Mob storms Kuwaiti TV station after show critical of rulers aired
CAIRO (AP) — An armed mob stormed the offices of a privately owned Kuwaiti TV station and destroyed its equipment after the channel aired shows critical of the country’s ruling family, employees said Monday.
At least 100 people wielding guns and knives broke into Scope TV’s studios on Sunday, cameraman Fahad al-Rashed said.
“They forced us off the air and started smashing computers, sets, studio equipment and cameras,” he said.
Kuwait has some of the most vibrant political debate and press freedoms in the Gulf, but censorship is widespread across the Middle East, and journalists often face tight controls.
Scope TV, a small operation employing about 70 people, has come under fire for programs critical of religious leaders and the ruling Al Sabah family.
Man sentenced to six months for hitting pregnant wife on plane
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A man was sentenced to six months in federal prison for repeatedly hitting his pregnant wife in the stomach during a flight from Baltimore to Tampa last year.
A federal judge in Tampa sentenced 29-year-old David Henry Wysocki II of Palm Harbor on Monday. He plead guilty to committing an assault on an aircraft.
Authorities say that during the July 2009 AirTran flight, Wysocki threatened to kill his wife and unborn child and then hit her in the stomach.
Fall in border patrol arrests shows drop in illegal immigration
SAN DIEGO (AP) — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Monday that a 17 percent drop in Border Patrol arrests this year shows that
heightened enforcement is slowing illegal immigration.
The Border Patrol made about 463,000 arrests during the federal government’s fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, down from 556,032 the previous 12 months. It marks the fifth straight year of declines.
Border Patrol arrests are down 72 percent from nearly 1.7 million in 2000. The agency typically makes about 97 percent of its arrests along the 1,952-mile border with Mexico, with nearly all the rest coming along the Canadian border.
Napolitano said the weak economy helps explain why fewer people are getting caught crossing the border illegally, and she also credited enforcement against employers. But she said a big reason is enforcement under President Barack Obama — including bringing the Border Patrol to an all-time high of 20,500 agents and dispatching 1,200 National Guard troops.
New Orleans Police Department sued over cop’s role in prank
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A restaurant worker who claims a New Orleans police officer pointed a gun at his head as part of a prank has sued the city, its police department and his former employer.
The federal lawsuit filed Saturday by Renaldo Grimball, a dishwasher and cook at the U.S. Prime Steakhouse in New Orleans, accuses the officer, Sean West, of using excessive force and violating his constitutional rights.
Grimball claims he was working a dinner shift last October when a manager jokingly accused him of smoking marijuana and summoned West from the restaurant’s bar. That’s when West allegedly brandished a gun, pointed it at Grimball, pushed him across the kitchen and frisked him.
West, a two-year veteran of the force, was fired in June after an internal probe found he violated department regulations governing professionalism and “premature displaying” of a firearm.
BP waives $75 million cap for oil spill claims, denies negligence
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — BP PLC has informed a federal judge that the company is waiving a $75 million cap on its liability for certain economic damage claims spawned by the massive Gulf oil spill.
A court filing Monday by BP lawyers says the company is waiving the statutory limitation on liability under the 1990 Oil Pollution Act even though it denies engaging in any gross negligence in connection with the April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig and resulting spill.
Last Friday, U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier gave a BP lawyer a week to state in writing whether the company will agree to waive the cap. Plaintiffs lawyers had expressed concern that the company was sending mixed signals on the cap.
 
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