Briefs

Local & VCU

Mayor Jones amends financial disclosure to include Florida condo

Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones has filed an amended financial disclosure form to reflect his purchase of an oceanfront condominium in Florida.

Jones had said he would submit a revised 2011 Statement of Economic Interests after the Richmond Times-Dispatch inquired Tuesday about the mayor’s sworn statement filed in January that did not list the property in Palm Beach County, Fla.

Jones called the omission an oversight that would be corrected with a new filing with the city clerk’s office. The mayor bought the 1,219-square-foot unit in the Phoenix Towers complex in April 2010 for $252,500.

On his amended form submitted Thursday, Jones reported the property in Riviera Beach as “condo/recreational” and said it was the only real estate, other than his principal residence, in which he has an interest valued at $10,000 or more.

Jones, 63, said he bought the condo primarily for retirement.

Brief by The Richmond Times-Dispatch

Suspicious package cleared as art student’s project

On September 9, 2011 a suspicious package was found along the 900 block of West Franklin street.

West Franklin was blocked to traffic at Harrison Street and Harrison between Grace and Franklin streets while the police searched the object.

VCU Police gave the all clear when the object turned out to be a VCU student’s art project.

Brief by Mason Brown

Sunk restaurant pulled from James River

Two days after it was supposed to open as a floating restaurant, the Mallory emerged from the muddy depths of the James River.

A daylong drama to raise the sunken houseboat reached its climax at sunset on Saturday, Sept. 3, when two massive cranes lifted the fragile vessel from the river at Richmond Intermediate Terminal.

Mike Britt, who had planned to open the Mallory as a restaurant on Thursday, watched intently as the boat’s upper deck rose slowly above the water.

The boat was found sunken at its mooring a week ago after Hurricane Irene ripped through the region.

The ultimate outcome was still not assured as Britt and his wife, Jennifer, waited for the boat to be fully lifted and pumped free of water.

“It looks good, but we’re not there yet,” said Rob Rice, owner of Dockside Diving Inc., a Portsmouth company that has been working to raise the Mallory since Monday.

The Britts thought it appropriate that the boat rose from the water at sunset. After all, it’s named after Mallory Square in Key West, Fla., where sunsets are savored, as they hope customers will do someday soon from the deck of the Mallory.

Brief by the Richmond Times-Dispatch 

VCU police arrest man for damage to cars

VCU Police have arrested 27-year-old Jeremy Hawthorne on a felony charge of Damage to State Property.

Hawthorne is accused of damaging seven tires on police and other VCU vehicles. The damage is estimated to be more than $1000.

Richmond Police assisted with the arrest.

Brief by Mechelle Hankerson

National & International

Rwandan opposition leader goes to trial for ‘genocide ideology’

Prosecutors have accused a top Rwandan opposition figure of trying to recruit fighters to destabilize Rwanda during a trial that some see as a litmus test for political expression in a nation still struggling to come to terms with the 1994 genocide.

Victoire Ingabire appeared in court in the Rwandan capital of Kigali Friday in a prisoner’s uniform, handcuffs and with a shaved head. She is accused of genocide ideology, revisionism and backing terrorist groups. She has not yet entered a plea, but her four co-accused – former members of a brutal rebel group based in the Congo – have pleaded guilty.

Ingabire faces up to 30 years in prison.

Ingabire, who lived in the Netherlands for many years, returned to Rwanda in January 2010. Shortly after her return, she questioned why no Hutus were commemorated in a national monument to the genocide and promised to help Hutu prisoners.
It is illegal to question the official history of the genocide – something Ingabire, a Hutu, says should be allowed by a democratic government.

Members of opposition parties were frequently arrested in the lead up to the August 2010 elections and journalists who have published articles critical of the government have been jailed or found dead. The mutilated body of one senior opposition figure was found three weeks before the presidential election. President Kagame was re-elected with 93 percent of the vote.

Brief by The Associated Press

Libya finds mass graves made by Gadhafi’s military

In a grove of pine trees near this mountain village, residents have dug up the remains of 35 bound and blindfolded men who they say were shot at close range by Moammar Gadhafi’s military.

Dozens of miles away, a search team has exhumed the bodies of 18 detainees who died on a hot summer day while locked in a shipping container by Gadhafi guards.

As Libyans cope with the aftermath of their six-month civil war, more evidence is emerging that loyalists of the former regime abused and in some cases killed detainees just before fleeing from advancing rebel troops.

There’s no proof of systematic killings ordered from above, but Gadhafi’s incitement against the rebel fighters he called rats “opened the door for this kind of barbaric conduct,” said Fred Abrahams of Human Rights Watch.

A warrant for Gadhafi’s arrest, issued in June by the International Criminal Court, focuses on killings and arrests during the initial phase of the uprising that began in February and eventually toppled the regime.

Brief by The Associated Press

White house takes possible al-Qaida plot seriously

President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism adviser says the administration is taking seriously the intelligence tip of a possible al-Qaida plot tied to the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The terror network has long sought to attack the U.S. again, and Obama adviser John Brennan says the latest information is specific and from a credible source.

Brennan says investigators are trying to “put the pieces together” and be vigilant. He tells “Fox News Sunday” that the government, in his words, “is taking this very seriously.”

Investigators have chased a tip that al-Qaida may have sent three men to the U.S. on a mission to detonate a car bomb in either Washington or New York. But officials have said they’ve found no evidence al-Qaida has sneaked anyone into the country.

Brief by The Associated Press