In the News

Post-Katrina Mardi Gras ends

NEW ORLEANS – Even in the boisterous French Quarter, the city’s first Mardi Gras after Hurricane Katrina was a smaller, somewhat calmer celebration, which suited some just fine.

“It’s a lot more mature. There are more families out than usual,” said Anthony Bordelon, a Jackson Square artist painting designs on revelers’ faces on Tuesday, the culmination of the eight-day pre-Lenten bash.

A few blocks away, the landmark Cafe du Monde did a brisk coffee-and-beignet business, but it didn’t measure up to years past.

“When you compare the whole ball of wax, it will be weaker than last year,” said Burt Benrud, the cafe’s vice president.

Vast stretches of New Orleans are still in ruins and thousands of its residents are scattered six months after the storm smashed thousands of homes and killed hundreds of people.

Bush says Bin Laden will be captured

KABUL, Afghanistan – President Bush, on an unannounced visit to Afghanistan, said Wednesday he remains confident Osama bin Laden “will be brought to justice” despite a so-far futile five-year hunt.

Bush also suggested that the United States and India, where he was headed yet, have still not reached a deal over U.S. help for India’s civilian nuclear program.

“People all over the world are watching the experience here in Afghanistan,” Bush said as he stood side-by-side with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Saddam Hussein quiet as trial resumes

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants calmly entered the courtroom Wednesday for the latest session of their trial, a day after prosecutors presented their most direct evidence yet pinning the former Iraqi leader to executions of Shiites in the 1980s.

For the second straight day, the session had a quiet start, a sharp contrast to the outbursts, insults and arguments that characterized past proceedings.

The trial, which began Oct. 19, appears to have entered a new phase, after chief judge Raouf Abdel-Rahman imposed control on the stormy tribunal and prosecutors began presenting the core of their case: documents they say prove Saddam and his co-defendants led a campaign of arrests, torture and executions in which 148 Shiites died following a 1982 attempt to assassinate Saddam in the town of Dujail.

Prosecutors on Wednesday planned to bring several former regime officials to the witness stand.

Saddam’s defense team on Tuesday ended a boycott of the proceedings that had aimed to remove Abdel-Rahman, who they claimed was biased against the former Iraqi leader. Abdel-Rahman rejected the demand to step down Tuesday, though the defense said it would appeal.

Tate pleads guilty to robbery

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Lionel Tate pleaded guilty Wednesday to the armed robbery of a pizza delivery man last spring, which could net him up to 30 years in prison but spare him a possible life sentence for violating probation in the 1999 killing of a young girl.

Tate, once the youngest person in modern U.S. history to receive a life prison sentence, said, “Yes, sir,” when Broward County Circuit Judge Joel T. Lazarus asked him if he would plead guilty to the robbery. Lazarus scheduled sentencing for April 3, and said Tate could receive between 10 and 30 years in prison.

The guilty plea is the latest twist in the long-running case of Tate, who was convicted of killing 6-year-old Tiffany Eunick when he was only 12.

Tate came to national attention after Eunick’s murder at his mother’s home. The boy’s lawyers initially claimed the girl, who suffered skull fractures and a lacerated liver, was accidentally killed when Tate imitated professional wrestling moves he’d seen on television.

He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in 2001, but an appeals court in 2004 tossed out the conviction and sentence after ruling that it wasn’t clear Tate understood what was happening to him. He then pleaded guilty to second-degree murder as part of a deal with prosecutors and was sentenced to 10 years’ probation.