Indianapolis

Daylight-saving bill signed by governor

Indiana residents will switch their clocks ahead with most other Americans next April after the governor signed legislation Friday moving all the state’s counties to daylight-saving time for the first time since the early 1970s.

Efforts to make the statewide switch had failed more than two dozen times before lawmakers narrowly approved daylight time last month.

The measure will leave Hawaii and most of Arizona as the only places in the United States to ignore daylight time.

With the daylight-saving question settled, though, the boundary between Eastern and Central time zones could spark a new battle in Indiana, some lawmakers and residents say.

All but 10 of Indiana’s 92 counties are in the Eastern time zone, but many residents, particularly in the western part of the state, would rather be in the Central time zone.

Tennessee

Baptist resolution may target lessons on gays

A Houston lawyer who called on Southern Baptists to remove their children from “godless” public schools last year is now asking churches to investigate whether schools are promoting acceptance of homosexuality.

Bruce Shortt’s resolution was voted down last year, but he is proposing another to be considered at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting next month in Nashville.

The resolution says schools promote acceptance of gays through officially sanctioned gay clubs, diversity training, anti-bullying courses, safe sex and safe schools programs.

It says that if churches find that public schools are teaching acceptance of homosexuality, parents should remove their children and homeschool them or enroll them in Christian schools.

Texas

Ex-prison guard takes blame for mistreatment

A soldier convicted in the Abu Ghraib scandal testified Friday that it was he and not Spc. Sabrina Harman who handed wires to a hooded Iraqi prisoner forced to stand on a box for an hour in 2003.

Pvt. Ivan Frederick II, called as a prosecution witness, said he never saw the 27-year-old Harman participate in that or several other instances of mistreatment she is accused of at the Baghdad-area prison. A former soldier, however, testified he saw Harman humiliate prisoners by helping to handcuff them together in an embrace.

The prosecution in Harman’s court-martial rested Friday after putting 10 witnesses on the stand; the defense is scheduled to open its case Monday.

Harman is the second soldier to go on trial in the scandal. Frederick, one of four Abu Ghraib guards to plead guilty, is serving an eight-year prison sentence.

Harman could get more than six years in prison if convicted.

Washington, D.C.

Democrats aim to slow vote on ambassador

Senate Democrats opposed to President Bush’s nomination of John R. Bolton to be U.N. ambassador are trying to delay a Senate vote with a legislative maneuver that ultimately could lead to a filibuster.

As a result, Senate consideration of the nomination is unlikely before the end of the month, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s spokesman said.

The White House, in pushing for confirmation, has taken the position Bolton was needed badly and promptly at the United Nations to work on reform of the institution.

But Sen. Barbara Boxer of California said Democrats were holding up the nomination to compel the State Department to provide more information about the embattled undersecretary.

Frist’s spokesman Bob Stevenson said it was “an ominous signal,” but that talks would be held with the Democrats to try to make arrangements for bringing the nomination to the floor.

North Carolina

Probe suggests dropping Marine’s murder charge

The Marine Corps should drop murder charges against a lieutenant who fatally shot two Iraqi detainees during a search for a terrorist hideout, an investigating officer recommended in an opinion made public Friday.

Second Lt. Ilario Pantano, a former Wall Street trader who rejoined the Marines after the Sept. 11 attacks, did make “serious errors in tactical judgment,” Lt. Col. Mark Winn wrote in an opinion dated Thursday.

But he said key witnesses and evidence failed to back up the accusation that Pantano shot the detainees last year while they were kneeling with their backs to him.

The report was posted on a Web site maintained by Pantano’s mother.

Military authorities may choose to accept Winn’s recommendation, give some form of administrative punishment or go ahead with a court-martial.

Virginia

Court: ‘In God We Trust’ OK by Constitution

The inscription “In God We Trust” on the facade of a government building in North Carolina does not violate the U.S. Constitution’s guidelines on the separation of church and state, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously upheld a lower judge’s dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the slogan written on the Davidson County Government Center in Lexington, N.C.

The inscription, in 18-inch block letters, was paid for with donations from individuals and churches in 2002. Lawyers Charles F. Lambeth Jr. and Michael D. Lea, who regularly practice in the center, filed a lawsuit a few months later, claiming the display violated the First Amendment and seeking its removal.

The appeals court noted that “In God We Trust” has appeared on the nation’s coins since 1865 and was made the national motto by Congress in 1956. The motto also is inscribed above the speaker’s chair in the U.S. House of Representatives and above the main door of the U.S. Senate chamber.

Washington, D.C.

Bush, Cheney release financial portfolios

A $14,000 shotgun, a $2,700 mountain bike and five fishing rods were among $26,346 in gifts President Bush accepted last year, according to his financial disclosure form released Friday which also listed millions of dollars the president has invested in U.S. Treasury notes and certificates of deposit.

Because federal ethics law allows them to list the values of their assets in wide ranges, rather than precise numbers, it is difficult to discern whether the two are wealthier than they were a year ago.

The disclosure, for instance, said Bush’s 1,583-acre ranch was worth between $1 million and $5 million. The president reported having at least $4.95 million in Treasury notes, $750,000 in certificates of deposits and $217,000 in checking and money market accounts.

Cheney’s disclosure showed he received 10 gifts. They included a $1,600 painting of a house on the Delaware River; a $400 hand-tooled fly tying set in a carved wooden box; a dozen bottles of wine valued at $699; and a $120 pen and a $350 silver apple from Mel Sembler, the U.S. ambassador to Italy.

Washington, D.C.

Report: CIA missile kills al-Qaida operative

A senior al-Qaida operative was killed by a missile fired from an unmanned CIA Predator aircraft near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border earlier this week, ABC News reported Friday.

Intelligence officials, who were not identified in the report, said al-Qaida operative Haitham al-Yemeni had been tracked for some time with the hope that he would lead them to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, ABC reported.

With the capture of the No. 3 leader of al-Qaida, Abu Faraj al-Libbi, in northwest Pakistan earlier this month, officials decided to strike at al-Yemeni rather than risk that he would go into hiding, ABC reported.

The CIA declined to comment on the report.

The Predator, armed with Hellfire missiles, is an unmanned aircraft that flies at medium altitude for surveillance and reconnaissance.

Los Angeles

Deputies apologize to residents for shooting

Ten sheriff’s deputies who fired 120 rounds at an unarmed driver at the end of a chase in a quiet neighborhood appeared with a lawyer who apologized to residents on their behalf, but said the officers had acted to capture a suspect who “deserved and needed to be stopped.”

The deputies stood silently before news cameras Friday while lawyer Gregory Emerson explained that each had voluntarily told investigators what happened during Monday’s videotaped shooting in Compton.

Emerson said the deputies didn’t try to “harm or injure or otherwise jeopardize the safety of the individuals” on the street where 44-year-old Winston Hayes was shot. Bullets penetrated several homes in the area.

The deputies fired 120 rounds in the early morning confrontation, striking Hayes four times and bruising one deputy who was hit in his bulletproof vest. Hayes is recovering at a hospital.

The barrage prompted outrage from some residents. Sheriff Lee Baca offered to double the typical payment for damages incurred.