Cross Country
Crime Wave Could Have Been Worse
In 2002, the Washington, D.C., area was terrorized by a series of sniper attacks that left 10 people dead. But last week one of the participants said that what the convicted mastermind originally planned was actually much worse.
The tales were told in a Rockville, Md., courtroom by 21-year-old Lee Boyd Malvo, who has already received a life term in Virginia. Malvo was testifying in the trial of his onetime mentor, John Allen Muhammad, 45, who has already been sentenced to death in Virginia. Prosecutors are pursuing a second conviction because six of the 10 killings occurred in Maryland, and to protect against the possibility of the pair going free on an appeal in Virginia.
Malvo, who broke a long silence to claim he was in Muhammad's thrall, said the initial plan was to shoot as many as a half-dozen people daily for 30 days in the Washington area and then set off explosive devices to kill children around Baltimore. Muhammad's ultimate goal, Malvo said, was to train 140 young homeless men in Canada who would "shut things down" in cities throughout the United States.
Straphanger Surveillance in N.Y.
Citing the bombings of transit systems in Madrid and London, as well as vandalism, New York City officials say they are implementing a $25 million plan to put surveillance cameras in 60 subway stations and on hundreds of buses in the sprawling system.
The stated goal is to reduce graffiti, which has hit the transit system hard in recent years. But police and transit officials also hope the cameras help prevent violent crimes and "they have the added benefit of being an antiterrorism tool," says Charles Seaton of New York City Transit. While there is no set date for installation, Seaton says the initiative, if successful, will be expanded. That concerns privacy advocates, who say the city seems to have no procedure for how the resulting video will be handled.
Conventional Wisdom
Call it a rare--and unintentional--instance of bipartisanship. The Republican and Democratic parties announced that two areas--New York and Minneapolis-St. Paul--had submitted bids to both parties for their 2008 presidential conventions. The Republicans are also being wooed by Cleveland and the Tampa-St. Petersburg region. The Democrats are being courted by Denver and New Orleans.
The parties last shared a convention city in Miami, in 1972. But because the '08 conventions are scheduled just one week apart, logistical hurdles make it unlikely one city will land both, says a source. Which means the Democrats, who will announce their selection well ahead of the GOP this fall, have a leg up if they want to land the Big Apple or the Twin Cities. As for the conventions themselves, the Dems go first, on August 25-28; the GOP gets together September 1-4. Republicans worried about meeting on Labor Day but now plan to parlay the holiday into a theme: "Celebrating the American Worker."
Still Wearing Threads of Gray
In South Carolina, the Civil War never really ends. Last week, Candice Hardwick, 15, took to the streets with a dozen others to protest her high school's ban on wearing clothing displaying the Confederate flag. Wearing a Confederate belt buckle and button, she led a march in Latta, 100 miles northeast of the state capital--where there has long been a battle over flying the Confederate flag at the statehouse. Hardwick says she wants to be able to honor relatives who fought for the Confederacy; school officials, however, say the flag recalls a racially charged past and regularly causes friction. In March, Hardwick teamed up with the Southern Legal Resource Center, which promotes southern heritage, to sue the school in federal court. The center has four similar lawsuits pending.
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