The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - 3A The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - 3A NEWS BRIEFS DETROIT Convicted political consultant seeks delay in sentencing Detroit political consultant Sam Riddle is seeking a delay in his sen- tence for corruption. Riddle is due in federal court today. But lawyer Richard Conver- tino wants a judge to hold a hearing to determine how Riddle's state- ments to investigators were used to calculate the value of political payoffs. Convertino says Riddle's rights may have been violated. Riddle pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy, a charge that covered his crimes with then-Detroit coun- cilwoman Monica Conyers and a Southfield councilman. Prosecu- tors are recommending 37 months in prison. The government accused Riddle and Conyers of shaking down busi- nesses for thousands of dollars. Riddle's former companion, Mary Waters, faces sentencing for a mis- demeanor tax offense. TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. Canada joins U.S. in Asian carp research. Canadian and U.S. scientists announced yesterday the launch of a joint study that will look at the likelihood that Asian carp will spread across the Great Lakes and decimate the fish populations if allowed to gain a foothold. The 18-month study will be the first joint effort by the two nations to evaluate possible consequences of an invasion by bighead and silver carp -Asian species threateningcto enter Lake Michigan through Chi- cago-ares rivers and canals. "We have seen the destructive behavior" of Asian carp in parts of the Mississippi and Illinois riv- ers, where they have disrupted the food web by hogging the plankton on which many fish depend, said Becky Cudmore, senior research scientist for Fisheries and Oceans Canada. "We are not taking the threat to the Great Lakes lightly." Canadian researchers produced an initial assessment in 2004 and U.S. experts did likewise the fol- lowing year. The new project will aim to resolve differences between them while yielding new informa- tion about the carp threat, said Marc Gaden, spokesman for the Great Lakes Fishery Commission. PHOENIX, Ariz. Mexico to take part in appeal of Ariz. immigration law Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is opposing a court ruling that lets other countries file a friend-of-the- court brief in her appeal of a deci- sion that put parts of the state's new immigration law on hold. Mexico and 10 other Latin American countries were granted permission by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to present their viewpoints. Brewer's lawyers told the appeals court that the opinions of foreign countries have no bearing on whether the law is constitu- tional. The governor says she was offended that foreign governments were meddling in a domestic legal dispute. Mexico was joined in its brief by Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Paraguay and Peru. WASHINGTON Obama hails 'new age of engagement' President Barack Obama is greeting foreign diplomats at a White House reception, hailing a "new era of engagement in the world." Said the president: "We're doing together what none of us can achieve by ourselves." Scores of ambassadors and other foreign officials were invit- ed to the East Room yesterday for cocktails and hors d'oeuvres at an annual diplomatic corps recep- tion. Appearing with first lady Michelle Obama, the president told his guests that in a world that's more interconnected than ever, it's in America's best interest for all countries to prosper. Obama said the governments were working together on global economic growth, confronting vio- lent extremism, securing nuclear weapons and achieving peace from the Middle East to Sudan. - Compiled from Daily wire reports. Times Square bomber sentenced to life Shahzad warns of more attacks in future from Al Qaeda NEW YORK (AP) - The Paki- stani immigrant who tried to deto- nate a car bomb on a busy Saturday night in Times Square accepted a life sentence with a smirk yester- day and warned that Americans can expect more bloodshed at the hands of Muslims. "Brace yourselves, because the war with Muslims has justbegun," 31-year-old Faisal Shahzad told a federal judge. "Consider me the first droplet of the blood that will follow." His punishment for building the propane-and-gasoline bomb and driving it into the heart of the city in an SUV in May was a foregone conclusion, since the charges to which he pleaded guilty carried a mandatory life sentence, which under federal rules will keep him behind bars until he dies. But the former budget analyst from Connecticut used the court- room appearance to rail against the U.S., saying the country will continue to pay for occupying Muslim countries. "We are only Muslims trying to defend our religion, people, homes and land, but if you call us terrorists, then we are proud ter- rorists and we will keep on terror- izing you until you leave our lands and people at peace," he told U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum. Shahzad - brought into the courtroom in handcuffs, and wear- ing a long beard and white skull- cap - had instructed his attorney not to speak, and Cedarbaum told prosecutors she didn't need to hear from them. That left the two free to spar over his reasoning for giving up his comfortable life in America to train in Pakistan and carry out an attack authorities say could have killed an untold number of pedestrians. "You appear to be someone who was capable of education and I do hope you will spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Quran wants you to kill lots of people," Cedar- baum said. Shahzad responded that the "Quran gives us the right to defend. And that's all I'm doing." The judge cut him off at one point to ask if he had sworn alle- giance to the U.S. when he became a citizen last year. "I did swear, but I did not mean it," Shahzad said. In his address to the court, he said Osama bin Laden "will be known as no less than Saladin of the 21st-century crusade" - a ref- erence to the Muslim hero of the Crusades. He also said: "If I'm given 1,000 lives, I will sacrifice them all." Shahzad smirked when the judge imposed the sentence. Asked if he had any final words, he said, "I'm happy with the deal that God has given me." Afterward, the head of the FBI's New York office, Janice K. Fedar- cyk, cited evidence that Shahzad hoped to strike more than once. This June 29, 2010 photo taken from video and provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows an FBI-staged explosion in Osceola Mills, Pa., that prosecutors say replicates the power of the car bomb Faisal Shahzad tried to detonate in New York's Tiwes Square on May 1, 2010. "Shahzad built a mobile weapon of mass destruction and hoped and intended that it would kill large numbers of innocent people and planned to do it again two weeks later," Fedarcyk said in a state- ment. "The sentence imposed today means Shahzad will never pose that threat again." U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara called Shahzad a "remorseless ter- rorist who betrayed his adopted country." "We have tobe concerned about homegrown terrorists given recent events. We're working as hard as we can to make sure we don't have another event like that," Bharara said. White House spokesman Nick Shapiro said the administration was pleased with the sentencing. "We tried the case in a civilian court, we were able to use every- thing that he said and everything that we uncovered for intelligence collection purposes," he said. "His trial served no propaganda pur- pose for al-Qaida, and only under- scored the strength of our justice system." Calling himself a Muslim sol- dier, Shahzad pleaded guilty in June to 10 terrorism and weapons counts. He said the Pakistan Tal- iban provided him with more than $15,000 and five days of explosives training late last year and early this year, months after he became a U.S. citizen. For greatest impact, he chose a crowded a section of Times Square by studying an online streaming video of the so-called Crossroads of the World, prosecutors said. Survey: Latinos still strongly support Dems. U.S. seeks vote on Russian nuclear arms pact summit Some say immigration issues may influence more Latinos to vote WASHINGTON (AP) - In a year when Democrats are strug- gling to energize supporters, Hispanic voters appear signifi- cantly less motivated than the rest of.the U.S. to cast election ballots even though two-thirds of Latino registered voters say they'll vote Democratic in their congressional race, a Pew His- panic Center study found. The center's national survey, released Tuesday, found 51 per- cent of Latino registered voters were absolutely certain they would vote - compared with 70 percent of U.S. voters - and 65 percent of Latino voters planned to support the Democrat in their congressional district, com- pared with 47 percent of U.S. voters. They are pledging that sup- port even though only 26 percent of the voters said the policies of President Barack Obama's administration have helped Lati- nos. Thirteen percent said the administration's policies hurt Latinos, while 51 percent said they had no effect. "The Latino vote appears to continue to strongly identify with the Democratic Party," said Mark Lope, Pew Hispanic Cen- ter's associate director. A51percentLatinovoter turn- out would be a slight increase in turnout over 2008. But midterm turnout for all voters generally is lower than in presidential years. In 2006, about 32 percent of eli- gible Latino voters showed up at the polls. "Even though they say they plan to vote, many things may get in the way of actually turning out to vote," Lope said. About 19.3 million Latinos, the nation's largest minority group, are eligible to vote, Pew Hispan- ic estimates. Two of every three live in California, Texas, Florida or New York. Latinos voted more than 2-to- 1 for Obama in 2008. But the sagging economy and outrage among some voters has the Dem- ocratic Party concerned about a general apathy among its core supporters and some newer and independent voters. Latino voter turnout is gen- erally lower than for U.S. reg- istered voters overall. But the Latino share of all voters increased from 6 percent in 2004 to 7.4 percent in 2008, according to Pew Hispanic's data. Nearly half of Itino eligible voters say they voted in 2008. Some have suggested Latino voters would stay home because of lack of action on immigration reform legislation by the Obama administration. However, an Arizona immigrationlaw and the Obama administration's attempt to thwart may also serve as ral- lying points for get-out-the-vote drives among Latinos. Ben Monterroso, executive director of Mi Familia Vota, said his group is targeting new Lati- no voters in Texas, Arizona and Colorado who are less likely go vote. Mi Familia Vota is a group trying to increase Latino voting numbers. "Neighborhoods where we are working, from Houston to Phoenix, Yuma to Denver, we have seen the Latino community being interested in the elections out of the outrage" over Arizo- na's immigration law and anger over largely Republican votes against legislation that would have given many young people brought to the country illegally by their parents a chance to become legal U.S. residents. Immigration did not rank as a top voting issue for Latino regis- tered voters in the Pew Hispanic survey. It came in fifth behind education, jobs, health care and the federal budget deficit. But two-thirds of registered Latino voters say that have talk- ed about the immigration issue with someone they know in the past year. Those who had were more motivated to vote, the sur- vey found. The Pew Hispanic Center's survey also found: -Thirty-eight percent of Lati- no voters whose primary lan- guage is Spanish are absolutely certain to vote this year. -Republican Latino regis- tered voters are more likely than Democratic Latino registered voters to say they have given the election quite a lot of thought, 44 percent versus 28 percent. -Among Latino registered voters who identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, 18 percent say the GOP is better for Latinos than the Democratic Party, while 60 percent say they see no difference. The Pew Hispanic Center survey is based on telephone interviews done Aug. 17 through Sept. 19 by Social Science Research Solutions (SSRS) with 1,375 Latinos ages 18 and older. Of those surveyed, 618 were reg- istered voters. Some interviews were conducted in Spanish. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points for the sample of all Latinos, plus or minus 4.88 for registered Voters. U.S. wants similar action as 1992 START Treaty UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The Obama administration is hoping for an overwhelming Senate vote this year to ratify the new arms control treaty with Russia, the chief U.S. negotiator said yesterday. Rose Gottemoeller said chances for ratification of the New START Treaty in the "lame duck" session after the November midterm elec- tions are "good." She pointed to the 14-4 bipar- tisan vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month which sent the treaty to the full Senate, and the administration's efforts to build support including answering about 900 questions from senators and holding 18 hear- ings and four major briefings. Gottemoeller recalled that the 1992 START treaty to reduce the nuclear arsenals of the United States and then Soviet Union was the last major treaty ratified by the Senate on Oct. 1, 1992. "We are hoping that we will have the same kind of vote which was the vote for the START treaty, 95-0 against," she said. "We're looking for that kind of vote this time around as well." Gottemoeller, the assistant sec- retary of state for arms control, verification and compliance, spoke to reporters after addressing the U.N. General Assembly's disarma- ment committee where she said that in addition to pressing for a vote "as soon as possible," the U.S. wants to begin negotiations on a treaty to ban production of atomic bomb material and try again to rat- ify the nuclear testban treaty. Progress on the New START treaty has been slow since Presi- dent Barack Obama and Rus- sian President Dmitry Medvedev signed it in April. It would reduce the limit on strategic warheads to 1,550 for each country from the current ceiling of 2,200. It also would set new procedures that allow both countries to inspect each other's arsenals to verify compliance. When Gottemoeller was asked whether there were any chances for the treaty to be ratified this year, she replied: "Absolutely, yes." Martin Seligman Director, Positive Psychology Center Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology University of.Pennsylvania Positive 'Psychology& Positive Interventions Thursday, October 7,2010,4:00 PM Rackham Auditorium (ground floor) Also: Symposium on the Tanner Lecture Ruut Veenhoven, Erasmus University, Rotterdam Valerie Tiberius, University of Minnesota Kennon Sheldon, University of Missouri Friday, October 8, 2010, 9:00 AM - 1:0 PM Rackham Amphitheatre (fourth floor) Lunch follow All events open to the public without charge (www.lsa.umich.edu/philosophy)