Nation & world briefing
Feds file charges in sniper shootings
Eric Lichtblau and Jeffrey Gettleman
New York Times
WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors filed
a 20-count complaint in Greenbelt, Md., on
Tuesday against the adult suspect in the
Washington-area sniper shootings.
Some of the charges against John Allen
Muhammad, 41 — discharging a firearm as
part of an extortion scheme in the deaths of
seven people in Maryland — make him eligi
ble for the death penalty.
The complaint in U.S. District Court did
not name the other suspect, John Lee Malvo,
17. A juvenile can be charged with a federal
capital offense but cannot be executed.
Officials are barred from discussing any
charges against a juvenile and any charges
would likely be brought under seal.
After the announcement of Tuesday’s filing,
Attorney General John Ashcroft said: “There
are already people who are saying that they
don’t think the ultimate penalties ought to be
available, whether they are editorialists or
others who don’t believe in the death penalty.
“I believe that the ultimate sanction ought
to be available here.”
The action followed the filing of murder
charges by prosecutors in Virginia on Mon
day against the two suspects, which came as
law enforcement officials in suburban Mary
land, the area with the most victims, con
ceded that they would most likely lose con
trol of the case.
Muhammad, an Army veteran, and Malvo
now face charges in six jurisdictions in the
sniper attacks that claimed 10 lives in the
Washington area. Since the two were arrested
on Oct. 24, one question has been which ju
risdiction would try them first.
A Justice Department official said federal
prosecutors would be able to build the
strongest case by stringing together all the
shootings in one trial.
Federal prosecutors charged Muhammad
with violating the anti-extortion Hobbs Act,
alleging that he tried to extract a $10 mil
lion ransom in exchange for ending the
killings.
Bush signs broad election-reform measure
William E. Gibson
South Florida Sun-Sentinel (KRT)
WASHINGTON — President
Bush signed a sweeping election-re
form bill into law on Tuesday, near
ly two years after the calamitous
2000 election that brought him to
the White House.
The law, if fully funded by Con
gress, will bring more than 8170 mil
lion to Florida over the next few
years to help the state and counties
meet new national election stan
dards, congressional staffers told
Florida Secretary of State Jim
Smith’s office on Tuesday.
Florida also can compete for
additional grants, including a
portion of $100 million established
to help states provide access for
disabled voters.
“Counties will be reimbursed for a
lot of their outlays in buying (new
voting) equipment,” Smith said on
Tuesday between visits with county
supervisors of elections. “For the fu
ture, there’s no question a lot of that
money will be used for poll worker
training and voter education.”
In all, the law provides authority to
spend $3.86 billion over fiscal years
2003 to 2006, most of it for states to
replace outmoded voting machines,
train poll workers and help meet fed
eral standards. Congress must still ap
propriate this money year by year, a
high priority for election reformers
and state officials.
States are required to set up a
voter database, ensure access for
the disabled and help soldiers over
seas cast absentee ballots. States
and localities are also required to
allow voters to cast “provisional”
ballots if their voting registration is
in question.
The landmark legislation, called the
Help America Vote Act, was inspired
by mass confusion at the polls and five
weeks of legal wrangling in Florida two
years ago. A compromise leading to fi
nal passage in Congress was prompt
ed by Florida’s primary in September,
when some polls were closed for hours
and some poll workers had trouble op
erating new machines.
The signing came one week before
the midterm congressional elec
tions, but its provisions do not apply
until next year.
© 2002 South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
Scientists virtually touch each other via Internet
Chris O'Brien
Knight Ridder Newspapers (KRT)
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The world got
a little smaller Tuesday after scien
tists reached around the globe via
the Internet and touched.
Or rather, the scientists — in Lon
don, Boston, and Los Angeles —
picked up a virtual cube on a com
puter screen at the same time and
pushed it around. The scientists,
holding robotic arms, could feel the
force being exerted by the others as
well as the texture of the cube.
Though computers have been able
to transmit such sensations in close
quarters for several years, the dis
tance between the scientists was a
new milestone that they hope will
eventually lead to new collaborative
applications in telemedicine, educa
tion and art.
“I think the most important appli
cations are the ones we don’t know
yet,” said Mandayam Srinivasan, di
rector of the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology’s Touch Lab and leader
of the MIT team that developed the
technology. “When Alexander Gra
ham Bell invented the telephone, he
didn’t see all the possibilities.”
The breakthrough actually oc
curred in May and was detailed in a
paper presented Oct. 9 in Portugal
at the conference called PRES
ENCE 2002: The 5th Annual Inter
national Workshop on Presence.
Tuesday marked the first public
demonstration.
By adding a sense of touch, re
searchers hope to improve the expe
rience of various virtual environ
ments, which are usually limited to
sight and sound. The field of re
search involving touch is referred to
as “haptics.”
The robotic arm and the software
have been commercially available
for several years. But the teams al
tered the software so the program
could be used across the Internet.
Despite the breakthrough, re
searchers said they were well aware
of the limitations.
The arms have to be moved very
slowly because the transmission of
signals across the Internet can often
be slow and jumpy. Srinivasan said re
searchers will be focused on improv
ing the network performance, the pro
cessing speed of the computers, and
the software to fine tune their work.
“As the software becomes more so
phisticated and computers become
faster, we can have widespread virtual
environments where we interact
more naturally,” Srinivasan said.
© 2002, San Jose Mercury News (San
Jose, Calif.). Distributed by Knight
Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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