Kansas

Judge angered by media BTK coverage

Likening media coverage of the BTK serial killings to a “bunch of mad dogs after a piece of meat,” the judge overseeing the case said Wednesday he spoke to attorneys about his displeasure with the news coverage but stopped short of issuing a gag order.

However, District Judge Gregory Waller’s anger over news reports since the arrest of Dennis Rader has spawned two memos from Wichita and Park City officials warning all employees they could be jailed and fined if they discuss the case.

“I’d like to have this case tried in a court of law and not in the newspaper or television or on the radio,” Waller said.

Since Rader was charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder in connection with the BTK slayings, local and national media have reported about an alleged confession and DNA evidence.

New York

Co-inventor of laser wins religion prize

Charles Townes, co-inventor of the laser and a Nobel Prize-winner in physics, was named Wednesday as the recipient of a religion award billed as the world’s richest annual prize.

Townes, 89, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, won the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities. The award is worth 795,000 British pounds — more than $1.5 million — and Townes was honored for talks and writings about the importance of relating science and religion.

He first addressed that topic in 1964, the same year he shared the Nobel with two Russians for research on principles underlying the laser.

Townes said that his first talk about religion was later published in IBM’s Think magazine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni magazine.

He has compared his flash 1951 discovery of maser principles, while sitting on park bench in Washington, D.C., with the revelations depicted in the Bible.

Washington, D.C.

Pentagon still lacks plan for reimbursing troops

The Defense Department hasn’t developed a plan to reimburse soldiers for equipment they’ve bought to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan despite requirements in a law passed last year, a senator says.

In a letter sent Wednesday to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., asked details on the Pentagon’s progress setting up the reimbursement program and questioned why it was not in place yet.

“Very simply, this is either negligence on their part, because they were not happy with this when it passed, or it’s incompetence,” Dodd said.

Soldiers serving in Iraq and their families have reported buying everything from higher-quality protective gear to armor for their Humvees and even global positioning devices.

Washington, D.C.

Report: Leaders didn’t order prison abuse

A comprehensive U.S. military review of prisoner interrogation policies and techniques for the global war on terrorism concluded that no civilian or uniformed leaders directed or encouraged the prisoner abuse documented in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“We found no link between approved interrogation techniques and detainee abuse,” the review concluded.

The review led by Navy Vice Adm. Albert Church did cite, however, a number of “missed opportunities” in the development of interrogation policies, according to a 21-page executive summary of his findings due to be publicly released today. The Associated Press obtained a copy Wednesday.

Among the missed opportunities was a failure to provide commanders in Iraq and Afghanistan with specific and early guidance on interrogation techniques.

Colorado

Report: CU seeks to buy out professor’s contract

The University of Colorado’s governing board is trying to negotiate the resignation of a professor who compared victims of the 9-11 attacks to Nazis, a television station reported Wednesday.

The university’s Board of Regents has authorized its lawyers to talk with an attorney representing Ward Churchill, a tenured ethnic studies professor, KCNC-TV said. Churchill ignited a firestorm with an essay he wrote that likened some victims of the 9-11 terrorist attacks to Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann, who helped organize the Holocaust.

“We have authorized our attorney to talk to his attorney to see where we are in this situation,” Regent Patricia Hayes told the Denver television station. “I’m sure there is a price tag that he’s talking about, and I’m sure there’s one we’re talking about.”

University administrators are investigating Churchill’s works to determine whether to recommend his dismissal.