NYC To Pay $7M Settlement in Sean Bell Shooting Case

Sean Bell with his then fiancee and daughter.

The city of New York has agreed to pay more than $7 million to settle a federal lawsuit stemming from the death of Sean Bell who was shot dead by the city police in 2006 on what would have been his wedding day. The money will be split between Bell’s family and two friends of Bell who were also shot by the police.


Groups: FBI Surveillance Program Invites Racial Profiling
FBI Director Robert Mueller is testifying on Capitol Hill today and may face questioning about a controversial FBI domestic surveillance program that collects racial and ethnic data. The American Civil Liberties Union and the group Muslim Advocates have criticized the program saying it invites unconstitutional racial profiling by law enforcement.

Farhana Khera, Executive Director of Muslim Advocates: "Based on what we’ve seen, there’s a section that deals with what’s called geomapping, or the gathering of racial and ethnic data about racial and ethnic communities across the country that’s really just deeply disturbing and would really be an unprecedented abuse of FBI resources to basically gather all sorts of information about racial and ethnic communities that goes beyond just what you might think of as demographic information about where people live to include information about financial transactions, about charitable giving activities, about their vacations, jobs they hold, things of that nature. And this is all not without any kind of basis that these particular individuals they’re collecting information on are engaging in any kind of criminal activity, it’s just a generalized 'get to know' all of these communities and collect information on them."


Major Protests Planned in Arizona Over Anti-Immigrant Bill
In Arizona, major protests are planned for tomorrow to mark the day the state’s new anti-immigrant law goes into effect. The law will require police officers to stop and interrogate anyone they suspect is an undocumented immigrant. Many immigrants say they are trying to leave Arizona before Thursday. Italia Aranda is a 20-year-old college student, who moved to Phoenix 8-years ago from Mexcio City.

Italia Aranda: "Every time I go to school I’m worried that I’ll be pulled over by the police and not make it back home. I’m just going go to school and study and do what I have to do and still, that’s a risk. I think that the people here in Arizona don’t understand that there’s more to people than simply an immigration status, that they have lives, kids, brothers and sisters … and to have to worry about that every single day of your life, every minute, it’s definitely not fun."


Audit: Pentagon Can’t Account For 95% Of $9B Of Iraq Reconstruction Funds
A new government audit has revealed the Pentagon cannot account for over 95 percent of some $9 billion spent in reconstruction funds in Iraq between 2004 and 2007. In its report, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction accused the Pentagon of lax oversight and weak controls of money in the Development Fund for Iraq. The report stated "The breakdown in controls left the funds vulnerable to inappropriate uses and undetected loss."


Hans Blix: U.S. Refused To Accept Findings of UN Inspectors in Iraq
Former U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix testified before the British war inquiry on Tuesday and repeatedly criticized the Bush administration for using "absurd" arguments to justify the invasion. Blitz also described Britain as “a prisoner on the American train.” Blitz said weapons inspectors were convinced that Iraq had no nuclear infrastructure, but the United States refused to accept their findings.

Hans Blix: "So on that area the IAEA, both I in 1997 and Mohamed ElBaradei in 1998, said that we didn’t think that they could resurrect a nuclear program within a very long time. But we could not guarantee that there were not minor items like prototypes of centrifuges or computer programs etc. So we wanted to write off the nuclear program but of course it was not for us, it was for the Security Council and I’ve seen from some testimony here that I think the UK also wanted to close the nuclear dossier but the U.S. refused, which we noticed at the time."


British PM: Gaza Is A 'Prison Camp'
During his first official trip to Turkey, British Prime Minister David Cameron criticized Israel’s deadly attack on the Turkish Gaza-bound aid flotilla and accused Israel of turning Gaza into a prison camp.

David Cameron: "Let me be clear: the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla was completely unacceptable. And I have told Prime Minister Netanyahu we will expect the Israeli inquiry to be swift, transparent and rigorous. Let me also be clear that the situation in Gaza has to change. Humanitarian goods and people must flow in both directions. Gaza cannot and must not be allowed to remain a prison camp."

The Israeli embassy in London criticized Cameron’s description of Gaza as a prison camp. In a statement the embassy said "the people of Gaza are the prisoners of the terrorist organization Hamas."


U.S. Backs More AU Troops in Somalia
With the urging of the Obama administration, the African Union has agreed to send 2,000 more troops to Somalia to fight Islamic militants. This will increase the number of African troops in Somalia to 8,000. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Johnnie Carson the troops are needed to fight the Somali militant group Al-Shabab which recently claimed responsibility for the twin bombings in Uganda.

Johnnie Carson: "There is no doubt there is a need for more troops on the ground, the IGAD president said this three weeks ago, the IGAD defence minister said it sometime ago as well, we believe that it is necessary to have more troops in the ground and we in Washington have committed ourselves to support additional troops on the ground in the same fashion that we have supported the existing Burundi and Ugandan troops."


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