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Number of Reported Sexual Assaults in Military Climbed 8%

2009-03-17T23:01:00.000-04:00

(FOXnews) The number of reported sexual assaults throughout the military jumped 8 percent from last year, according to the Pentagon's Sexual Assault and Prevention and Response Office.
Dr. Kay Whitley, director of the office, said Tuesday this is viewed as a positive indicator, suggesting that more people are reporting the incidents rather than keeping quiet. In 2005, the military introduced the option of restrictive reporting, which allows victims to report an assault without revealing the identity of their attacker.
Victims are offered a full range of treatment, including a rape kit if necessary, and have the option of revealing the name of their attacker up to one year later if they choose. The Pentagon believes this program is working, and accounts for the increase in reporting.
"Sometimes a victim needs time to restore order to his or her life before getting involved in the justice system, and restricted reporting allows this to happen," Whitley said at a news conference Tuesday.
Because the Pentagon, however, is not able to tally the total number of assaults in the military, it is unknown whether the uptick in reporting is due entirely to the new restrictive reporting policy or there were simply more attacks this year.
But the Pentagon believes, based on anonymous surveys conducted over the past three years, that sexual assaults occur at a relatively equal rate over time.
In the fiscal year 2008, 2,923 people, whether they were service members or civilians subjected to service members, reported a sexual assault. That's up from 2,688 in the previous year.
Last year, 110 converted from restricted to unrestricted, choosing to later reveal the identity of their attacker. The total number of restricted reports last year was 753 before the conversions.
The Pentagon said one of the major barriers for reporting crimes among victims is fear of retaliation.
The military does not clearly track convictions. But in 2008, 317 service members received courts-martial, including some crimes originally reported in 2007.
In 2008, 588 service members reported that they were raped. Of that number, 95 said they were subjected to nonconsensual sodomy.
Whitley wants service members to know that sexual assaults are the most under reported crimes in the United States, and the military should not be a place where people are afraid to come forward.
"Our goal is to strengthen the knowledge and the skills of service members and empower them to identify and safely intervene in situations that may be leading up to sexual assault," she said.
"It is my hope today that the soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who may see or read the reports from this press conference will be encouraged to come forward to report the sexual assault and to receive care," she said.

Report: Chopper crashes in frigid Atlantic

2009-03-12T11:36:00.001-04:00

(CNN) -- A helicopter carrying 18 people who work in the oil industry crashed in the Atlantic Ocean off Newfoundland, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, a CNN affiliate.
Weather conditions in the region were extremely cold and windy, according to CNN meteorologists. Air temperature was 33 degrees Fahrenheit, water temperature 34 degrees and wind chill 19. Winds were at 35 mph and waves were 6 to 10 feet high.
Lt. David Bowen, a Halifax-based official with military search and rescue, said two people and a life raft were spotted in the water, about 87 kilometers (54 miles) southeast of Newfoundland, CBC news reported.
"We don't have any further information on the raft itself," said Bowen, who said a mayday call was issued at 7:48 a.m. ET on Thursday.
The crew had been working southeast of St. John's at the White Rose offshore oil field, the report said.
"A helicopter arrived at the Health Sciences Center in St. John's at noon, carrying at least one survivor of the crash. Eastern Health told CBC News that it has cleared its emergency rooms to prepare for what it described as patients who are critically ill and hypothermic," CBC reported.
A Hercules plane sent from Nova Scotia, four Cormorant helicopters, a Canadian Coast Guard ship and personnel from offshore oil companies responded, the report said. A supply ship was also en route to the scene, it said.
Cougar Helicopters operates helicopters flying to and from the three oil fields in the waters off Newfoundland. It told CNN it is preparing a statement.

German gunman 'warned of attack'

2009-03-12T11:19:00.000-04:00

(BBC) They say Tim Kretschmer, aged 17, gave the warning in a chatroom before the killings in Winnenden on Wednesday.
Kretschmer killed 12 people in the school and three others in the nearby town of Wendlingen. He then shot himself after a shoot-out with police.
Police say chatroom users did not take the comments seriously at the time. At a news conference, Baden-Wurttemberg's Interior Minister Heribert Rech said the gunman had spoken of his attack in a chatroom on a German internet portal.He said the message read: "I've had enough. I'm fed up with this horrid life... Always the same".
"People are laughing at me... No-one sees my potential... I am scared, I have weapons here, and I will go to my former school tomorrow and then I will really do a grilling."
The message then continued: "Possibly I get away, so keep your ears open, you will hear from me tomorrow. Just remember the name of the place, Winnenden."
Mr Rech said a German man alerted police about the internet warning after the school shooting.
The man said his teenage son told him about the warning only after seeing the news reports. He had not previously taken the threat seriously.
Psychiatric care Officials say Kretschmer fired more than 100 shots during Wednesday's attack on his former school.
Nine students - eight of them girls - and three teachers died at the Albertville secondary school, many of them shot at close range.
Mr Rech said students appeared to have had little time to react.
"When their bodies were later found, some of them still had pens in their hands," he said.
Germany's Bild newspaper reported students as saying he had gone into one classroom three times, asking students: "Aren't you all dead?"
Hans-Dieter Wagner, police director for the Esslingen area, told the news conference Kretschmer had fled the school on foot.
In the following three hours, he injured a passerby and shot dead an employee at a psychiatric clinic. He then shot and killed an employee and a customer at a car showroom in a nearby town.
Officials say he still had more than 130 rounds of ammunition left when he was cornered by police and shot himself. The officials also revealed that Kretschmer received psychiatric care for depression in 2008. They said he was meant to continue an out-patient treatment but refused.
However, investigators said they could not speak of a connection between that treatment and Kretschmer's rampage.
Prosecutors say they may charge Kretschmer's father with failing to secure the gun used by the teenager in the attack.
German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said he could not see how a change in the country's weapons laws would have prevented what happened.
"We are checking everything but our arms law is very strict," he said.
But he said Germany had to consider whether tighter controls on access to violent imagery were needed.
Flags are flying at half-mast across Germany on Thursday as a mark of respect for the victims of the shootings.

Chris Brown Reportedly Pursuing Plea Deal

2009-03-09T11:53:00.002-04:00

(MTV.com) Facing the possibility of more than four years in federal prison if convicted on the felony charges of assault and making criminal threats against girlfriend Rihanna, Chris Brown is reportedly ready to cop a plea in the case.
According to TMZ, Brown, 19, would make a deal from prosecutors, but only if the two felony charges are bumped down to misdemeanors and he does not have to serve any jail time. The site reported that Brown's lawyers have consulted with a number of other unnamed legal experts who have said that Rihanna's own alleged "aggressiveness" takes the case out of the felony category. Other unnamed sources told TMZ that Rihanna, 21, was the first one to strike, allegedly slapping and striking Brown "numerous times" while he was driving, after she saw what has been reported as a three-page text message from a woman with whom Brown had previously had a sexual relationship. Attorneys for Brown and Rihanna could not be reached for comment at press time. On Friday, Rihanna's lawyer told MTV News that the singer would testify in the case if subpoenaed.
On Thursday, Brown was charged in the case — which stems from an incident that occurred on February 8. Court documents, including a police report, emerged earlier on Thursday, revealing graphic deals about the alleged assault. According to the report, Rihanna suffered bruises and contusions on her face, arms and legs, as well as bite marks on several fingers and an ear.
She may have been fighting back, but the most graphic photos of Rihanna's injuries that have not yet been made public "demonstrate Brown's superior strength," according to the TMZ, weakening his case for making it a misdemeanor. Also, because Brown reportedly had no significant injuries, it could be hard for his side to argue that Rihanna was also striking him. The site also quoted unnamed sources as saying that Rihanna also told police that Brown had beaten her before and that the violence had been escalating.
The site alleges that, according to notes filed by the detective in the case in the search warrant papers, Brown sent a text message to Rihanna's assistant, apologizing for what he had done to Rihanna and said he was getting help. That evidence would be admissible in court, TMZ reported, and could be "extremely damaging" to Brown's case, as it could amount to a legal admission of guilt. Brown appeared in court on Thursday, but did not enter a plea in the case, which was continued until April 6.

Uganda plane crash leaves 11 dead

2009-03-09T11:52:00.001-04:00

ENTEBBE, Uganda (AFP) — A Soviet-era jet caught fire and crashed into Lake Victoria Monday after taking off from Uganda's main airport, killing 11 people, including three top Burundi army officers, officials said.
The burning Ilyushin 76 plunged into the nearby lake as it left for the Somali capital Mogadishu at dawn.
Uganda's Information Minister Minister Kabakumba Masiko said three Burundians, two Ugandans, one Indian and a South African as well as a crew of four were on board. Russsian media reported that two Russian and two Ukrainian crew members were among those killed.
Although Masiko said no bodies had yet been recovered, the country's Civil Aviation Authority spokesman Ignia Igundura said: "All people on board are feared dead."
A rescue operation was launched with speedboats moving around the wreckage and civil aviation, military and Red Cross teams at the scene.
Teams of police and army divers took turns in the search but were yet to retrieve any bodies, an AFP correspondent at the scene reported.
Sheets of metal, a pair of aircraft wheels and other debris were washed ashore, but the body of the plane remained submerged.
"We will get a clear picture of the extent of the operation at the end of the day," said Vian Luddya, the deputy spokesman of the Ugandan Civil Aviation Authority.
Two boats were struck by the careering plane, injuring four fishermen, the minister said.
"There were two boats in the water as the plane went down. Both boats are destroyed. Four fishermen in those boats somehow survived and they are being treated by the government," Masiko explained.
The aircraft was operated by a firm known as Aerolift, according to Uganda's Civil Aviation Authority.
Burundi army spokesman Adolphe Manirakiza said the three Burundian officers on the plane included a brigadier general and a colonel.
"They were on board (the) plane and according to information we are receiving fire broke out on board and then the plane crashed," Manirakiza explained.
The three officers were part of the AU peacekeeping force in Somalia, known as AMISOM, and were travelling with Ugandan troops, Manirakiza said. Uganda's military spokesman confirmed the details.
The deputy commander of Burundi's contingent in Somalia Nicolas Bwakira said they received the news of the crash with "sadness and shock."
"Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that there are survivors," he added.
Monday's plane crash was the latest setback to the mission. On February 22, 11 Burundian troops were killed and 15 wounded in a suspected suicide attack on their base in southern Mogadishu.
The AU deployed forces in the Somali capital in March 2007 to help pacify the war-wracked country, but have come under repeated attacks by hardline Islamist insurgent groups.
The effectiveness of the AU mission has been hampered by under-funding and lack of equipment as Somalia's civil war, dating back to 1991, drags on.
Somalia has had no central government since the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre sparked a delay clan rivalry and fighting which has defied numerous attempts to restore stability.

President Obama to reverse federal stem cell research ban; debate rages along abortion fault lines

2009-03-09T11:49:00.000-04:00

President Barack Obama will reverse the U.S. government's ban on funding stem-cell research today and pledge to "use sound, scientific practice and evidence, instead of dogma" to guide federal policy, an adviser said.
Harold Varmus, co-chair of a science advisory group to the President, said Obama will ask the White House Office of Science and Technology to create guidelines to incorporate 'scientific integrity' into decision-making by U.S. agencies. The action on stem cells, which can grow into any kind of tissue, may help speed research into cures for major illness. Academic laboratories, led by Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and companies already using stem-cell technology, led by Geron Corp., of Menlo Park, California, could gain tens of millions of dollars in funding because of the decision. A "significant amount" of $10 billion given the National Institutes of Health in Obama's stimulus plan will go to this area of research, Varmus said.
"We view what happened with stem-cell research in the last administration as one manifestation of the failure to think carefully about how government use of scientific advice occurs," said Varmus, a Nobel prize winner who is president of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, in a conference call with reporters yesterday. "Public policy must be guided by sound, scientific advice."
The order involving embryonic stem cells will reverse a decision by former President George W. Bush to ban federal support for all but 21 cell colonies created before 2001.
Stem cells derived from days-old human embryos have the potential to form any of the body's 200 or so cell types, such as nerve cells or brain cells, and to repair or replace damaged tissue or organs. Adult stem cells, found in living tissue, have a more limited potential to become other cell types.
Bush said it was morally wrong to destroy embryos to develop stem cells. Researchers say that policy held back scientific advances and the development of cures.
"The Obama announcement will energize the stem-cell research community," said George Daley, a member of the Harvard Stem-Cell Institute and researcher at Children's Hospital in Boston. "The infusion of NIH funding from the stimulus package and the President's endorsement will allow us to jump-start our projects. I am already getting e-mails from patients and colleagues applauding the decision."
The elevation of science will extend beyond stem-cell research and into policies on health, energy and environmental programs, including global warming, said Melody C. Barnes, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, who joined Varmus on the call with reporters.The National Institutes of Health, the government's chief health-research agency, will have 120 days to develop new rules on stem cells, the White House said. Officials of the NIH have said they can prepare the guidelines more quickly than that.
The NIH has already begun requesting proposals for research projects using some of the $10 billion it was awarded from the economic stimulus.
"It's fully anticipated that much of the stimulus money, a significant amount of it, will go to support work in this broad area," said Varmus, who was director of the NIH from 1993 to 1999. Varmus was co-recipient of a Nobel in 1989 with J. Michael Bishop for their work on cancer genes.
Shares of stem-cell companies, which rallied in extended trading on March 6, after news of Obama's decision became public, may gain further in today's trading.
Geron gained $1.51, or 39 percent, to $5.38. Cytori Therapeutics Inc. of San Diego gained 14 cents, or 6 percent, to $2.31. StemCells Inc. of Palo Alto, California, rose 92 cents, or 66 percent, to $2.30 in extended trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Opponents of the research consider embryos to be human life and research that destroys them to be immoral. They say stem cells from adult tissue and umbilical-cord blood are available without harming embryos and already in clinical use, while treatments from embryonic cells are years off.
Bush used the first televised address of his presidency, on August 9, 2001, to announce his policy banning the use of federal funds to support research on cell colonies, or lines, created after that date. Hundreds of newer lines can be used only by researchers funded from private sources.
Congress voted twice to overturn the Bush restrictions and Bush vetoed the measures both times.
A three-year-old advance allowed researchers to turn ordinary skin cells into powerful stem cells similar to those made from embryos. These cells, known as induced pluripotent stem cells, or IPS cells, were first created by Shinya Yamanaka, a researcher at Kyoto University in Japan.
Yamanaka left Japan on March 7 to fly to Washington to attend the signing ceremony today. Reached by telephone during a stopover in San Francisco, he said he supported President Obama's decision.
"I thought I should accept this invitation because many people seem to think that because of IPS cells, embryonic stem cells are no longer required," he said. "That is not the case."
For Lauren Stanford, a 17-year-old high school student who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at the age of 6, Obama's order was the culmination of years of personal lobbying that has included testifying before the U.S. Senate and speaking at last summer's Democratic National Convention. "It's like he's signing hope for people with diabetes and other diseases into law," Stanford said in a telephone interview. "I think hope can be a medicine too, it goes a long way in helping a kid whose life is very difficult to just feel a little better."
Like most people with the Type 1 form of diabetes, Stanford must continuously monitor her blood-sugar level and inject herself with insulin several times a day to control her sugar levels. Type I diabetics don't produce insulin, a naturally occurring hormone, and researchers have reported progress in their efforts to turn stem cells into insulin-producing cells that could be transplanted into the body.
Jonathan Slaek, director of the Stem Cell Institute at the University of Minnesota, said Obama's action will enable researchers to use a wider range of cell lines, and also "improves the image of the USA."
Researchers in Minnesota are studying insulin-secreting cells for treatment of diabetes, among other projects.
"The international perception is that there's no stem-cell research allowed in America," said Slaek, who is British. "In terms of scientific reputation and business climate, I think that message will probably be the most important."
Still, bringing products to the market "is quite a ways away," perhaps 10 years to 20 years, he said.
"We recognize there are a range of" religious beliefs concerning stem cell research and "a constant back-and-forth here," said the White House's Barnes. There is also a "a broad swath of the American public that does support the steps we're going to take."
The issue has become a key issue for some pro-life supporters.
"Taxpayer dollars should not aid destruction of innocent human life," said House Republican leader John Boehner.
In Rome, the Vatican's newspaper deplored Obama's reversal, repeating Catholic doctrine that such research in the eyes of the church is "deeply immoral," the Associated Press reported.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, called Obama's planned reversal "a slap in the face" to Americans opposed to the destruction of human embryos.
"I believe it is unethical to use human life, even young embryonic life, to advance science," Perkins said in a statement March 6. "While such research is unfortunately legal, taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for experiments that require the destruction of human life."

Ex-wife: Rabbi Israel Weingarten half-nude with our daughter

2009-03-06T10:24:00.001-05:00

The ex-wife of a rabbi accused of molesting his daughter testified Thursday that she found them together in bed, and the teen revealed that she had been sexually abused. Before she began answering the prosecutor's questions, Faige Weingarten waived her spousal privilege and told the judge she wanted to testify against her ex-husband, Israel Weingarten, who prosecutors say began abusing the girl in 1990 when she was 9.
The case is being heard in Brooklyn because Weingarten is accused of passing through JFK Airport on the family's frequent travels to Belgium.
Faige Weingarten recalled a Friday night about nine years ago when they were living in Belgium. She had slept in another room after arguing with her husband. She heard their infant crying and went to the bedroom, where she found Weingarten and their then-16-year-old daughter in bed.
"He said, 'Look, we are dressed,' but with the covers half down, I saw the middle of his body was naked," she said in Brooklyn Federal Court through a Yiddish translator.
A few days later, the daughter confided to her she had been sodomized, according to Faige Weingarten.
"She became disgusted for the rest of her life - he made her life disgusting," she said.
The rabbi, who is representing himself in the case, complained to Judge John Gleeson that the translator misunderstood Faige's answer about his father's ailing health at the time of the alleged sexual abuse.
Gleeson was incredulous. "And you think that was the important part?" he shot back.
Earlier, the rabbi reduced his son to tears during a bizarre cross-examination about a suicide letter the boy had written.
"Is it possible it could get any worse than this?" said the defendant's legal adviser, Barry Rhodes.
jmarzulli@nydailynews.com