State Department Adds Twelve More Countries To Annual Report For A Total Of 52
If Text Messaging is Cheap, Why Does it Cost So Much?
ABC's Tom Shine from DC: According to Joel Kelsey of Consumers Union, text messaging uses less data than almost any other service on a wireless network. "The text message is a free rider inside the so-called "control channel" or space...
Jefferson's cold cash: Safe keeping
by Mark Silva
For all those jokes about former Rep. William Jefferson's frozen assets, the Louisiana Democrat's lawyer maintains there is a simple explanation.
"The money in the freezer was not a bribe," attorney Robert Trout said of the $90,000 in cold cash that the former congressman had in his freezer. "He was looking to hide the cash so that it would not be found by his housekeeper" or an intruder.
Jefferson, 62, is accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and unlawfully using his office to promote business deals to benefit his family. He faces up to 20 years in prison on each of 16 counts including soliciting bribes, racketeering, money laundering and obstructing justice. His trial in federal court in Alexandria, Va., opened today, more than three years after he was charged and almost four years after investigators reported finding a lot of money on ice in the congressman's home.
Jefferson's lawyer claims that he was the victim of an elaborate FBI sting, and the fact that he never gave the cash to a Nigerian official, as the government contends he planned to do, is evidence of his innocence.
"With a lot of time, and a lot of wine, they set out to bag a congressman," Trout said. "William Jefferson did not take a bribe, did not solicit a bribe, did not conspire to take a bribe. He is not guilty of any of the charges, period."
Prosecutors told a different tale in opening arguments today: Jefferson was more than $60,000 in debt during the time that he is accused of concocting a series of bribery schemes. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Lytle suggested that Jefferson's debts may have motivated him to seek bribes. In addition to $62,000 in credit card debt, Lytle said Jefferson and his wife had about $40,000 in bounced check fees and other penalties on their bank accounts.
The trial is set to last a month.
Muslims Face Risk In Giving To Charities
After the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the government suspected that some Muslim charities were funneling donations to terrorist groups like al-Qaida. Anyone who donated to those charities could be accused of giving material support to terrorists. As a result, many Muslims abandoned their religious commitments to charity, one of the five pillars of Islam.
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