Sendler, savior of Warsaw Ghetto children, dies
Written by admin on May 12, 2008 – 11:48 am -
WARSAW (Reuters) - Irena Sendler, a Polish woman who saved thousands of Jewish children during World War Two by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, died in the Polish capital on Monday after a long illness, local media said.
Israel’s Holocaust remembrance authority, Yad Vashem, said in a statement that it mourned her death.
The web portal of Poland’s leading daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, said Sendler, 98, died in Plocka Street hospital early on Monday. The hospital declined to comment on the report.
Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev said: “Irena Sendler’s courageous activities rescuing Jews during the Holocaust serve as a beacon of light to the world, inspiring hope and restoring faith in the innate goodness of mankind.”
Using her position as a social worker, Sendler regularly entered the ghetto, smuggling around 2,500 children out in boxes, suitcases or hidden in trolleys.
The children were then placed with Polish families outside the ghetto, created by Nazi Germany in 1940 for the city’s half a million strong Jewish population, and given new identities.
But in 1943 Sendler, who led the children’ section of the Zegota organization which helped Jews during the war, was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo.
She only escaped execution when Zegota managed to bribe some Nazi officials, who left her unconscious but alive with broken legs and arms in the woods.
“People who stand up for others, for the weak, are very rare. The world would have been a better place if there were more of them,” Marek Edelman, the last surviving commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, said on national television.
His sentiments were echoed by former Polish President Lech Walesa as well as religious leaders.
Sendler was honored with Israeli Yad Vashem Righteous Among the Nations medal in 1965 for her actions, and later made an honorary Israeli citizen.
She was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize last year but, despite her bravery, she denied she was a hero.
“The term ‘hero’ irritates me greatly. The opposite is true. I continue to have pangs of conscience that I did so little,” Sendler said in one of her last interviews.
(Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Jon Boyle)………
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Families will make case for vaccine link to autism
Written by admin on May 12, 2008 – 11:46 am -By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer
Mon May 12, 12:43 AM ET
WASHINGTON - Families claiming that a mercury-based preservative in vaccines triggers autism will challenge mainstream medicine Monday as they take their case to a federal court.
They seek vindication and financial redress from a government fund that helps people injured by shots.
Two 10-year-old boys from Portland, Ore., will serve as test cases that determine whether the children and their families in similar situations should be compensated. Attorneys for the boys will attempt to show the boys were happy, healthy and developing normally. But, after being exposed to vaccines with thimerosal, they began to regress and show symptoms of autism.
Thimerosal has been removed in recent years from standard childhood vaccines, except flu vaccines that are not packaged in single-doses. The CDC says single-dose flu shots currently are available only in limited quantities. In 2004, a committee with the Institute of Medicine concluded there was no credible evidence that vaccines containing thimerosal caused autism.
Overall, nearly 4,900 families have filed claims with the U.S. Court of Claims alleging that vaccines caused autism and other neurological problems in their children. Lawyers for the families will present three different theories of how vaccines caused autism.
The Office of Special Masters of the claims court has instructed the plaintiffs to designate three test cases for each of the three theories — nine cases in all — and has assigned three special masters to handle the cases. Three cases in the first category were heard last year, but no decisions have been reached.
The two cases beginning Monday are among the three that focus on the second theory of causation: that thimerosal-containing vaccines alone cause autism. The plaintiff in the third case originally scheduled for hearing this month has withdrawn and lawyers and court officials are working to agree on substitute case.
Hearings in the test cases for the third theory of causation are scheduled in mid-September.
Lawyers for the petitioning families in the cases being heard this month say they will present evidence that injections with thimerosal deposit a form of mercury in the brain. That mercury excites certain brain cells that stay chronically activated trying to get rid of the intrusion.
“In some kids, there’s enough of it that it sets off this chronic neuroinflammatory pattern that can lead to regressive autism,” said attorney Mike Williams.
In the end, the families’ attorneys hope to convince the special master hearing their case that thimerosal belongs on the list of causes for the inflammation that leads to regressive autism.
To win, the attorneys for the two boys, William Mead and Jordan King, will have to show that it”s more likely than not that the vaccine actually caused the injury.
Many members of the medical community are skeptical of the families’ claims. They worry that the claims about the dangers of vaccines could cause some people to forgo vaccines that prevent illness.
“I think that what’s so endearing to me about the anti-vaccine people is they’re perfectly willing to go from one hypothesis to the next without a backward glance,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Autism is a developmental disability that typically appears during the first three years of life and affects a person’s ability to communicate and interact with others. Dr. Andrew Gerber, a psychiatrist, said that medical experts don’t have a comprehensive understanding of what causes autism, but they do know there is a strong hereditary component.
Toxins from the environment could play a role, but currently, data does not support that they do, Gerber said.
Arguments are scheduled to go on throughout the month. A final decision could take several more months. Claims that are successful would result in compensation taking into account lost earnings after age 18 and up to $250,000 for pain and suffering.
The families or the federal government can also appeal the decision of the special master to the Court of Federal Claims or to a federal appeals court.
The court Web site says more than 12,500 claims have been filed since creation of the program in 1987, including more than 5,300 autism cases, and that more than $1.7 billion has been paid in claims. It says there is now more than $2.7 billion a trust fund supported by an excise tax on each dose of vaccine covered by the program.
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Reno urged to prepare for worse as earthquakes continue
Written by admin on April 27, 2008 – 7:38 am -By MARTIN GRIFFITH, Associated Press Writer
Sat Apr 26, 7:38 PM ET
RENO, Nev. - Scientists urged residents of northern Nevada’s largest city to prepare for a bigger event as the area continued rumbling Saturday after the largest earthquake in a two-month-long series of temblors.
More than 100 aftershocks were recorded on the western edge of the city after a magnitude 4.7 quake hit Friday night, the strongest quake around Reno since one measuring 5.2 in 1953, said researchers at the seismological laboratory at the University of Nevada, Reno.
The latest quake swept store shelves clean, cracked walls in homes and dislodged rocks on hillsides, but there were no reports of injuries or widespread major damage.
Seismologists said the recent activity is unusual because the quakes started out small and continue to build in strength. The normal pattern is for a main quake followed by smaller aftershocks.
“A magnitude 6 quake wouldn’t be a scientific surprise,” John Anderson, director of the seismological lab, said Saturday. “We certainly hope residents are taking the threat seriously after last night.”
But Anderson stressed there was no way to predict what would happen, and said the sequence of quakes also could end without a major one.
Reno’s last major quake measured 6.1 on April 24, 1914, and was felt as far away as Berkeley, Calif., said Craig dePolo, research geologist with the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology.
A rockslide triggered by Friday night’s quake was blamed for causing a 125-foot breach in a wooden flume that carries water to one of two water treatment plants in Reno, a city of about 210,000.
A backup pump was used to divert water to the plant, and the breach was not expected to cause any water shortages, said Aaron Kenneston, Washoe County emergency management officer.
The U.S. Geological Survey said Friday night’s quake was centered around Mogul, just west of Reno. The area of upscale homes along the eastern Sierra was rattled by more than 100 quakes the day before, the strongest a magnitude 4.2 that caused high-rise casinos to sway in downtown Reno.
The strongest aftershock measured 3.7 and was recorded early Saturday.
Mike Lentini of Reno said Friday night’s quake felt “like a big truck hit the building” and awakened his family.
“It’s the unknown. It’s shaking, and when’s it going to stop?” he said Saturday. “And when stuff starts falling off the shelves it’s a whole other ballgame.”
Jars of mayonnaise and bottles of ketchup and shampoo fell from shelves at a Wal-Mart store in northwest Reno. Overhead televisions swayed at a sports bar in neighboring Sparks, 11 miles east, where bartender Shawn Jones said the rumble was significantly stronger than Thursday’s event.
“The bottles were shaking, so I sent everybody outside,” he said.
Hundreds of mostly minor quakes have occurred along one or possibly more faults since the sequence began Feb. 28, said Ken Smith, a seismologist at the Reno laboratory. The quakes have occurred along an area about 2 miles long and a half-mile wide.
“We can’t put a number on it, but the probability of a major earthquake has increased with this sequence,” Smith said Saturday. “People need to prepare for ground shaking because there’s no way to say how this will play out.”
Among other things, scientists urged residents to stock up on water and food, to learn how to turn off water and gas, and to strap down bookshelves, televisions and computers.
“It’s getting a little bit frightening,” Daryl DiBitonto of Reno told the Reno Gazette-Journal. “I’m very concerned about this increase in not only activity, but also in magnitude.”
The quakes around Reno began a week after a magnitude 6 temblor in the northern Nevada town of Wells, near the Utah border. The Feb. 21 quake caused an estimated $778,000 in damage to homes, schools and historic downtown buildings, dePolo said.
Scientists said they’re unsure whether the seismic activity at opposite sides of Nevada is related.
Nevada is the third most seismically active state in the U.S. behind California and Alaska. The Wells quake was the 15th of at least magnitude 6 in the state’s 143-year history.
A magnitude-7.4 quake south of Winnemucca in 1915 is the most powerful in state history.
___
Associated Press writer Scott Sonner in Reno contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
U.S. Geological Survey: http://www.usgs.gov
University of Nevada, Reno, seismology lab: http://www.seismo.unr.educ
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Lolcat site hiring; spelling skillz optional
Written by admin on April 27, 2008 – 7:35 am -By PETER SVENSSON, AP Technology Writer
Wed Apr 23, 5:49 PM ET
NEW YORK - “I can haz dream Job? My rezumez! let me showz u thm”
That’s the subject line of a cover letter sent by a job applicant to I Can Has Cheezburger, one of the premier sites for so-called Lolcat pictures.
Don’t think the letter will be rejected out of hand — bad spelling is no obstacle to a job in Lolcat world. It may even be an asset.
Lolcats became an Internet craze last year. A typical example shows a picture of a fat and hopeful cat accompanied by a caption in a baby-talk-like dialect known as Lolspeak: “I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER?”
Apparently, looking at Lolcats all day is an appealing job. Ben Huh, founder of the site and chief executive of Seattle-based Pet Holdings Inc., has received 250 applications since the job was posted on Monday under the headline “Kittehs Want Moar Workerhumans.”
“I got a stack of resumes that I can’t even go through,” Huh said. “You know how they say, ‘Spell everything correctly because the people reading your resume will toss it out otherwise?’ Well, we can’t even do that. We won’t knock you out for spelling…. The traditional resume screening methods don’t apply here.”
The winning applicant will join three other people who moderate ICHC and a few related Pet Holdings sites (think dogs with funny captions). A big part of the job will be selecting from the 7,000 submissions the company receives every day of captioned photos, plus 2,000 uncaptioned ones.
Cat ownership is not required, just “a great sense of humor, a deep understanding and love of the Internets and a strong work ethic.”
___
On the Net:
http://www.icanhascheezburger.com
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Clinton backers warn Pelosi on superdelegate rift
Written by admin on March 27, 2008 – 4:50 am -WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of prominent Hillary Clinton donors sent a letter to House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday asking her to retract her comments on superdelegates and stay out of the Democratic fight over their role in the presidential race.
The 20 prominent Clinton supporters told Pelosi she should “clarify” recent statements to make it clear superdelegates — nearly 800 party insiders and elected officials who are free to back any candidate — could support the candidate they think would be the best nominee.
Pelosi has not publicly endorsed either Clinton or Barack Obama in their hotly contested White House battle, but she recently said superdelegates should support whoever emerges from the nomination contests with the most pledged delegates — which appears almost certain to be Obama.
“This is an untenable position that runs counter to the party’s intent in establishing superdelegates in 1984,” the letter from the wealthy Clinton backers said.
“Superdelegates, like all delegates, have an obligation to make an informed, individual decision about whom to support and who would be the party’s strongest nominee,” said the letter signed by some of Clinton’s biggest fund raisers.
Superdelegates have emerged as likely kingmakers in the fight between Clinton and Obama. The letter was another sign of growing Democratic tension over their nominating battle.
Neither candidate is expected to have enough pledged delegates won in state-by-state contests to clinch the nomination when voting ends in June, leaving the choice in the hands of the superdelegates.
Both candidates have wooed them heavily, with Obama contending they should follow the will of Democratic voters and Clinton arguing they should vote for the candidate with the best chance of winning the presidential election in November — which she says is her.
Among the signees of the letter were prominent Democrats and Clinton supporters like Robert Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television; Bernard Schwartz, former chairman of Loral Space and Communications; and venture capitalist Steven Rattner.
The signees reminded the House leader from California of their support for the party’s House campaign committee and said “therefore” she should “reflect in your comments a more open view” about superdelegates.
“We appreciate your activities in support of the Democratic Party and your leadership role in the party and hope you will be responsive to some of your major enthusiastic supporters,” the letter said.
The Obama campaign said the Illinois senator would support the election efforts of House Democrats no matter what the outcome of the nomination fight.
“This letter is inappropriate and we hope the Clinton campaign will reject the insinuation contained in it,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.
Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said Clinton had made the case superdelegates should exercise independent judgment about who would be the best for the party and the country.
“Few have done more to build the Democratic Party than Bill and Hillary Clinton. The last thing they need is a lecture from the Obama campaign,” he said.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters “Tales from the Trail: 2008″ online at http:blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)
source:news.yahoo
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Clinton backers warn Pelosi on superdelegate rift
Written by admin on March 27, 2008 – 4:50 am -WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A group of prominent Hillary Clinton donors sent a letter to House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday asking her to retract her comments on superdelegates and stay out of the Democratic fight over their role in the presidential race.
The 20 prominent Clinton supporters told Pelosi she should “clarify” recent statements to make it clear superdelegates — nearly 800 party insiders and elected officials who are free to back any candidate — could support the candidate they think would be the best nominee.
Pelosi has not publicly endorsed either Clinton or Barack Obama in their hotly contested White House battle, but she recently said superdelegates should support whoever emerges from the nomination contests with the most pledged delegates — which appears almost certain to be Obama.
“This is an untenable position that runs counter to the party’s intent in establishing superdelegates in 1984,” the letter from the wealthy Clinton backers said.
“Superdelegates, like all delegates, have an obligation to make an informed, individual decision about whom to support and who would be the party’s strongest nominee,” said the letter signed by some of Clinton’s biggest fund raisers.
Superdelegates have emerged as likely kingmakers in the fight between Clinton and Obama. The letter was another sign of growing Democratic tension over their nominating battle.
Neither candidate is expected to have enough pledged delegates won in state-by-state contests to clinch the nomination when voting ends in June, leaving the choice in the hands of the superdelegates.
Both candidates have wooed them heavily, with Obama contending they should follow the will of Democratic voters and Clinton arguing they should vote for the candidate with the best chance of winning the presidential election in November — which she says is her.
Among the signees of the letter were prominent Democrats and Clinton supporters like Robert Johnson, founder of Black Entertainment Television; Bernard Schwartz, former chairman of Loral Space and Communications; and venture capitalist Steven Rattner.
The signees reminded the House leader from California of their support for the party’s House campaign committee and said “therefore” she should “reflect in your comments a more open view” about superdelegates.
“We appreciate your activities in support of the Democratic Party and your leadership role in the party and hope you will be responsive to some of your major enthusiastic supporters,” the letter said.
The Obama campaign said the Illinois senator would support the election efforts of House Democrats no matter what the outcome of the nomination fight.
“This letter is inappropriate and we hope the Clinton campaign will reject the insinuation contained in it,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.
Clinton spokesman Phil Singer said Clinton had made the case superdelegates should exercise independent judgment about who would be the best for the party and the country.
“Few have done more to build the Democratic Party than Bill and Hillary Clinton. The last thing they need is a lecture from the Obama campaign,” he said.
(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
(To read more about the U.S. political campaign, visit Reuters “Tales from the Trail: 2008″ online at http:blogs.reuters.com/trail08/)
source:news.yahoo
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AK-47s are turning up more in US
Written by admin on March 27, 2008 – 4:45 am -KENNER, La. - The cake had been served and the children were jumping up and down in a big, inflatable castle when the birthday party turned to bedlam.
Clarence McGraw’s jaw dropped as he saw the visitors coming, guns drawn. The screaming began.
Children ran everywhere in the courtyard of the low-income apartment complex; adults fell to the ground. Bullets flew. The killers wounded three youngsters, but for reasons police can’t explain, it was 19-year-old McGraw they were after.
As McGraw lay in the center of the green square, the gunmen stood over him and fired again. He was shot 15 to 20 times in all.
The Sept. 15 killing was remarkable in that it took place in the most innocent of settings — the fifth birthday of twin boys. But it was unremarkable in that one of the guns brandished was an AK-47-type rifle — a powerful, rapid-fire weapon that has long been used in Third World conflicts but is increasingly being used in American street fights.
Figures from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, obtained by The Associated Press through public records requests, show a marked increase in the number of AK-type weapons traced and entered into the agency’s computer database because they had been seized or connected to a crime.
The number of such tracings rose even while the federal assault weapons ban was in effect and has continued to climb since its expiration.
Since 1993, the year before the ban took affect, ATF has recorded a more than sevenfold increase in 7.62×39mm guns — which includes the original Russian-made AK-47 and a variety of copycats from around the world. The number of AK-type guns rose from 1,140 in 1993 to 8,547 last year.
Since 2005, the first full year after the ban’s expiration, ATF has recorded an 11 percent increase in such tracings.
ATF says the increases in the first half of the 1990s are partly the result of wider usage of its weapons database by local law enforcement agencies. But after that point, the numbers reflect a real increase in tracings of AK-type guns, the agency acknowledged.
The numbers corroborate what police chiefs around the country have been saying: AKs and other so-called assault weapons are terrorizing their communities and endangering their officers.
The numbers are reflected in some of the most horrifying violence of the past year, including a deadly shooting rampage at a department store in Omaha, Neb.
They’re reflected in the growing number of police forces equipping their officers with higher-powered guns to match the bad guys’ firepower.
And they’re reflected in a single 72-hour period in September that started with the shooting of four Miami-area officers and ended here, in a drab apartment complex just outside New Orleans.
___
On Thursday, Sept. 13, Jose Somohano, a 37-year-old officer with the Miami-Dade Police, was cut down during a traffic stop in suburban Miami by a man with an AK-type weapon. Three other officers — armed, like Somohano, with just handguns — were wounded, one of them suffering a bullet wound the size of a grapefruit in her leg.
By midnight, the gunman, Shawn LaBeet, had been shot to death by police after a huge manhunt.
Police have refused to say how many times Somohano was hit or how many shell casings were found.
The officer’s wife, Elizabeth Somohano, had gone off to her job at an insurance company earlier that day, and just before noon, Jose’s sister reached her at the office. “Have you heard?” she asked. Something was going on in the area Jose patrolled.
Elizabeth called his cell. She text-messaged him, over and over. She called her kids to see if they had heard from him. She checked the Internet to find out what was happening, and learned that officers had been shot and a gunman was on the loose.
A colleague of Jose’s — one of his closest friends — called Elizabeth and told her to stay put. He showed up at her office, and when their eyes met, he broke into tears.
“He didn’t make it,” he told her. She screamed.
Later, she took some comfort in knowing that her husband had eaten lunch that day, which meant he must have seen the hot-pink note she had slipped into his lunch bag along with his chicken salad-on-pita sandwich: “I love you, macho man.”
Days before the ambush, Miami Police Chief John Timoney agreed to let patrol officers carry assault rifles to help counter the use of such weapons by criminals. John Rivera, president of the Dade County Police Benevolent Association, pleaded for the same for officers in the Miami-Dade department, which protects more than 1.4 million people around the city.
“It’s almost like we have water pistols,” he said.
For years, only SWAT teams and the like carried AR-15s or similarly powerful weapons. But police forces nationwide have increased their firepower to match the criminals’ arsenal — not only in urban areas such as Miami and Los Angeles, but in Waterloo, Iowa, Stillwater, Okla., Danbury, Conn., and Merced, Calif.
“We’re in an arms race,” said Police Chief Scott Knight of Chaska, Minn., chairman of the firearms committee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
___
On Friday, Sept. 14, along the Tigris River outside Baghdad, an alleged Shiite extremist linked to roadside bombings was taken into custody with his AK-47s and grenades. In Afghanistan, in villages south of Kabul, troops arrested three suspected Taliban militants and confiscated their weapons, including their AKs. And in Sydney, Australia, a former soldier pleaded guilty to gunning down a photographer with an AK in a contract killing.
With AK-47-type guns used in wars and insurrections all over the world, some 250,000 people are said to be killed by such weapons each year, and more than 75 million are believed to be in existence. In Iraq alone, congressional investigators estimate 110,000 AKs bought by the U.S. for security forces there cannot be accounted for.
The AK was designed by Mikhail Kalashnikov and went into production in 1947, with its name standing for Avtomat Kalashnikova and the year.
“Once the Wall fell, these guns were everywhere,” said Carlos Baixauli, an agent with ATF.
Kalashnikov, who is now 88 and still lives in Russia, has said he is proud of his invention but saddened it’s been used by terrorists. He said he wishes he had invented something like a lawnmower.
Bullets fired by AK-47s travel at a higher velocity than those from many other weapons, and can do grievous damage to the body. Often they have enough energy to pass clear through.
Knockoffs of the AK can be bought from legitimate gun dealers for as little as $300, and are also available on the street. Original Russian-made models are more expensive. Normal ammo clips hold 30 rounds, but higher-capacity ones are also available.
Most of the AKs on American streets are semiautomatic, meaning they fire as fast as the gunman can squeeze the trigger. Fully automatic ones, common on the battlefield, require just one pull of the trigger to release a burst of fire.
A 2004 study by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence concluded the U.S. ban on AKs and other guns was successful, saying in the five years before its passage, assault weapons made up 4.82 percent of ATF crime gun traces, compared with 1.61 percent between 1995 and 2003.
Many politicians, police chiefs and gun control advocates point to the expiration of the assault weapons ban as a reason for the spread of the guns. But many others argue the law was so riddled with loopholes that it had little effect.
The National Rifle Association says the focus must be getting criminals off the streets, not more legislation.
“The basic reason why gun control laws fail is that they require the cooperation of a very unlikely source, and that is criminals,” said NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam. “Each time you pass a gun control law, the only people that are going to be affected by that law, the only people that are going to follow that law are law-abiding Americans.”
___
On Saturday, Sept. 15, at the Glenwood Apartments in Kenner, Trinioucka Martin rose early and cooked all morning for her twin boys’ birthday party — meatballs, fried chicken, baked macaroni, sandwiches. She had already ordered a cake with the youngsters’ picture on it, hired a DJ, and rented the inflatable castle and house.
McGraw woke up at his aunt’s house across a highway from the apartment complex and had a hankering for something sweet. He wanted some cake.
At the party, after the crowd had dispersed and the officers arrived, McGraw lay dead on the ground near a sewer grate, his torso and lower body riddled with bullet wounds. Balloons still floated from ribbon; the “Happy Birthday” banner still hung.
No arrests have been made. McGraw was buried in a $450 grave against a chain-link fence in a crumbling New Orleans cemetery. The mound of dirt above his casket is littered with rocks and bone fragments and teeth. There was no money for a marker.
source:news.yahoo
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AK-47s are turning up more in US
Written by admin on March 27, 2008 – 4:44 am -KENNER, La. - The cake had been served and the children were jumping up and down in a big, inflatable castle when the birthday party turned to bedlam.
Clarence McGraw’s jaw dropped as he saw the visitors coming, guns drawn. The screaming began.
Children ran everywhere in the courtyard of the low-income apartment complex; adults fell to the ground. Bullets flew. The killers wounded three youngsters, but for reasons police can’t explain, it was 19-year-old McGraw they were after.
As McGraw lay in the center of the green square, the gunmen stood over him and fired again. He was shot 15 to 20 times in all.
The Sept. 15 killing was remarkable in that it took place in the most innocent of settings — the fifth birthday of twin boys. But it was unremarkable in that one of the guns brandished was an AK-47-type rifle — a powerful, rapid-fire weapon that has long been used in Third World conflicts but is increasingly being used in American street fights.
Figures from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, obtained by The Associated Press through public records requests, show a marked increase in the number of AK-type weapons traced and entered into the agency’s computer database because they had been seized or connected to a crime.
The number of such tracings rose even while the federal assault weapons ban was in effect and has continued to climb since its expiration.
Since 1993, the year before the ban took affect, ATF has recorded a more than sevenfold increase in 7.62×39mm guns — which includes the original Russian-made AK-47 and a variety of copycats from around the world. The number of AK-type guns rose from 1,140 in 1993 to 8,547 last year.
Since 2005, the first full year after the ban’s expiration, ATF has recorded an 11 percent increase in such tracings.
ATF says the increases in the first half of the 1990s are partly the result of wider usage of its weapons database by local law enforcement agencies. But after that point, the numbers reflect a real increase in tracings of AK-type guns, the agency acknowledged.
The numbers corroborate what police chiefs around the country have been saying: AKs and other so-called assault weapons are terrorizing their communities and endangering their officers.
The numbers are reflected in some of the most horrifying violence of the past year, including a deadly shooting rampage at a department store in Omaha, Neb.
They’re reflected in the growing number of police forces equipping their officers with higher-powered guns to match the bad guys’ firepower.
And they’re reflected in a single 72-hour period in September that started with the shooting of four Miami-area officers and ended here, in a drab apartment complex just outside New Orleans.
___
On Thursday, Sept. 13, Jose Somohano, a 37-year-old officer with the Miami-Dade Police, was cut down during a traffic stop in suburban Miami by a man with an AK-type weapon. Three other officers — armed, like Somohano, with just handguns — were wounded, one of them suffering a bullet wound the size of a grapefruit in her leg.
By midnight, the gunman, Shawn LaBeet, had been shot to death by police after a huge manhunt.
Police have refused to say how many times Somohano was hit or how many shell casings were found.</