New York

Report shows prisoner abuse began in 2002

Unreleased U.S. Army reports detailing the deaths of two Afghan men who were beaten to death by American soldiers show that military prison abuses began in Afghanistan in 2002, and were part of a systematic pattern of mistreatment, a human rights representative said Saturday.

More than two dozen American soldiers face possible criminal prosecution — and one already is charged with manslaughter — in the deaths at the main U.S. detention facility in Bagram, just north of the Afghan capital of Kabul.

As documented by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, the men died a year before the photographed horrors at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, according to John Sifton, the Afghanistan researcher for the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

In a phone interview, Sifton said his group had obtained electronically scanned Army reports.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued to obtain the case files under the Freedom of Information Act, but the Army withheld portions of the records because of an ongoing investigation and possible charges.

Kentucky

Smokers to see 24-cent increase in cigarette tax

Kentucky smokers, long accustomed to a barely noticeable cigarette tax, just learned that tobacco isn’t as big here as it used to be.

The state’s 3-cent-per-pack cigarette tax — the lowest in the nation — is rising by 27 cents June 1, as part of a tax overhaul passed by the General Assembly this week in hopes of solving the state’s fiscal woes.

Other major tobacco-producing states including Virginia and North Carolina recently approved or are considering cigarette tax increases, but that hasn’t kept Kentucky smokers from feeling singled out.

Gov. Ernie Fletcher, a physician who originally proposed a 31-cent increase, called it a “historic” day for Kentucky, the nation’s leading producer of burley tobacco, to increase its cigarette tax.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last year that Kentucky has the nation’s highest adult smoking rate at nearly 31 percent, and another federal report said the state has the nation’s highest lung-cancer death rate among men.

Boston

State law under scrutiny for blocking marriages

A 1913 law the state is using to block same-sex marriages by nonresidents should apply only when the couples are from states that expressly forbid the practice, gay-rights advocates said in a brief filed Friday with Massachusetts’ highest court.

The law, which bars marriages in Massachusetts if a couple’s home state doesn’t sanction the union, has been in dispute since the nation’s only state-sanctioned same-sex weddings began taking place last May.

The Supreme Judicial Court, which ruled that the state constitution requires that same-sex couples be allowed to marry, agreed last month to hear the case over the 1913 law. It’s being challenged by eight couples — from Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine and New York — whose attempts to get married in Massachusetts were rejected.

Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, which filed the brief on behalf of the couples, argued that the state is using the law as a “weapon of purposeful discrimination.”

The state Attorney General’s Office, which is defending the law, has until early May to file its brief in the case.

Florida

Orlando mayor charged with violating ballot law

In a day of swift and stunning developments triggered by four grand jury indictments, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer was charged Friday with violating state absentee ballot law during last year’s mayor’s race and was quickly removed from office.

Dyer, his campaign manager Patti Sharp, accused ballot broker Ezzie Thomas and Circuit Judge Alan Apte braved a phalanx of reporters at the jail Friday morning as they entered a booking area to be fingerprinted and processed.

Florida Gov. Jeb Bush suspended the mayor Friday afternoon, issuing an executive order prohibiting Dyer “from performing any official act, duty or function of public office.”

Orlando’s city attorney concluded that a special election should be held in the next two months to replace Dyer with a temporary mayor while Dyer fights the charges.

Chicago

Weight-loss drug may get FDA advisory

The Food and Drug Administration is close to issuing a health advisory on Abbott Laboratories’ weight-loss drug Meridia, one of several prescriptions that have engulfed the agency in controversy over its safety monitoring of drugs on the market, a source close to the FDA said.

While the FDA stands by past statements that Meridia is safe and effective if used according to its label, the source said the FDA is expected to issue an advisory that could result in a stiffer warning, restricted use or something more minor such as updated prescription guidelines.

Meridia has been found to raise blood pressure and increase heart rate in some patients.

Such a move by the FDA would be similar to the agency’s action March 2 when it ordered the cholesterol-lowering drug Crestor to carry an additional warning about a potential rare muscle-damaging side effect.