Florida

Search for missing girl scaled back

A scaled-back search of the area immediately surrounding the home of a missing 9-year-old girl Tuesday turned up no new clues in her disappearance, and was suspended at sunset.

Searchers were expected to resume the hunt for Jessica Marie Lunsford at dawn today in Homosassa.

The child has not been seen since her grandmother tucked her into bed last Wednesday night.

Five search-and-rescue teams from central Florida spent the day scouring the palmetto scrubs, pine thickets and open fields in the residential neighborhood where Jessie lived with her father, Mark Lunsford, and her grandparents.

In Tallahassee, Gov. Jeb Bush said Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy told him “there’s no leads, no information” that could help find Jessie.

Law enforcement officials have turned to 20 experts from the National Center on Missing and Exploited Children for help.

Washington, D.C.

Lawsuit: Rumsfeld responsible for torture

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is responsible for torture and abuse of prisoners held by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan and should compensate the victims, a lawsuit contended Tuesday.

The suit was filed on behalf of four Iraqis and four Afghans who allege they suffered severe and repeated beatings, cutting with knives, sexual humiliation and assault, mock executions, death threats, and restraint in excruciating positions.

They were held in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2003 and 2004, were never charged with crimes and have been released, according to officials at the groups that filed the suit, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First.

Rhode Island

Smoking ban for indoor workplaces takes effect

Bars, restaurants and businesses became smoke-free early Tuesday, making Rhode Island the seventh state in the nation to ban puffing in most indoor public places.

The smoking ban went into effect at midnight Monday even as some lawmakers and bar owners were mobilizing to revise it or challenge it in the courts. Rhode Island joins California, Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts and New York.

The law covers thousands of bars and restaurants, and all indoor workplaces. But it extends the deadline to Oct. 1, 2006, for bars that have 10 or fewer employees and groups formed as private social organizations, such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars or Knights of Columbus.

Gambling centers Lincoln Park and Newport Grand, which are major state-revenue makers, are exempt from the ban. Those facilities already have some smoke-free areas.

Florida

Former governor’s son drops out of 2006 race

The son and namesake of former Florida Gov. Lawton Chiles Jr. dropped out of the 2006 governor’s race Tuesday because does not meet the state’s residency requirement.

Lawton “Bud” Chiles III, 51, said he had not been aware the constitution requires a gubernatorial candidate to live in the state for the seven years before the election. He had announced his candidacy in January.

“I’m clearly a Floridian. Me and my family are Floridians and always have been and always will be. Yet there’s this pesky little constitution and it says what it says,” Chiles said after a speech to the Florida Alliance for Retired Americans.

Chiles, a Democrat, moved back to Florida two years ago after living in the Northeast for about a decade. He previously lived in Tallahassee, where he ran a communications company.

Gov. Jeb Bush can’t seek re-election in 2006 because of term limits.

Georgia

Death row inmate’s stay of execution retracted

A man was executed Tuesday for the slaying of a pizza shop manager during a 1991 robbery spree. It was the second execution in Georgia this year.

Stephen A. Mobley, 39, was pronounced dead at 8 p.m. after he was given an injection of chemicals at the state prison at Jackson.

A federal court issued a brief stay Tuesday evening, then withdrew it. Last-minute appeals failed.

In recent days, Mobley’s lawyers filed a flurry of motions in several courts seeking a stay of execution. A clemency petition filed before the state parole board was denied Friday.

Mobley was convicted in the Feb. 17, 1991, slaying of 24-year-old John Collins at a pizza store in Oakwood.

After emptying the cash register and shooting Collins in the head, Mobley committed six additional armed robberies over a three-week period, court records say.

No members of the victim’s family, which largely supported Mobley’s bid for clemency, attended the execution.