o The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Thursday, Aprill1, 2010 - 3A NEWS BRIEFS DETROIT Christian militia infiltrated by agent Rough winter weather forced members of a Midwest Christian militia to cut short a road trip to a rally in Kentucky, so suspected ring- leader David Brian Stone used time in the van to hone his speech on the "New World Order" he feared, authorities said Wednesday. "We are the American military. We outnumber them," a speaker identified as Stone says on an audio tape recorded by an undercover FBI agent. "People should not be afraid of the government. The government " should fear the people." The agent, who infiltrated the Hutaree group and had built explosives under Stone's direction, accompanied Stone and others as they tried to attend a Feb. 6 meeting of militias in Kentucky, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Waterstreet said during a detention hearing in U.S. District Court in Detroit. "Now it's time to strike and take our nation back so we will be free of tyranny," Stone, 44, of Clayton, Mich., says on the recording played in court. "The war will come wheth- er we are ready or not." Stone and eight other suspect- ed Hutaree members, self-pro- claimed "Christian warriors" who trained themselves in paramili- tary techniques in preparation for a battle against the Antichrist, are charged with seditious conspiracy, or plotting to levy war against the U.S. They were arrested after a series of weekend raids across the Midwest. MANAMA, Bahrain Navy plane crashes in Persian Gulf A U.S. Navy aircraft crashed in the Persian Gulf region yesterday and one of the four crew members was missing, the military said. Search and rescue efforts were under way, the U.S. Navy said in a statement. Three crew members were rescued. The E-2C Hawkeye, which is primarily used to detect incoming aircraft with its 24-foot diameter radar, crashed in the North Ara- bian Sea after the it "experienced mechanical malfunctions," the statement said. The plane was used for command and control functions and oper- ated from the aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. Helping in the search for the missing crew member were the Eisenhower and several of its air- craft, helicopters from guided mis- sile destroyer USS Carney and a replenishment ship. The Navy is investigating. LANSING, Mich. Mich. constitutional convention on November ballot Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land is urging lawmakers to pass bills that would clarify rules for a possible constitutional conven- tion. Michigan voters will decide in November if a constitutional con- vention should be held to revise or replace the state's 1963 constitu- tion. Land says the bills would require convention delegates to be U.S. citizens, set dates to elect the delegates and apply campaign finance and lobbying laws to them. The measures also would set July 12, 2011 as the starting date for the possible convention. The Republican secre- tary of state says failing to pass the bills soon "will throw the process into chaos." PHILADELPHIA Nightclub to close on school premises A charter school cafeteria will no longer double as a nightclub on nights and weekends, city education officials announced yesterday after inspecting the facility. Owners of the Harambee Insti- tute of Science and Technology Charter School have removed all banquet supplies and equipment, including alcohol, from their build- ing, which on weekdays educates about 450 students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Philadelphia district officials had demanded an end to the school's arrangement with Club Damani, which had been operating on the premises during off-hours despite an expired liquor license. Murderer of abortion doctor faces life in prison Rowan Towers in Trenton, N.J. was the site of a party where police say a15-year-old sold her 7-year-old sister to have sex with as many as seven men and boys. The teenager also took money to have sex with others at a party in the Trenton apart- ment on Sunday. - Teenager sells stepsister for sex at apartment party Seven-year-old was gang-raped as stepsister took money, stood by TRENTON (AP) - It started with a seemingly innocent party invitation. A 15-year-old girl and her 7-year-old stepsister were headed to an apartment down the street from their home near the New Jersey Statehouse, where they had been hang- ing around outside on a Sunday afternoon. For the younger girl, police say it quickly descended into a horrifying ordeal in which she was gang-raped by as many as seven men as her sister not only watched, but got paid by those who did it. Their parents, none the wiser, thought maybe they had run away. "We're talking about a kid who told her sister to go into an apart- ment and let people rape her," said Trenton police Capt. Joseph Juniak. "It's unfathomable." The teen has been charged with aggravated sexual assault, promoting prostitution and other crimes. Her name was not released because of her age, but the county prosecutor plans to ask the court to try her as an adult. In the meantime, she is being held at the Mercer County Youth Detention Center. When the girls didn't return home by 4:30 Sunday after- noon, their parents called police, believing the older one had run away from home and taken her younger sister with her. In fact, they were down the street inside a 13th floor apart- ment at Rowan Towers, a nearby high-rise complex so dangerous that Trenton police are hired as security guards at night. "They keep it clean on the out- side, but it's what's on the inside that you have to worry about," said neighbor William Johnson, who says police are coming out of the building all the time. Inside apartment 13-C, police said the 7-year-old was soon left alone as her sister headed to a back bedroom to sell sex to sev- eral men. When she came out into the living room, she handed her 7-year-old sister money and encouraged her to let the men touch her. "It went from touching to straight out assault and rape," Juniak said. "They threatened to kill her if she screamed or told anyone." Kansas without abortion facility for women more than 21 weeks pregnant WHICITA (AP) - The man who gunned down one of the nation's few providers of late-term abortions could be sent to prison today for the rest of his life, but he may have gotten what he wanted all along: It is markedly harder in Kansas to get an abortion. Dr. George Tiller's clinic is closed, leaving the state with no facility where women can have the procedure after the 21st week of pregnancy. An early vow by one of Tiller's contemporaries to fill the gap hasn't materialized, and state lawmakers are moving to enact tough new rules to dissuade other physicians from taking Til- ler's place. "The national anti-abortion movement has a tremendous victory here," said Dr. War- ren Hern, a longtime friend of Tiller who performs late-term abortions in Colorado. "They accomplished exactly what they wanted, and they continue to accomplish it." But even as Scott Roeder faces a mandatorylife sentence for killing Tiller, many ponder the conflict- inglegacies of his actions. Outside Kansas, abortion rights support- ers say there's been a surge in late- term abortion practices by doctors emboldened to pick up where Til- ler left off. "What he really did was murder a doctor in church, and the effect on abortion is negligible," said Dr. LeRoy Carhart; a Nebraska doctor who worked part-time for Tiller. Carhart said yesterday he had not given up on opening a prac- tice in Kansas where women can have a late-term procedure, even though he admitted his plans were in a state of flux given the rules passed late Tuesday night by the Kansas Legislature. Some people on the other side of the abortion debate aren't taking comfort in the fate of Roeder, 52, of Kansas City, Mo., who was convicted in January of first-degree murder for fatally shooting Tiller last May as the doctor served as an usher in his Wichita church. The only ques- tion remaining today is whether Roeder's imprisonment will include a mandatory minimum of 25 or 50 years behind bars. "Mr. Roeder was a setback to the pro-life movement - and to give him any sort of credit for reducing or stopping abortion is well beyond reason," said Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue. Roeder's militant sympathizers disagree. "He went ahead and laid down his life to save unborn children and to me that is the definition of a hero - he gave up his life to save someone else," said Rev. Don Spitz, of Chesapeake, Va., who runs the Army of God Web site supporting violence against abor- tion providers. In Kansas, Tiller's killing has practically erased late-term pro- cedures and forced women to Albuquerque, N.M., and Boulder, Colo., among other places, to have them. Just three clinics in the state - all located in or near the Kansas City metro area - offer limited abortion services for women up to their 21st week of pregnancy. "People were coming from all over the world to have abortions in Kansas," said Kari Ann Rinker, a lobbyist for the National Orga- nization for Women's Kansas chapter. "Now they don't come here because Dr. Tiller has been killed." Beyond the state, however, abortion rights advocates say doc- tors are increasingly offering the procedure to ensure women have access. "Dr. Tiller's death was a dev- astating loss to the provider com- munity and his family, but he was so admired and respected that his death has inspired medical stu- dents and providers to recommit themselves to providing women with the abortion care that they need," said Vicki Saporta, presi- dent of the National Abortion Fed- eration. Among them is Megan Evans, a third-year medical student at George Washington University who said she hopes to include abortion services as part of a larger obstetrics and gynecology practice. "After he was killed, for me it assured me this was the right field to go into," she said. In the wake of Tiller's murder, Dr. Curtis Boyd of Albuquerque decided to provide third-trimes- ter abortions on a case-by-case basis and hired two physicians who had worked at Tiller's clinic. Chechen militant group responsible for bombings fro rev ernet message President Dmitry Medvedev later called the attacks "links of the )m group cites same chain." The suicide bombings in Mos- enge as reason cow were the first in the capital in for attack six years and served as a wake-up call for many Russians, who had come to feel insulated from the their homes." The 45-year-old Umarov fought Russian forces in both separat- ist wars in Chechnya over the last 15 years. He took over the leadership of the rebel movement in 2006 following the killing by Russian forces of Abdul-Khalim MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) violence raging in the country's Sadulayev. Umarov's importance - A Chechen militant claimed predominantly Muslim southern further increased that year after responsibility for the deadly corner. Shamil Basayev, the most feared of attacks on the Moscow subway in Umarov blamed ordinary Rus- the rebels, was killed by security an Internet message posted yester- sians for turning a blind eye to the forces. Basayev was accused of - day, hours after two more suicide killing of civilians in the Cauca- or claimed responsibility for -ter- bombers struck southern Russia in sus by security forces and warned rorist attacks on Russia during its brazen defiance of Prime Minister of more attacks. wars in Chechnya, including the Vladimir Putin. "I promise you that the war will hostage-taking raid on a school in Doku Umarov, who leads come to your streets and you will the town of Beslan in 2004. Islamic militants in Chechnya and feel it in your lives, feel it on your Moscow police have been on other regions in Russia's North own skin," Umarov, dressed in high alert since the subway attacks, Caucasus, said in a video posted fatigues, said in a video posted on increasingroadblocks on highways on a pro-rebel Web site that Mon- kavkazcenter.com, a Web site that into the city. The police chief said day's twin suicide attacks were rebels use to air their statements. thousands of officers have been revenge for the killing of civilians There was no way to substanti- sent to patrol the subway, check on by Russian security forces. ate Umarov's claim, and officials migrants from southern provinces Umarov's statement appeared at Russian law enforcement agen- and inspect warehouses that could after Putin vowed to "drag out ties refused to comment on Uma- hold arms caches. of the sewer" the terrorists rov's claim. The Russian security The militants face logisti- who plotted the subway bomb- chief has previously said the sub- cal challenges in carrying out ings, which killed 39 people and way bombings were carried out bombings in Russia's northern wounded scores of commuters by militants from the Caucasus. cities, since they would need to during the morning rush hour. Umarov had previously transport explosives from south- Yesterday's suicide bombings warned that "if Russians think ern bases and then store them. in Dagestan, a volatile southern that the war is happening only on Natives of the North Caucasus, province east of Chechnya, could television, somewhere far away in who tend to have darker hair and have been planned by the same the Caucasus where it can't reach complexions, stand out in cities group behind the Moscow bomb- them, then we are going to show like Moscow and are more likely ings, Putin said. them that this war will return to to draw police attention. "I don't rule out that this is one and the same gang," he said at a televised Cabinet meeting. U U -Conpiledfrom Daily wire reports