Every day, we wake up with a choice. We can choose to embrace the day as a new opportunity to learn, grow, and make a positive impact on the world, or we can let fear, doubt, and negativity hold us back. It's easy to get caught up in the challenges and obstacles we face, but it's important to remember that these challenges are what shape us into who we are. Each obstacle is a chance to learn something new, to become stronger, more resilient, and more capable than we were before.
But we don't hav
(CNN) -- Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft is not immune from being sued by a man who says he was illegally detained under Justice Department policies implemented after the September 11 terror attacks, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.
A spokesman for former Attorney General John Ashcroft says his team is reviewing the decision.
The man, a native-born U.S. citizen who was once a college football star, was held and interrogated by the FBI for 16 days in 2003 and his travel was limited for another year, court documents said.
A spokesman for Ashcroft, asked for his reaction, said, "We're reviewing the decision and have no further comment."
The court rejected Ashcroft's argument that his involvement was as a prosecutor, which would give him full immunity from lawsuits, not as an investigator, which could leave him liable.
"We disagree," the decision said. "Many tools and tactics available to prosecutors can serve either an investigatory or advocacy-related function."
Abdullah al-Kidd's lawyers said Ashcroft developed a policy under which the FBI and Justice Department would use the federal material witness law as a pretext "to arrest and detain terrorism suspects about whom they did not have sufficient evidence to arrest on criminal charges but wished to hold preventively or to investigate further."
His arrest warrant was based on an FBI affidavit that said he was needed to testify at the trial of a Saudi man who had been indicted on visa fraud. Al-Kidd was never called as a witness in that case, in which the defendant was acquitted, court documents said.
The decision said that "al-Kidd's arrest functioned as an investigatory arrest or national security-related pre-emptive detention, rather than as one to secure a witness's testimony for trial."
Al-Kidd, an African-American born in Wichita, Kansas, converted to Islam and changed his name from Lavini T. Kidd, according to court documents.
He was taken into custody at Dulles International Airport in northern Virginia as he prepared to depart to Saudi Arabia, where he planned to study Arabic and Islamic law, the documents said.
The FBI interrogated him, moving him from Virginia to Oklahoma and then Idaho, court documents said. He was kept in chains while being held in high-security cells that were lit 24 hours a day, his lawyers said.
A judge ordered his release 16 days later, but he was required to surrender his passport and stay in Nevada for another 15 months.
During that time, he lost his job with a government contractor because he could not get a required security clearance. The father of two also was divorced by his wife.
The FBI began watching al-Kidd months before detaining him, as part of their anti-terror investigation aimed at Muslim men, his lawyers said.
When agents learned of his plans to fly to Saudi Arabia, they obtained the "material witness" warrant based on their contention he would not return.
The agents failed to tell the magistrate who issued the warrant that al-Kidd was an American citizen with family in the United States, or that he had previously cooperated with the FBI, his lawyers said. They also told the judge he had a one-way ticket, when he actually held a round-trip ticket, they said.
(AP) Oregon suspended running back LeGarrette Blount on Friday for the remainder of season for punching Boise State defensive end Byron Hout.
As Boise State began celebrating on their famous blue turf, Hout yelled in Blount's face and tapped him on the shoulder pad. Before Broncos head coach Chris Petersen could pull Hout away, Blount landed a right to Hout's jaw, knocking him to his knees.
Blount also had to be restrained by police officers from fans heckling him on the way to the locker room after No. 16 Oregon's 19-8 loss Thursday to the No. 14 Broncos.
Blount's suspension includes any bowl games. Coach Chip Kelly said Blount will remain on scholarship.
Hout will not be suspended for taunting Blount. Boise State spokesman Max Corbet told The Associated Press in an e-mail that Petersen planned to spend time with Hout this week to help him learn from what happened.
Mike Bellotti, who stepped aside as head coach to become Oregon's athletic director this summer, said the Pac-10 was consulted about the punishment and supported Oregon's decision.
Pac-10 commissioner Larry Scott was at the game and saw the altercation firsthand.
After the game, Blount apologized for his actions.
"It was just something that I shouldn't have done," said Blount, who had eight carries for a loss of five yards. "I lost my head."
Regardless, Oregon University president Richard Lariviere called Blount's behavior "reprehensible."
"We do not and will not tolerate the actions that were taken by our player. Oregon's loyal fans expect and deserve better," Lariviere said in a statement. "The University of Oregon Athletics Department is reviewing the situation and will take appropriate action, reflecting the seriousness of the player's behavior."
In February, Blount was suspended indefinitely from the team for "failure to fulfill team obligations." Bellotti did not share any details, elaborate at the time, but Blount reportedly missed offseason team meetings.
He was reinstated before spring practice.
Blount, a 6-foot-2, 240-pound transfer from East Mississippi CC, rushed for 1,0002 yards and a school-record 17 touchdowns last season.
A man who told authorities "My whole family's dead!" in a frantic call to police has been charged with killing the eight people attacked in his family's mobile home in coastal Georgia.
Guy Heinze Jr., 22, was arrested Friday on eight counts of first-degree murder in the slayings last weekend at a mobile home park a few miles north of Brunswick, a port city midway between Savannah and Jacksonville, Florida. Among those killed were seven of Heinze's relatives.
Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering would not say what evidence led police to charge Heinze. The suspect was returned to the county jail Friday less than two hours after his release on bond on lesser charges.
The chief also declined to say whether police think Heinze acted alone or with others.
"Right now, I don't know," Doering said. "I do know he's involved... I would have not allowed him to be arrested if I was not comfortable with that."
Doering said he wasn't sure Heinze was responsible for the deaths until late Friday afternoon when two new pieces of evidence became available, but he wouldn't say what they were.
In the call to emergency dispatchers early Aug. 29, Heinze said he'd come home to find the bodies and that it appeared the victims had been beaten to death. Seven were found dead at the scene, an eighth died at a hospital, and the attack's only survivor remained hospitalized after being critically injured.
"It's the most heinous crime we've ever had in this community," said Doering, who insists that revealing details about the slayings could jeopardize the investigation.
Police haven't released causes of death for the victims. But Doering identified the lone survivor as 3-year-old Byron Jimmerson Jr., the son of one of the slain women.
Hours after the bodies were found, Heinze was charged with evidence tampering, lying to police and drug possession, but police didn't say until Friday that they suspected him of the killings. The arrest warrant for the evidence tampering charge says Heinze admitted to removing a shotgun from the home and trying to hide it from police in the trunk of his car. He told police he thought the gun was stolen.
Heinze had been briefly released on bond on the lesser charges and arrested again later Friday, as family members of the slain victims gathered for a funeral home visitation the night before all seven were to be buried Saturday.
The dead included the suspect's father, Guy Heinze Sr., 45; his uncle, Rusty Toler Sr., 44; and his aunt Brenda Gail Falagan, 49. Also slain were Toler Sr.'s four children — Chrissy Toler, 22; Russell D. Toler Jr., 20; Michael Toler, 19; and Michelle Toler, 15.
Chrissy Toler's boyfriend, Joseph L. West, 30, was also killed and her 3-year-old son was hospitalized.
A phone message left for Heinze Jr.'s attorney, Ron Harrison, was not immediately returned. Harrison said earlier this week that Heinze denied any part in the killings.
Clint Rowe, who has been acting as a spokesman for the family, said he learned of the arrests while at a public visitation for the victims, saying it was "definitely a surprise."
"I'm floored right now," Rowe, who is an uncle to the Toler children, said from the funeral home. "But right now it's just an arrest. We have to see where this thing takes us so I'm going to keep my mouth shut until the Glynn County Police Department informs us of more."
Community Reinvestment Act The Community Reinvestment Act (or CRA, Pub.L. 95-128, title VIII, 91 Stat. 1147, 12 U.S.C.§ 2901et seq.) is a United States federal law designed to encourage commercial banks and savings associations to meet the needs of borrowers in all segments of their communities, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods.[1][2][3] Congress passed the Act in 1977 to reduce discriminatory credit practices against low-income neighborhoods, a practice known as redlining.[4][5] The Act requires the appropriate federal financial supervisory agencies to encourage regulated financial institutions to meet the credit needs of the local communities in which they are chartered, consistent with safe and sound operation. (See full text of Act and current regulations.[1] To enforce the statute, federal regulatory agencies examine banking institutions for CRA compliance, and take this information into consideration when approving applications for new bank branches or for mergers or acquisitions.[6]
The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 seeks to address discrimination in loans made to individuals and businesses from low and moderate-income neighborhoods.[7] The Act mandates that all banking institutions that receive FDIC insurance be evaluated by Federal banking agencies to determine if the bank offers credit (in a manner consistent with safe and sound operations) in all communities in which the bank takes deposits.[3] The law does not list specific criteria for evaluating the performance of financial institutions. Rather, it directs that the evaluation process should accommodate the situation and context of each individual institution. Federal regulations dictate agency conduct in evaluating a bank's compliance in five performance areas, comprising twelve assessment factors. This examination culminates in a rating and a written report that becomes part of the supervisory record for that bank.[8]
The law, however, emphasizes that an institution's CRA activities should be undertaken in a safe and sound manner, and does not require institutions to make high-risk loans that may bring losses to the institution.[3][4] An institution's CRA compliance record is taken into account by the banking regulatory agencies when the institution seeks to expand through merger, acquisition or branching. The law does not mandate any other penalties for non-compliance with the CRA.[6][9]
The original Act was passed by the 95th United States Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1977 (Pub.L. 95-128, 12 U.S.C. ch.30).[38] Several legislative and regulatory revisions have since been enacted.
The CRA was passed as a result of national pressure to address the deteriorating conditions of American cities—particularly lower-income and minority neighborhoods.[4] Community activists, such as Gale Cincotta of National People's Action in Chicago, had led the national fight to pass, and later to enforce the Act.[39]
The CRA followed similar laws passed to reduce discrimination in the credit and housing markets including the Fair Housing Act of 1968, the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 and the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975 (HMDA). The Fair Housing Act and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, sex, or other personal characteristics. The Home Mortgage Disclosure Act requires that financial institutions publicly disclose mortgage lending and application data. In contrast with those acts, the CRA seeks to ensure the provision of credit to all parts of a community, regardless of the relative wealth or poverty of a neighborhood.[40][41]
Before the Act was passed, there were severe shortages of credit available to low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. In their 1961 report, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found that African-American borrowers were often required to make higher downpayments and adopt faster repayment schedules. The commission also documented blanket refusals to lend in particular areas (redlining).[42] The "redlining" of certain neighborhoods originated with the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) in the 1930s. The "residential security maps" created by the Home Owners' Loan Corporation (HOLC) for the FHA were used by private and public entities for years afterwards to withhold mortgage capital from neighborhoods that were deemed "unsafe".[43] Contributory factors in the shortage of direct lending in low- and moderate-income communities were a limited secondary market for mortgages, informational problems to do with the lack of credit evaluations for lower-income borrowers, and lack of coordination among credit agencies.[44][40][41]
In Congressional debate on the Act, critics charged that the law would create unnecessary regulatory burdens. Partly in response to these concerns, Congress included little prescriptive detail and simply directs the banking regulatory agencies to ensure that banks and savings associations serve the credit needs of their local communities in a safe and sound manner.[4][40] Community groups only slowly organized to take advantage of their right under the Act to complain about law enforcement of the regulations.[45]
The Financial Institutions Reform Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 (FIRREA) was enacted by the 101st Congress and signed into law by PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush in the wake of the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. As part of a general reform of the banking industry, it increased public oversight of the process of issuing CRA ratings to banks. It required the agencies to issue CRA ratings publicly and written performance evaluations using facts and data to support the agencies' conclusions. It also required a four-tiered CRA examination rating system with performance levels of 'Outstanding', 'Satisfactory', 'Needs to Improve', or 'Substantial Noncompliance'.[40]
According to Ben Bernanke, this law greatly increased the ability of advocacy groups, researchers, and other analysts to "perform more-sophisticated, quantitative analyses of banks' records," thereby influencing the lending policies of banks. Over time, community groups and nonprofit organizations established "more-formalized and more-productive partnerships with banks."[4]
In October 2000, to expand the secondary market for affordable community-based mortgages and to increase liquidity for CRA-eligible loans, Fannie Mae committed to purchase and securitize $2 billion of "MyCommunityMortgage" loans.[46][47] In November 2000 Fannie Mae announced that the Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) would soon require it to dedicate 50% of its business to low- and moderate-income families." It stated that since 1997 Fannie Mae had done nearly $7 billion in CRA business with depository institutions, but its goal was $20 billion.[48] In 2001 Fannie Mae announced that it had acquired $10 billion in specially-targeted Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) loans more than one and a half years ahead of schedule, and announced its goal to finance over $500 billion in CRA business by 2010, about one third of loans anticipated to be financed by Fannie Mae during that period.[49]
In July 1993, President Bill Clinton asked regulators to reform the CRA in order to make examinations more consistent, clarify performance standards, and reduce cost and compliance burden.[52] Robert Rubin, the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, under President Clinton, explained that this was in line with President Clinton's strategy to "deal with the problems of the inner city and distressed rural communities". Discussing the reasons for the Clinton administration's proposal to strengthen the CRA and further reduce red-lining, Lloyd Bentsen, Secretary of the Treasury at that time, affirmed his belief that availability of credit should not depend on where a person lives, "The only thing that ought to matter on a loan application is whether or not you can pay it back, not where you live." Bentsen said that the proposed changes would "make it easier for lenders to show how they're complying with the Community Reinvestment Act", and "cut back a lot of the paperwork and the cost on small business loans".[36]
By early 1995, the proposed CRA regulations were substantially revised to address criticisms that the regulations, and the agencies' implementation of them through the examination process to date, were too process-oriented, burdensome, and not sufficiently focused on actual results.[53] The CRA examination process itself was reformed to incorporate the pending changes.[40] Information about banking institutions' CRA ratings were made available via web page for public review as well.[36] The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) also moved to revise it's regulation structure allowing lenders subject to the CRA to claim community development loan credits for loans made to help finance the environmental cleanup or redevelopment of industrial sites when it was part of an effort to revitalize the low- and moderate-income community where the site was located.[54]
During one of the Congressional hearings addressing the proposed changes in 1995, William A. Niskanen, chair of the Cato Institute, criticized both the 1993 and 1994 sets of proposals for political favoritism in allocating credit, for micromanagement by regulators and for the lack of assurances that banks would not be expected to operate at a loss to achieve CRA compliance. He predicted the proposed changes would be very costly to the economy and the banking system in general. Niskanen believed that the primary long term effect would be an artificial contraction of the banking system. Niskanen recommended Congress repeal the Act.[55]
Niskanen's, and other respondents to the proposed changes, voiced their concerns during the public comment & testimony periods in late 1993 through early 1995. In response to the aggregate concerns recorded by then, the Federal financial supervisory agencies (the OCC, FRB, FDIC, and OTS) made further clarifications relating to definition, assessment, ratings and scope; sufficiently resolving many of the issues raised in the process. The agencies jointly reported their final amended regulations for implementing the Community Reinvestment Act in the Federal Register on May 4, 1995. The final amended regulations replaced the existing CRA regulations in their entirety.[56] (See the notes in the "1995" column of Table I. for the specifics)
In the Olympics of car ownership, Rachel Veitch of Orlando, Fla., is a marathoner of the first order, with a record virtually impossible to match.
For one thing, Veitch is still driving at the age of 91. For another, she has had her 1964 Mercury Comet Caliente for 45 years, racking up about 559,000 miles on it. Together, Veitch and her car have outlasted her three husbands -- a feat surely worth of a footnote in the annals of automotive history.
(CNN) -- Calvino Inman had just stepped out of the shower one evening in May when a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror caused him to panic. "I looked up and saw myself, and I thought I was going to die," says the 15-year-old from Rockwood, Tennessee. His eyes were streaming tears of blood.
Doctors are still searching for a medical reason for Calvino Inman's tears of blood.
Inman's mother, Tammy Mynatt, says she immediately rushed him to the emergency room, but by the time they arrived, the bleeding had stopped. Doctors couldn't see what the family was trying to explain. They returned home completely perplexed. When the bloody tears returned a few days later while Inman was on a camping trip, he was rushed back to the hospital.
Mynatt hoped that once doctors finally witnessed the phenomenon, there would be answers. But that wasn't the case. "The people at the hospital said they had never seen anything like it," Mynatt recalls. She says her son underwent an MRI, a CT scan and an ultrasound, but none of the tests had abnormal results. "'We don't know how to stop it,'" Mynatt remembers being told by doctors. "It just has to run its course."
Dr. Barrett G. Haik, director of the University of Tennessee's Hamilton Eye Institute, says there is an answer, sort of. He says "crying blood," a condition called haemolacria, is common in people who have experienced extreme trauma or who have recently had a serious head injury. But a case such as Inman's is still a medical mystery. "What's really rare is to have a child like this," Haik says. "Only once every several years do you see someone with no obvious cause." Watch more on the teen who cried blood »
Haik and a team of researchers published a 2004 study in the Journal of the American Society of Ophthalmic Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery looking specifically at children who developed unexplained, spontaneous episodes of bloody tears between February 1992 and January 2003. Only four cases were recorded.
Because of the rarity of the condition, experts anticipate Inman will have multiple tests from a variety of specialists, including hematologists (blood specialists), ophthalmologists (eye specialists) and otolaryngologists (ear, nose and throat specialists).
Dr. James C. Flemming, also an ophthalmologist at the Hamilton Eye Institute, has been in touch with Mynatt and her son. He is reviewing Inman's medical records for possible treatment.
Flemming says complications to look for include blood clots, a growth or tumor near the eye, or even a simple infection. He also says the culprit could be something so tiny that none of the standard tests would pick it up. "It's a very hard thing to estimate," Flemming says. "You may have to watch expectedly for other symptoms to show up."
Inman's analysis would also include a psychological evaluation to rule out the possibility that the bloody tears were faked. "When you can't find an origin, you can't eliminate any of the possibilities" Haik explains. He says there have been cases where children seeking attention have found creative ways to simulate haemolacriatic symptoms.
Still, Mynatt and her son are relieved to at least have more guidance. In an interview with CNN affiliate WATE, Mynatt was near tears herself explaining her frustration: "I just truly want somebody to say they've seen this and they can help us."
And that's at least one reassurance Flemming and his team of experts at the Hamilton Eye Institute can offer. "We get more positive talk now than negative. It really feels like there's hope," Mynatt says, relieved.
But still, the possibility remains that after endless tests, the underlying cause may never be found. In all four cases Haik examined previously, the bleeding stopped on its own.
"As physicians, that's disconcerting, because we like to have the answers," Haik admits. Moreover, he says he knows from previous experience that the toll of not knowing is much worse for patients. "I could always see the fear in their faces because no matter what we studied, we couldn't find an answer."
(AP) Former Dallas Cowboys linebacker Eugene Lockhart was arrested Thursday after he was indicted with eight others in an alleged mortgage fraud scheme that swindled more than $20 million from several home lenders, federal officials said.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said Lockhart and the others made 54 fraudulent loan closings for single-family homes in the Dallas area that totaled about $20.5 million. The scheme started in February 2001 and involved obtaining loans to buy distressed or pre-forclosure properties sold at inflated prices. The defendants kept the surplus loan proceeds, according to the federal indictment.
Authorities allege the group recruited "straw" buyers and purchasers and doctored financial statements so the lender would approve the loans.
"The people involved are escrow officers, appraisers, title companies ... the gamut of real estate," said FBI spokesman Mark White. "That's usually how these things work. It takes somebody in every single area to get this thing to work."
The indictment charges Lockhart, 48, of Carrollton, with one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud and one count of wire fraud.
Lockhart was involved with several real estate businesses, including America's Team Mortgage, America's Team Realty, Cowboys Realty and KLT Properties, according to the indictment. He's accused of collaborating with the eight others to devise the scheme and helping obtain inflated appraisals.
Cowboys Mortgage owner Lendell Beacham, 54, of DeSoto, also was arrested. He faces one count of conspiracy to commit bank fraud and wire fraud and one count of wire fraud.
Lockhart and Beacham were expected to make an initial appearance later Thursday. They did not yet have attorneys, White said. A telephone number for Lockhart's home also could not immediately be found.
The others are expected to surrender to the FBI by Friday, expect for one who is currently serving a federal sentence, federal officials said.
Lockhart played for the Cowboys from 1984 through 1990 and for New England in 1991-92. He recorded 16 career quarterback sacks and made six interceptions, returning one for a touchdown.
