East Lansing
Police review tapes in aftermath of MSU riots
Police could spend weeks reviewing video of what they characterized as a riot near Michigan State University over the weekend.
East Lansing police said a task force will review video and pictures from the aftermath of a Cedar Fest party involving 3,000 to 4,000 people that turned ugly and had to be broken up by tear gas early Sunday after police were pelted with bottles and rocks.
Police have reported 52 arrests, but that number could climb based on the review of video. As of mid-yesterday, all the arrested face misdemeanor charges. Some could face felonies depending upon further review of the evidence, said East Lansing Police Capt. Kim Johnson.
“We want to identify some of the major culprits as soon as possible and bring them to justice as soon as we can,” Johnson said.
Kansas City
McCain rebukes calls for removing troops from Iraq
Republican presidential candidate John McCain said yesterday that calls from his Democratic rivals to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq stand as a “failure of leadership” as they are making promises they cannot keep.
Democrat Barack Obama said the failure rests with McCain’s support for an open-ended occupation of Iraq.
Addressing the Veterans of Foreign Wars, McCain criticized Obama and Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and insisted that last year’s U.S. troop buildup in Iraq brought a glimmer of “something approaching normal” there, despite a recent outbreak of heavy fighting and a U.S. death toll that has surpassed 4,000.
Pulling out now would jeopardize recent gains, McCain said.
San Francisco
Protestors scale bridge to call
for a free Tibet
Three people protesting China’s human rights record and the impending arrival of the Olympic torch climbed up the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday and tied the Tibetan flag and two banners to its cables.
The banners read “One World One Dream. Free Tibet” and “Free Tibet 08.”
The protesters wore helmets and harnesses as they made their way up the cables running next to the south tower of the famed span. The climb had the group suspended about 150 feet above traffic.
ELDORADO, Texas
State looks into abuse at polygamist compound
More than 400 children, mostly girls in pioneer dresses, were swept into state custody from a polygamist sect in what authorities described yesterday as the largest child-welfare operation in Texas history.
The days long raid on the sprawling compound built by now-jailed polygamist leader Warren Jeffs was sparked by a 16-year-old girl’s call to authorities that she was being abused and that girls as young as 14 and 15 were being forced into marriages with much older men.
– Compiled from Daily wire reports