasha, who regularly takes a paintbrush in trunk, has donated her latest painting to be sold on eBay, the online auction house, and 100 percent of proceeds will go to help tsunami victims.

The 2-foot by 4-foot painting features swaths of blue, green and lavender. It went up for bids at noon Wednesday. By Monday evening, the high bid had reached $7,000. Bidding closes at 11:55 a.m. today.

Find the entry online by going to www.ebay.com and searching for Fort Worth Zoo.

Washington, D.C.

Civil rights pioneer dies of colon cancer

James Forman, a civil rights pioneer credited with organizing the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, has died of colon cancer, his son said Tuesday. He was 76.

The son, Chaka Esmond Fanon Forman, said his father had been fighting cancer since 1991.

James Forman was a native of Chicago who grew up in Mississippi. He participated in the “Freedom Rides” in which blacks rode across the South as a way to make sure buses were indeed integrated as ordered by the courts.

In the mid-1960s, he used his post as executive secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee to strengthen the resolve of civil rights protesters and seek slavery reparations for blacks.

Texas

Abu Ghraib inmate testifies against soldier

A Syrian inmate at Abu Ghraib said Army Spc. Charles Graner Jr. was the Baghdad prison’s primary torturer who laughed while physically abusing him and threatened to kill him.

Amin al-Sheikh, testifying via videotaped deposition shown in court Tuesday at Fort Hood, said Graner also made him eat pork and drink alcohol, in violation of his Muslim faith, and that Graner made a Yemeni prisoner eat from a toilet.

Graner is the first soldier accused in the Abu Ghraib scandal to go on trial, and prosecutors allege he was the ringleader of the abuse. Three guards from the 372nd Military Police Company have pleaded guilty to abusing detainees.

Philadelphia

Jury awards $1.2M to former inmates

A federal jury has awarded $1.2 million to two former inmates who developed abscess wounds from a drug-resistant skin infection that swept through a county jail in 2001 and 2002.

The jury ruled this week that Bucks County prison officials failed to get the men prompt medical treatment. Kevin Keller, 27, and Benjamin Martin, 23, said they begged for help for weeks as their infections spread.

Martin said he suffered nerve damage in both legs after the infection rooted in his hip. Keller said prison staff ignored his requests for a doctor as the infection traveled through his body.

County officials said they’re considering an appeal.

“We do not believe the evidence supports the verdict for either plaintiff, in any amount,” county solicitor Guy Matthews said.

The cases were just two of several filed by prisoners and guards who alleged county officials didn’t act quickly enough to contain an outbreak of methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

San Diego

SEAL defends comrade in abuse allegation

A Navy SEAL commando testifying Tuesday on behalf of a comrade accused of abusing prisoners in Iraq called the defendant “the most compassionate SEAL I’ve ever known.”

The testimony was part of an Article 32 hearing, the military equivalent of a civilian grand jury, for the lieutenant, who is accused of assault, maltreatment and conduct unbecoming an officer for his handling of detainees.

“Sir, I know what kind of man he is, and it breaks my heart that something might be taken out of context by people who weren’t there,” the witness, a SEAL who served in the lieutenant’s platoon in Iraq, testified at a military court hearing at Naval Base San Diego.

The SEAL, who testified under a grant of immunity, said he witnessed the lieutenant strike or poke a detainee with the muzzle of his rifle in November 2003. The muzzle strikes, he said, were not intended to harm the handcuffed and hooded detainee he described as dangerous and noncompliant, but rather to “instill fear” and maintain control.