Washington — The Democrat-led Senate on Thursday voted to let federal law enforcement help states prosecute attacks on homosexuals, attaching the provision to a massive spending bill for the Iraq war and daring President Bush to veto the whole package.
Nine Republicans were among the 60 senators who voted to halt any filibusters and bring the matter to the final voice vote.
Presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino made clear that Bush believes the federal provision is unnecessary.
“State and local law enforcement agencies are effectively using their laws to the full extent they can,” Perino said.
The bill is named for Matthew Shepard, a gay college freshman who died after he was beaten into a coma in 1998 in Laramie.
Under current federal law, hate crimes include acts of violence against individuals on the basis of race, religion, color or national origin. Federal prosecutors have jurisdiction only if the victim is engaged in a specific, federally protected activity such as voting.
The bill would extend the hate-crimes category to include sexual orientation, gender, gender identity or disability and give federal authorities greater leeway to participate in hate-crime investigations. It would approve $10 million over the next two years to help local law enforcement officials cover the cost of hate-crime prosecutions. Federal investigators could step in if local authorities were unwilling or unable to act.
WASHINGTON
Congress OKs bills to fund government
Congress on Thursday cleared must-pass bills to prevent a government shutdown and extend the Treasury Department’s ability to finance the budget deficit.
The Senate approved the stopgap spending bill 94-1. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., cast the only no vote.
The debt-limit-increase measure passed by a 53-42 vote and comes as the government continues to leak red ink.
The bills will be shipped to the White House for President Bush to sign by a deadline of Monday. That’s when the new fiscal year starts and when the government will hit its borrowing ceiling of $8.965 trillion. The new debt limit would be $9.815 trillion.
Passage of the stopgap funding bill likely permits Democrats to put off until early next year a vote on Bush’s $189 billion request for Pentagon operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
PHOENIX
T-shirts with slain GIs’ names ruled OK
Anti-war T-shirts displaying the names of slain American service members are political speech protected by the First Amendment, a federal judge ruled Thursday.
The judge temporarily blocked enforcement of a new state law that makes it a misdemeanor to sell items that use names of slain troops without permission of their families.
Flagstaff resident Dan Frazier, who sells the T-shirts with the names of nearly 3,500 troops who died in Iraq and the words “Bush Lied – They Died,” had sought the preliminary injunction.
RENO, Nev.
11 McDonald’s raided in immigration sweep
Federal agents raided 11 McDonald’s restaurants in northern Nevada and made more than 40 arrests Thursday as part of an investigation into illegal immigration.
Agents for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement made the arrests in Reno, Sparks and Fernley after raids at the restaurants and a franchise corporate office in Reno, agency spokesman Richard Rocha said.
LOS ANGELES
Nickelodeon turns off for outdoor play
When its television screens go blank on Saturday, the Nickelodeon cable network is advising its viewers not to fiddle with the buttons – but to go outside and play. The three hours of dead air the children’s network will “broadcast” in the middle of the day is part of its fourth annual worldwide day of play, an encouragement to kids to get outside and work on getting in shape.
MAPLE VALLEY, Wash.
Cellphone leads to woman missing 8 days
A 33-year-old woman who had been missing for eight days was found alive Thursday in her car at the bottom of a steep ravine after searchers traced a signal from her cellphone.
Tanya Rider responded to her name when her car was found along a highway she commuted on in suburban Seattle, State Patrol Sgt. Dave Divis said.
Rider was taken to a Seattle hospital. Her husband, Tom Rider, said she was “fighting for her life,” suffering from kidney failure and sores from lying in the same position for a week.
WAUKESHA, Wis.
Rape victim nabs suspect on her bus
A woman who reported being dragged into a park bathroom and raped helped police arrest her alleged assailant a couple weeks later when she saw him get on the bus she was riding.
According to a criminal complaint, the 20-year-old woman asked the bus driver to call police. The driver radioed the message, and when the man got off the bus, he was arrested.
Anwau Terry, 25, of Milwaukee was charged with second- degree sexual assault and false imprisonment.
