Dogs join hunt for Calif. triple homicide suspect

PETROLIA, Calif. (AP) — Authorities hunting for a Northern California man suspected of killing of his wife and two young daughters have brought in dogs trained to search for cadavers.

While investigators have said they have no indication Shane Franklin Miller may be dead, the canines are part of a larger search through California's rugged and remote North Coast terrain.

More than 70 law enforcement officers from multiple jurisdictions are scouring the area for Miller, 45, suspected of killing his family last Tuesday in the rural community of Shingletown. All three victims were shot multiple times.

Investigators found Miller's abandoned pickup truck the next day near Petrolia, about 200 miles west of the home that Miller shared with his wife, Sandy, 34, and daughters, Shelby, 8, and Shasta, 5.

But they have found no traces of him.

"We're going up and down the area trying to figure out where he may have disappeared to," Humboldt County Sheriff's Lt. Wayne Hanson said Monday.

They've extensively searched the area where Miller's vehicle was found, Hanson said. Foot and air patrols including SWAT teams from various counties and U.S. Marshals will continue to canvass the area, he added.

The ground searches will also include door-to-door searches of residences in the area, the lieutenant said. Roadblocks will be maintained on main roads from Petrolia to Ferndale. Hanson said that's to protect residents if Miller tries to leave the area.

Meanwhile, about 100 people attended a community meeting on Sunday. Lieutenants from Humboldt and Shasta counties told the audience that an old acquaintance positively identified Miller as arriving in the area on Wednesday in the truck that was later found abandoned, Hanson said. The longtime acquaintance told officers that Miller did not appear to be angry or hostile.

Also during the meeting, Hanson said officials confirmed that a note written by Miller was found in the abandoned truck. Hanson could not provide further details on the contents of the note, but said if any of Miller's family members were mentioned, they would have been immediately notified by the authorities.

As schools reopened on Monday, authorities are asking people to be cautious in their daily activities and to lock their doors at night.

"Right now, we're residents to remain on alert and not to investigate anything themselves," Hanson said. "That's what we're here for."

Venezuela food maker denies blame for shortages

Venezuela's biggest food maker hits back at government, denies blame for food shortages

Associated Press -

Empresas Polar chief executive Lorenzo Mendoza gives a news conference at his office in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, May 13, 2013. Mendoza said Monday that, in his words, "the accusations that we are producing less than last year are false," rejecting President Nicolas Maduro's claims that it's to blame for the country's persistent food shortages. Mendoza offered to buy or rent government-owned corn processing plants to increase Venezuela's production, and food makers say shortages of basic foods like sugar, milk, butter and cornmeal stem from the socialist government's price controls and a lack of foreign currency to pay for imports. (AP Photo/Fernando Llano)

Minn. OKs gay marriage; governor to sign

Associated Press/Jim Mone - Thousands filled the Minnesota State Capitol as they waited for word that the Senate had passed the gay marriage bill Monday, May 13, 2013 in St. Paul, Minn. The bill now goes to the governor who is expected to sign it. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota is set to become the 12th U.S. state where gay couples can get married after a final legislative voteMonday that will let the weddings start on Aug. 1.

Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton has pledged to sign the bill, and scheduled a ceremony at 5 p.m. Tuesday on the front steps of the Capitol in St. Paul to do so.

Minnesota is now the first state in Midwest to legalize gay marriageby legislative vote, and the third nationwide in just 10 days, joining Rhode Island and Delaware. Thousands of gay marriage supportersthronging the Capitol erupted into deafening cheers after theSenate's 37-30 vote; the House passed it last week on a 75-59 vote.

"Members, God made gays," Sen. Ron Latz, a Democrat from a suburb of Minneapolis, said during the Senate's emotional four-hour debate. "And God made gays capable of loving other people. So who are we to quarrel with God's intentions?"

The gay marriage issue shifted quickly in Minnesota, with the Legislature's vote coming a little more than six months after voters defeated an amendment that would have banned gay marriage in the state constitution. The groups that led the campaign against the amendment swiftly turned to pushing for legalizing same-sex marriage, an effort aided when Democrats captured full control of state government in November.

Only one Republican senator, Branden Petersen of suburban Andover, voted for the bill. Three Democrats from rural districts voted against it.

Republican opponents said the bill alters a centuries-old understanding of marriage as a societal building block that benefits children.

"Forcing others to give you your rights will never end well," said Sen. Dan Hall, a Republican and a pastor. "It won't give you the recognition you desire." Hall said gay marriage supporters have told him he's on the wrong side of history but, he said, "the truth is I'm more concerned about being on the right side of eternity."

But supporters, too, cited religious faith and with relationships with gay family members and friends in shaping their vote for the bill. Many spoke of the benefits of their own marriages.

"I could never and I would never deny the kind of recognition and all the other positive things I get out of my marriage with my husband, to anyone else," said Sen. Vicki Jensen, a Democrat from the southern Minnesota city of Owatonna.

Republican opponents argued that the bill's provisions meant to protect religious freedom were insufficient, raising concerns it could force merchants in the wedding industry to accept business from gay couples even if the merchants object to such marriages.

"We must respect religious freedom at the same time as we advance rights," said Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester. "This bill does not do that."

Still, with passage looking inevitable Monday, vocal and visual opposition was muted. Don Lee, of Eagan, placed a tombstone on the Capitol lawn with the words "R.I.P. MARRIAGE 2013."

"The legislation being passed today is the end of marriage as we know it in Minnesota," Lee said. "It's a transformation from a forward-looking sacrificial institution to one focused on adult desires."

Supporters and opponents were close to evenly matched during the House debate, but Monday was dominated by gay marriage backers.

They taped blue and orange hearts on the Capitol steps, creating a path into the building for lawmakers with the signature colors of their movement. In the rotunda, demonstrators sang songs including "Over the Rainbow," ''Going to the Chapel" and "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Like Thursday, there was a stepped-up security presence. State troopers were posted inside and out, and areas of the building were cordoned off to allow lawmakers to move freely amid the expected throngs.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman ordered the Wabasha Street Bridge near downtown festooned in rainbow-striped gay pride flags, and temporarily renamed it the "Freedom to Marry Bridge." He also proclaimed it "Freedom to Marry Week."

Minnesota's most famous opponent of gay marriage also weighed in. U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, an ardent supporter of banning gay marriage when she served in the state Senate, released a statement expressing disappointment in a vote she said "denies religious liberty to people who believe in traditional marriage."

But gay couples were already thinking about wedding planning. Jeff Moses and his legal husband, John Westerfield-Moses, of Minneapolis, were married in Iowa four years ago, when the state's Supreme Court ruled to allow it.

Their anniversary is Aug. 23, a few weeks after a Minnesota law would take effect, and the couple is considering having a marriage ceremony here, too.

"Any excuse for a party," Jeff Moses said.

"It was bound to happen," John Westerfield-Moses added. "It was a train that was coming."

Jessica Flatequal and Maria Bevacqua, a lesbian couple from Mankato who have been together for a decade, were jubilant after the vote, as supporters spilled out of the front of the Capitol.

"We're excited to become equal citizens under the law," said Bevacqua, a professor at Minnesota State University-Mankato. Asked whether they would get married, both women laughed.

"Well, neither of us proposed today," Flatequal said. "But now that's going to be part of the discussion. It's weird, actually."

Ex-Penn St head was top paid among public colleges

Ex-Penn State President Spanier was highest paid public college president when forced out

Associated Press -

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) -- Former Penn State President Graham Spanier became the highest paid public college president of 2011-12 when he was forced out over his handling of the sex abuse scandal involving former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky, according to a survey released Sunday.

The Chronicle of Higher Education's annual ranking of public college presidents' earnings said Spanier's $2.9 million pay, which included $1.2 million in severance and $1.2 million in deferred compensation, put him well ahead of his peers when he left Penn State in November 2011.

Spanier, who led the college for 16 years, is awaiting trial on criminal charges of perjury, obstruction, endangering the welfare of children, failure to properly report suspected child abuse and conspiracy stemming from administrators' handling of sex abuse allegations against Sandusky. Spanier has vigorously denied the charges.

Sandusky was convicted in 2012 of abusing 10 boys and sentenced to 30 to 60 years in prison.

Former Florida A&M University President James Ammons also saw his place on the earning list rise amid scandal. He ranked 11th at $781,000 after collecting $422,000 in severance and bonuses when he resigned in the wake of the hazing death of a marching band member.

While the median compensation for public college presidents was $441,392, a 4.7 percent increase over 2010-11, Spanier was one of four chief executives to surpass the $1 million threshold in 2011-12, one more than the previous year. The others were Auburn University President Jay Gogue, who received $2.5 million; E. Gordon Gee of Ohio State University, who earned $1.9 million; and now-retired George Mason University's Alan Merten, whose total pay plus benefits and deferred compensation totaled $1.87 million.

Deferred compensation plans, meant as retention incentives, give executives a lump sum after a specified number of years on the job.

Ball State University's Jo Ann Gora collected $500,000 in deferred pay on top of $431,000 in base pay, launching her into the top five earners, with a total of $985,000. She was one of two women in the top 10, ranking just above Mary Sue Coleman of the University of Michigan, who earned $919,000. Coleman was the lone woman among last year's top 10.

Ammons, who is black, was the highest earning minority among the college presidents.

Gee, who topped the 2010-11 earnings list and became the first public college president in the million-dollar club in 2007-08, had the highest base salary last year: $830,439. That was more than double the median base salary, which inched up 2 percent to $373,800.

A separate analysis of the pay of private college presidents released by the Chronicle in December found 36 leaders received $1 million or more in 2010. The numbers are older because of lag time in the release of the federal tax information on which they are based.

The public college data is based on a survey of institutions. It analyzed compensation of 212 presidents at 191 public research institutions. The leaders outnumbered institutions because the survey included those whose tenures began or ended during the fiscal year.

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Gitmo prisoner: Obama has 'abandoned' detainees

FILE – In this March 30, 2010, file photo reviewed by the U.S. military, a U.S. trooper stands in the turret of a vehicle with a machine gun, left, as a guard looks out from a tower at the detention facility of Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba. Guantanamo Bay detainee Musa'ab Omar A Madhwani says in a federal court declaration he feels abandoned by President Barack Obama and the world after more than 10 years at the U.S. prison.(AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Guantanamo Bay detainee says he feels abandoned by President Barack Obama and the world after more than 10 years at the U.S. prison.

"I believe that President Obama must be unaware of the unbelievably inhumane conditions at the Guantanamo Bay prison, for otherwise he would surely do something to stop this torture," Yemeni prisoner Musa'ab Omar Al Madhwaniwrote in a federal court declaration this year.

About a month later, Obama renewed his vow to close the U.S. detention center in Cuba, but acknowledged one key obstacle: "It's a hard case to make because I think for a lot of Americans, the notion is 'out of sight, out of mind.'"

Al Madhwani is a strong example of the political thicket that Obama faces as he makes another run at fulfilling a 2008 campaign promise to close the prison — or at least transfer some detainees back to their countries. For one, Al Madhwani is from Yemen, and the administration has prohibited the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to that country since January 2010 because of security concerns after a would-be bomber attempted to blow up a U.S.-bound airliner on instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen.

For another, Al Madhwani already has lost a court challenge to his detention, despite the judge's conclusion that he was not a security threat to the U.S. Of 26 documents the government relied on containing statements Al Madhwani had made at Guantanamo, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan in Washington threw out 23, concluding they had been tainted by coercive interrogation by U.S. forces prior to his arrival at the Cuban prison.

That taint would make it difficult to convict Al Madhwani in a civilian court, or even a military tribunal, increasing the odds that Al Madhwani will remain in the limbo of indefinite detention. Many other detainees are in the same situation. To date, only two prisoners have been convicted in a trial by military tribunals at Guantanamo, and both were reversed by the federal appeals court in Washington (although one remains under review). The five other convictions of Guantanamo prisoners came through plea bargains.

In Obama's first week in office, he signed an executive order to close Guantanamo, but Congress has used its budgetary power to block detainees from being moved to the U.S. On Saturday, Attorney General Eric Holder criticized what he called Congress' "unwise and unwarranted restrictions on where certain detainees could be housed, charged and prosecuted."

"Throughout history, our federal courts have proven to be an unparalleled instrument for bringing terrorists to justice," Holder told law school graduates of the University of California, Berkeley. "They have enabled us to convict scores of people of terrorism-related offenses since Sept. 11."

Like most of the 166 prisoners remaining at Guantanamo, Al Madhwani is participating in a hunger strike to protest his detention and prison conditions. "Indefinite detention is the worst form of torture," wrote Al Madhwani, who is in his 11th year at the prison and has never been charged with a crime.

The judge said he found Al Madhwani's testimony about harsh treatment at the hands of U.S. forces in Afghanistan prisons to be credible.

"Before Guantanamo, he had endured 40 days of solitary confinement, severe physical and mental abuse, malnourishment, sensory deprivation, anxiety and insomnia," Hogan said. But the judge ruled that statements Al Madhwani made during two military administrative hearings at Guantanamo were reliable and sufficient to justify holding him, because he had been "part of" al-Qaida.

Still, the judge seemed to come to that conclusion reluctantly.

"As a young, unemployed, undereducated Yemeni, Petitioner (Al Madhwani) was particularly vulnerable to the demagoguery of religious fanatics," Hogan wrote in the January 2010 opinion. He was "at best, a low-level al-Qaida figure."

Last month, a Constitution Project task force on detainee treatment, concluded that the U.S. engaged in torture in treatment of suspected terrorists. The high-profile task force listed Al Madhwani's case as an example of court findings of evidence of torture and abuse. The Constitution Project is a nonpartisan Washington-based thinktank.

Of the prisoners remaining at Guantanamo, 86 have been cleared for transfer to other countries, but Al Madhwani isn't one of them. That "really causes us to scratch our heads, because we believe, of all the people we've met, he's as harmless as any of them," said Al Madhwani's lawyer Darold Killmer, who also represents some detainees who have been cleared for transfer.

This year, Al Madhwani filed a motion in the D.C. federal court for humanitarian relief, claiming that Guantanamo officials had shown "deliberate indifference" to his medical needs. Hogan denied the motion, ruling that federal law bars him from reviewing claims about an enemy combatant's conditions of confinement.

In support of his failed motion, Al Madhwani wrote:

"Both of my parents have died during the time that I have been in prison in Guantanamo Bay. They were waiting for me to come home and now they are gone. I am afraid that my entire family will be dead before I am released from this prison. ... I have no reason to believe that I will ever leave this prison alive. It feels like death would be a better fate than living in these conditions."

Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a Defense Department spokesman, said the U.S. remains in armed conflict with al-Qaida, and that the Authorization for Use of Military Force, which Congress passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, allows for the detention of enemy forces.

While the U.S. has prosecuted some detainees, he said, it isn't obligated to conduct trials while hostilities continue.

Al Madhwani insisted he's done nothing against the U.S. and never would.

"But if anyone believes that I have done anything wrong, I beg them to charge me with a crime, try me and sentence me. If not, release me."

Obama expressed the same sentiment two weeks ago when he said: "The idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried — that is contrary to who we are, it is contrary to our interests, and it needs to stop."

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