Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy hold a news conference to announce 200 police officers will be reassigned from desk duty to the streets to fight gun violence.
Watch live, broadcast on Jan. 31.
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The Senate Judiciary Committee hears testimony from Rep. Gifford’s husband Mark Kelly, the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre and others on gun control.
Watch live, broadcast via NBC News on Jan. 30.
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Kimberly McCarthy's lawyers scramble to save her life, claiming the jury who convicted her of murder was racially biased
Defence lawyers in Dallas County, Texas are scrambling to save the life of a death row prisoner who is due on Tuesday night to become the first woman executed in the US in more than two years.
Attorneys for Kimberly McCarthy, found guilty in 1998 of murdering a 71-year-old white neighbour, claim her case demonstrates blatant racial discrimination by the state because African American jurors were actively filtered out in the jury selection process.
Barring a last minute stay of execution by the Texas governor Rick Perry or the Dallas County courts, she will be put to death by lethal injection at 6pm local time.
In a letter to Perry, McCarthy's lawyers allege that at her trial, the selection process produced a final jury of 13 people, all but one of whom were white. By contrast, the population of Dallas County is almost a quarter black.
The lawyers argue that such a striking imbalance was wholly consistent with a systemic discrimination in Texas, and in Dallas County in particular, towards white juries in capital cases. The county is 23% black and 69% white, yet of the 81 people from the area who are on death row or who have already been executed, 42% are black, 21% are Latino and 49% are white.
The history of Texas prosecutors "shuffling" black people to the back of the queue during jury selection is long and ugly, bordering at times on farcical. As recently as 2005, a prospective black juror was asked to show his teeth in court after the prosecutor argued that missing front teeth indicated a "socioeconomic stereotype".
In 1986, a manual was issued to prosecutors that stated it was "not advisable to select potential jurors with multiple gold chains around their necks". Track back to 1963, and the training manual on jury selection from that day advised prosecutors "not to take Jews, Negroes, Dagos, Mexicans, or a member of any minority race on a jury, no matter how rich or how well educated."
Maurie Levin of the University of Texas capital punishment clinic, who is representing McCarthy, told the Guardian that "there is clear evidence that the prosecution excluded jurors on the basis of race. Given that, the execution of Miss McCarthy has to be stayed."
It is a breach of the US constitution to strike off even one potential juror on racial grounds.
Perry has the power to impose a 30-day delay in the execution, though going on past form an intervention from him must be considered unlikely. There have been 253 executions in Texas under Perry's watch , a record for any US governor in recent times.
It may come too late to save McCarthy, but pressure is mounting within Texas for a review of the role racial discrimination has played in jury selection. "The allegation that there might have been racial bias in Dallas county over a number of years might trigger a review of the whole system," said Richard Dieter of the Death Penalty Information Center.
The chief prosecutor of the county, Craig Watkins, who is the first African American to be elected to the role of district attorney in Texas, has called for new law to be introduced that would allow death row inmates to appeal their sentences on grounds of general racial discrimination as underlined by statistics.
"Throughout history, race has unfortunately played a part, an ugly part, in our criminal justice system," Watkins told the Dallas Morning News earlier this month.
A similar law has already been passed by North Carolina. Last month a judge commuted the death sentences of three convicted killers in the state from death to life without parole on the basis of the Racial Justice Act.
© Guardian News and Media 2013
[Image via AFP]
President Barack Obama discusses immigration reform at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Watch live, broadcast on NBC News on Jan. 29.
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Surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore discuss Brendan Marrocco's double-arm transplant operation, which came after he lost all four limbs in a 2009 bomb attack in Iraq.
Watch live, broadcast via NBC News on Jan. 29.
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[Image via BrendanMarrocco.com]
Transparency International estimates cost of corruption in defence sector amounts to at least $20bn a year
Most countries, including a large majority of the world's biggest weapons importers, lack the tools to prevent corruption in the arms trade, according to an unprecedented international study of national defence ministries and armed forces.
A number of Britain's most lucrative existing and potential markets for arms, including Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Oman, are among countries where there is "a very high risk" of corruption, says Transparency International(TI) in a report released on Tuesday.
TI, a charity set up to combat corruption and promote good practice in commerce and industry, describes its study as the first index measuring how – or whether – governments counter corruption in defence.
It estimates that the global cost of corruption in the defence sector amounts to at least $20bn (£12.6bn) a year – the total sum pledged by the G8 countries in 2009 to fight world hunger. Its estimate is based on data from the World Bank and the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).
Mark Pyman, Director of TI's defence and security programme, said: "Corruption in defence is dangerous, divisive and wasteful, and the cost is paid by citizens, soldiers, companies and governments.
"Yet the majority of governments do too little to prevent it, leaving numerous opportunities to hide corruption away from public scrutiny and waste money that could be better spent"
TI's Government Defence Anti-Corruption Index analyses measures by 82 countries to reduce corruption risks. Such countries accounted for 94% of global military expenditure in 2011, equivalent to $1.6tn.
The study places countries into six bands. Those in Band F, where there is what it calls a "critical risk" of corruption, include Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen.
Band E countries, where there is "very high risk" of corruption, include Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Oman, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, Nigeria, Morocco, Qatar, Uzbekistan, and Zimbabwe.
Britain is among countries, also including South Korea and the US, where the risk of corruption is considered "low". In only two countries is the risk of corruption considered "very low" – Australia and Germany, where there is robust parliamentary oversight of defence policy.
Some 70% of countries leave the door open to waste and security threats as they lack the tools to prevent corruption in the defence sector, according to the study. Half of the those countries' defence budgets lack transparency entirely, or include only very limited information, TI says. And in 70% of the countries, citizens are denied a simple indication of how much is spent by their government on classified weapons projects.
The index shows that only 15% of governments possess political oversight of defence policy that is comprehensive, accountable and effective. In 45% of countries there is little or no oversight of defence policy, and in half of there is minimal evidence of scrutiny of defence procurement.
Oliver Cover, the main author of the study, said: "This index shows unequivocally that there is a severe risk of corruption in this sector. It is a shock that in some areas it is also so poorly understood, for example in conflict situations, where corruption can become deeply embedded. Our index will help everyone to understand and address the risks".
Cover added: "Governments should clean up this sector, and our report will give them practical solutions to achieve transparency. Doing so will save the lives of troops and citizens and governments billions of dollars."
A bipartisan group of Senators holds a news conference at the Capitol to announce their agreement on an immigration reform proposal.
Watch live, broadcast on NBC News on Jan. 28.
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President Obama welcomes the 2012 NBA Champion Miami Heat to the White House.
Watch live, broadcast on NBC News on Jan. 28.
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[Washington Wizards v/s Miami Heat December 18, 2010 via Flickr user Keith Allison]
eaders of civil-rights groups, labor leaders and others hold a news conference to call on President Obama and Congress to act on immigration reform.
Watch live, broadcast on NBC News on Jan. 28.
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[Image via Shutterstock]
Reports surfaced Friday afternoon that a dolphin was stranded in the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn, New York at Union Street and Nevins Street.
Red Hook Lobster tweeted just after 1 p.m., "I just saw a dolphin in the Gowanus canal near Union Street. Poor dolphin."
NBC New York reports that authorities have responded to the scene, trying to rescue the animal bobbing in the "murky water."
Reporting for Gothamist, Emilie Ruscoe said, "The dolphin is surfacing to breathe really irregularly and its breathing sounds shallow."
Watch live broadcast on NBC New York on Jan. 25.
View more videos at: https://nbcnewyork.com.
President Barack Obama introduces Denis McDonough, formerly deputy national security adviser, as the new White House chief of staff.
Watch live, broadcast on NBC News on Jan. 25.
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Photo: Dennis McDonough (Flickr user U.S.-Islamic World Forum)
Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announces the lifting of the military ban on women serving in combat.
Watch live, broadcast on NBC News on Jan. 24.
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The Senate Foreign Relations Committee holds a hearing on John Kerry’s nomination to be the next secretary of state. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) will preside and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) will introduce Sen. Kerry.
Watch live, broadcast on NBC News on Jan. 24.
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