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15Nov/10Off

Ethics panel begins deliberations in Rangel case

WASHINGTON -Shortly after veteran Rep. Charles Rangel of New York walked out of his ethics trial in protest, a House panel began closed-door deliberations Monday on 13 counts of alleged financial and fundraising misconduct that could bring formal condemnation.
Only recently one of the most powerful members of Congress, Rangel was reduced to pleading in vain for colleagues to give him time to raise money for a lawyer before taking up the charges. The 80-year-old congressman left when they said no, and the rare proceeding — only the second for this type of hearing in two decades — went on without him.
An ethics committee panel of four Democrats and four Republicans was sitting as a jury in the case late Monday. The official acting as prosecutor said the facts were so clear there was no need to call witnesses, and panel members apparently agreed.
If the panel members decide Rangel violated any House rules, the full committee will hold a hearing on how he should be punished. The most likely sanction would be a House vote deploring his conduct.
Rangel, a 20-term congressman representing New York's famed Harlem neighborhood, implored the ethics panel for further delay, saying that "50 years of public service is on the line." But the panel basically decided that the 2 1/2-year-old case had gone on long enough — and Congress had little time left to deal with it in the lame duck session that commenced Monday.
Rangel said he had run out of money after paying his previous attorneys some $2 million and needed time to set up a legal defense fund to raise an additional $1 million.
Until last spring, Rangel had wielded great influence as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, a gravelly voiced, outgoing figure who raised millions for fellow lawmakers' campaigns. He relinquished that chairmanship in March after being admonished by an ethics panel for taking corporate trips to the Caribbean in violation of House rules. There was no further punishment for that, but the current charges are another matter.
After Rangel left Monday's hearing, House ethics committee chief counsel Blake Chisam pushed for a decision on the 13 counts of fundraising and financial conduct that allegedly violated House rules. Chisam, assuming the role of prosecutor, played a video of Rangel's speech on the House floor in August in which the congressman acknowledged that he'd used House stationery to raise money for a college center named after him, and that he'd been tardy in filing taxes and financial disclosure statements.
He said then that he never intended to break any rules.
Chisam told the panel of four Republicans and four Democrats that there were no questions "as to any material facts in this case. As a result the case is ripe for a decision."
Chisam also said, "I see no evidence of corruption" by Rangel. Rather, he suggested, the congressman was "overzealous" and "sloppy in his personal finances."
Chisam said Rangel could have legally raised money for the Charles B. Rangel Center at City College of New York by asking the ethics committee for permission to solicit nonprofit organizations. However, he would not have been able to use congressional letterheads or employees in the fundraising, as he is charged with doing.
The counsel also said Rangel used a subsidized apartment in New York City as a campaign office when the lease required that it be for residential use only.
"At the same time, the landlord was evicting other tenants at an increased rate" for failing to follow the same lease terms, Chisam said.
Several members of the panel criticized Rangel's lawyers for leaving the case just weeks before the hearing.
Vermont Democratic Rep. Peter Welch said that no law firm should be "taking the money ... and kicking their client by the side of the road."
Rangel's former lawyer, Leslie Berger Kiernan, did not immediately respond.
If the ethic panel finds that Rangel broke the rules, the House ethics committee could recommend that the full House vote to condemn his conduct.
"My family has caught hell" in the investigation, Rangel said in asking for more time. Earlier this fall, he had pleaded for a quick decision before the November elections. He won re-election.
The ethics committee chairman, Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., told Rangel that time was an issue since this Congress will soon adjourn. He responded that his fate should not depend on the congressional calendar.
"I truly believe I am not being treated fairly," Rangel said.
The ethics investigation goes back to at least July 2008. Only former Rep. James Traficant, D-Ohio, who was expelled from the House after a criminal conviction, has faced a similar trial since current House ethics procedures were adopted two decades ago.
Key charges portray Rangel as a veteran congressman who thought he could ignore rules on disclosing his assets, and improperly used official resources to raise money for a college center that was a monument to his career.
Another allegation that caught the public's eye was his failure to declare rental income to the IRS from a resort unit he owned in the Dominican Republic.
The charges allege violations of:
_A House gift ban and restrictions on solicitations. Rangel is accused of using congressional staff, letterhead and workspace to seek donations for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service at the City College of New York. The requests usually went to charitable arms of businesses with issues before Congress, including Rangel's Ways and Means Committee.
_A U.S. government code of ethics. Several allegations fall under this code, among them: accepting favors (the Rangel Center donations) that could be construed as influencing Rangel's congressional duties; acceptance of a rent-subsidized New York apartment used as a campaign office, when the lease said it was for residential use only, and failure to report taxable income.
_The Ethics in Government Act and a companion House rule requiring "full and complete" public reports of a congressman's income, assets and liabilities each year. Rangel is charged with a pattern of submitting incomplete and inaccurate disclosure statements. He filed amended reports covering 1998 to 2007 only after the investigative ethics panel began looking into his disclosures. He belatedly reported at least $600,000 in assets.

Ethics panel begins deliberations in Rangel case

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8Nov/10Off

Elizabeth Smart says she awoke to knife on neck

SALT LAKE CITY -Elizabeth Smart remembers not being able to make out the threat, only the feel of cold knife at her neck.
As the then-14-year-old lay in bed alongside her baby sister, the man repeated: "Don't make a sound. Get out of bed and come with me, or I will kill you and your family." She was his hostage, he told her.
"I was shocked. I thought I was having a nightmare. It was just indescribable fear," Smart, now 23, told jurors Monday on the first day of testimony in the trial of Brian David Mitchell, the man accused of kidnapping her in June 2002.
That night, they fled up the hills above her home, with Smart in her red pajamas and tennis shoes, and the knife to her back.
Her younger sister — a baby blanket wrapped around her head and neck — rushed to their mother, telling of the kidnapping.
"It was utter terror," their mother, Lois Smart, testified earlier Monday. "It was the worst feeling, knowing that I didn't know where my child was. I was helpless."
Nine months later, motorists spotted Elizabeth Smart walking in a Salt Lake City suburb with Mitchell.
His attorneys did not dispute the facts of the abduction. But during opening statements, they said the prosecution's allegation that he was a calculating person who planned the kidnapping was wrong.
Known as a homeless street preacher named "Immanuel," Mitchell was influenced by a worsening mental illness and religious beliefs that made him think he was doing what God wanted, his attorneys said.
Mitchell, who has a long graying beard to the middle of his chest and hair to the middle of his back, was again removed from the courtroom Monday for singing hymns, so he's watching and listening from a holding cell.
Smart's mother testified that she and her children ran into Mitchell downtown and that she offered him a job doing handyman work at the family's home. One of her sons encouraged her to give him money, she said.
"He looked like a clean-cut, well-kept man that was down on his luck," she said. "I gave him $5."
Later, the family hired Mitchell to help fix a leaky roof, Lois Smart said. It was the only job he did for the family.
"I do remember having a conversation with him, hoping that he would do more work. He seemed fine," she said.
Elizabeth Smart described how Mitchell came into her bedroom. She had left a kitchen window open because her mother had burned potatoes for dinner.
"I remember him saying that I have a knife to your neck, don't make a sound, get out of bed and come with me or I will kill you and your family," she said.
Smart said she got up and he grabbed her arm, and took her into a closet. He stopped her when she reached for slippers and told her to wear tennis shoes.
After leaving the house, Smart said, they hiked three to five hours up a hill to a campsite where Mitchell's now-estranged wife, Wanda Eileen Barzee, took her in a tent, sat her down on a bucket and washed her feet.
Barzee also told her to take off her pajamas and underwear and put on a robe or "she would have the defendant come in and rip them off," she said.
Smart said Mitchell entered the tent wearing a similar robe and married them by pulling a sentence from the traditional Mormon marriage ceremony, called a sealing.
"He said, 'What I seal on this earth will be sealed to me in the hereafter and I take you to be my wife,'" she said, adding that she screamed and he threatened to put duct tape across her mouth.
"He proceeded to fight me to the ground and force the robes up," Smart said quietly, pausing, "where he raped me."
"I begged him not to. I did everything I could to stop him. I pleaded with him not to touch me, but it didn't work."
Mitchell chained her to a table, making it impossible for her to flee, she said.
Lois Smart said she was awakened by daughter Mary Katherine, who was 9 at the time and slept with Elizabeth. With the baby blanket wrapped around her head, she looked like "a scared rabbit," her mother said.
"She said a man has taken Elizabeth with a gun and that we won't find her. He took her either for ransom or hostage," Lois Smart recalled Mary Katherine, now 18, saying.
Lois Smart said she went to the kitchen and immediately noticed the window was open and the screen was cut in a U-shape.
"My heart sank," she said. Then, she yelled to her husband, Ed: "Call 911. She's gone.'"
Elizabeth Smart is serving on a French mission trip for the Mormon church but plans to resume her music studies at Brigham Young University next year.
Mitchell, 57, faces life in prison if he is convicted of kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor.

Elizabeth Smart says she awoke to knife on neck

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30Sep/10Off

NC Patrol: 3, not 5, killed in wreck on wet road

RALEIGH, N.C. -The North Carolina Highway Patrol says three people were killed when the sport utility vehicle they were traveling in skidded off a rain-slicked road and tumbled into a ditch filled with water.
State Highway Patrol Trooper Gary Edwards said troopers initially reported five people were killed because two children, 2-year-old twins, did not have a pulse when emergency workers arrived on scene. But the children survived and were being treated late Thursday afternoon.
Edwards said the family of five from Atlanta was traveling westbound on U.S. 64 east of Creswell around 12:20 p.m. Thursday when their Jeep hit a patch of standing water, hydroplaned and skidded off the highway into the ditch.
Creswell is approximately 145 miles east of Raleigh.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.
WILMINGTON, N.C. (AP) — Five people were killed Thursday when a vehicle skidded off a road that had been slicked by a massive rainstorm that drenched the East Coast, the North Carolina Highway Patrol said.
The storm flooded parts of coastal North Carolina, driving some people from their homes, and snarled train, air and car traffic in the Northeast. Tornado watches extended from the Outer Banks to New Jersey. State Highway Patrol Sgt. J.E. Brewer said five people were in the car that wrecked in Creswell, about 145 miles east of Raleigh. The car hit a patch of standing water, hydroplaned and skidded into a ditch, Brewer said.
The hardest rain fell in North Carolina, where Jacksonville picked up 12 inches of rain — nearly a quarter of its typical annual rainfall — in the six hours between 3:30 and 9:30 a.m.
The rain was part of a system moving ahead of the remnants of Tropical Storm Nicole, which dissipated over the Straits of Florida on Wednesday.
"This more like what you'd expect from a tropical system. But this is not a tropical system. It's just a storm with a deep feed coming straight off the Atlantic," said Hal Austin, a meteorologist with the weather service's Newport, N.C., office.
Much of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast were starting to move into a drought after the dry summer. But the early fall storm spread several inches of rain across the region.
Farmers in northern New England rejoiced. Erin Bickford of Walpole, N.H., said the deluge was a welcome sight for her eight acres of vegetables. She said she hoped the moisture would recharge wells that went dry in the town.
"We had almost no rain at all. Often, we could see it raining across the river, but it didn't come here. It was just dust. Even if it did rain, it would be a tiny bit, maybe half an inch," she said.
Crews throughout the northeast worked to pull fallen leaves from storm drains. Schools in North Carolina were closed and some farther north planned to cancel classes Friday so students wouldn't have to travel on flooded roads.
Josh Barnello, 12, took advantage of his day off to take a look at a pond that overflowed its banks in Carolina Beach.
"Someone was paddling a canoe down the street earlier," said Barnello, a budding meteorologist who used a wind speed gauge he got for Christmas to record gusts of 53 mph near his house.
Forecasters expected those heavy winds to spread up the coast, possibly toppling trees and power lines made unstable by the saturated ground.
The winds were also churning up big waves that were eating away at a "living shoreline" of rocks, sand and grasses built this year on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, said Bob Gilbert from his waterfront home in Churchton, about 10 miles south of Annapolis.
"There's not a boat in sight," Gilbert said. "The waves are really choppy and nasty-looking."
The rain caused numerous accidents Thursday. In Maryland, authorities said 26 people, including high school students, were hurt after a Metro bus rear-ended another bus from the Washington-area transit system in pouring rain.
Standing waters and fallen limbs on tracks slowed several Amtrak trains, while some Northeast airports reported flight delays of up to three hours.
Wilmington, N.C., got a brief break from the rain Thursday morning, but the downpours quickly moved back in. Back-to-back storms have dropped a third of the rain the city usually gets all year in just five days. The 21 inches collected since Sunday was the highest five day total in nearly 140 years of records, topping Hurricane Floyd's mark of 19 inches set in 1999, the National Weather Service said.
The rain caused some scatted evacuations across the state, but no major damage.
"I have to walk through an inch of water to get from the living room to the bathroom," said Sheila Mezroud. Sandbags only kept the floodwaters out of her Carolina Beach home for a short time.
In New York City, the rain didn't cause too many problems beyond wet shoes for the morning commute.
"I think we're expecting pretty bad weather later on," said Allen Saunders, a financial adviser who travels to Manhattan from Melville. I'll probably leave work a little early."
—
Associated Press writers Skip Foreman in Raleigh, N.C.; Jim Fitzgerald, Deepti Hajela and Frank Eltman in New York; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C.; Ben Nuckols in Baltimore; and Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., contributed to this report.

NC Patrol: 3, not 5, killed in wreck on wet road

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10Sep/10Off

Residents work to restore their neighborhood

1Sep/10Off

Is there an unmarked graveyard in downtown Columbus?

30Aug/10Off

William Frazier Found Guilty

80 year old William Frazier - the man at the center of an $8 million lawsuit against the Huntsville Police Department - has been found guilty of several traffic offenses.

After multiple delays, Frazier finally appeared in Municipal Court on Monday, flanked by several family members and supporters. In the end, a judge found him guilty on three charges - fleeing and eluding police, driving without a license, and failure to yield right of way. The charges stem from a February 1st incident where Frazier led police on a low speed chase, with several close calls with other cars.

Frazier claims when that chase ended, he was injured by police officers. In April, the city released that video. Frazier is seen running a red light, hitting a curb and swerving several times. The video shows Frazier being torn from the car, but there is no visible evidence of any physical attacks from officers.

His lawsuit is still pending.

William Frazier Found Guilty

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25Aug/10Off

Mayor Wetherington speaks on Parks and Rec Investigation

20Aug/10Off

600 drivers ticketed in 24 hours during police detail

15Aug/10Off

8 shot, 4 fatally, outside Buffalo, NY, restaurant

BUFFALO, N.Y. -Eight people leaving a party at a downtown Buffalo restaurant were shot early Saturday, four of them fatally, including a Texas man who had returned to his hometown to celebrate his first wedding anniversary, police said.
Managers had decided to close the City Grill in the city's business district after an altercation inside. The victims were leaving at about 2:30 a.m. when a man who had been inside began shooting, police said.
"There were verbal things going on. Management apparently chose to close down and have everybody leave the restaurant," Chief of Detectives Dennis Richards said. "People were leaving when this shooting happened."
Keith Johnson, 25, of Buffalo was charged Saturday afternoon with four counts of second-degree murder and could face more charges. Johnson was in custody late Saturday afternoon and unavailable for comment.
Police didn't know whether Johnson was involved in the earlier altercation and asked witnesses to speak up.
"We need people to come forward," said Police Commissioner Daniel Derenda, who estimated there were 100 people at the scene when police arrived.
The group was attending a party in advance of a more formal anniversary celebration scheduled for later Saturday, authorities said. The couple, Danyell Mackin, 30, and his wife, Tanisha, married in Texas a year ago and had returned to celebrate with Buffalo-area friends and family, authorities said. Tanisha Mackin was not hurt.
"An occasion that should have been a joyous one, a happy one, turned tragic," Mayor Byron Brown said Saturday near the restaurant, a popular stop for office workers during the week and people attending theater and sporting events at night.
The Mackins, who grew up in the same neighborhood, had been friends since they were 13 and started dating in 2001, according to a website created to commemorate their marriage and provide details about the celebration.
The couple, known as "Dee" and "Tee," have a 6-year-old son, Danyell Jr., and a 7-month-old daughter, Destinee, who was scheduled to be christened on Sunday, the website said. The family had moved from Buffalo to Austin, Texas, in 2006, and the Mackins worked for a local bank.
The reception was to be held at a community center in Buffalo, and the couple said online that it was "dedicated to the people who meant so much to us and that we lost."
Police identified the other three victims as Willie McCaa III, 26; Shawnita McNeil, 27; and Tiffany Wilhite, 32.
"A senseless, random killing," said Wilhite's father, Raymond Wilhite, who returned to the restaurant a few hours after the shooting. "This kind of thing just has to stop."
McNeil was Wilhite's cousin.
"There's no words to explain how I feel," McNeil's mother, Ruby Martin, said. "She got along with everybody. She knows a lot of people. She didn't deserve to be killed. I'm pretty sure it wasn't intended for her."
Demario Vass, 30, remained in critical condition Saturday night, police spokesman Michael DeGeorge said. Two men, James Robb Jr., 27, and Shamar Davis, 30, were in stable condition. And 27-year-old Tillman Ward, who was shot in the elbow, was in good condition.
Tommy Dates, 35, of Buffalo, said he was at the bar area of the restaurant with his friends when he noticed a party had broken up. He said people started leaving the restaurant but rushed back inside a few minutes later.
"A lot of people were real upset, just trying to get out of the way," Dates said at the scene about two hours after the shootings. "Everyone was in a panic."
Johnson lives in a two-family house about six miles from the restaurant, near the University of Buffalo's south campus. No one responded to a knock on his door Saturday night, and a woman who answered the door of the other family's home said he lives with his mother and that she also left with police when Johnson was taken into custody.
The restaurant posted a statement on its website Saturday expressing condolences to the victims and their families.
"We at City Grill are deeply saddened by the tragic events," the statement said.
Three covered bodies lay in front of the restaurant for several hours, one of them on the sidewalk across the street. About 20 people stood behind yellow crime scene tape, some trying to console grief-stricken relatives and friends.
"It was horrible seeing members of our community lying in the street," the mayor said.
The window of an office next to the Main Street restaurant was shattered, as was glass at a light-rail stop across the street.
"Nobody knows why," Martin said. "Somebody else was just shooting in a crowd."
—
Associated Press Writer Ben Dobbin contributed to this report.

8 shot, 4 fatally, outside Buffalo, NY, restaurant

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6Aug/10Off

Phenix City doctor accused of making 4,000 false Medicare claims

By Web Staff – email | Facebook | Twitter

PHENIX CITY, AL (WTVM) – News Leader 9 has learned a Phenix City doctor has been sued by the federal government on charges of submitting false claims to Medicare.

An 80-page complaint filed with the federal government alleges

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5Aug/10Off

New Madison High Already the Talk of the Town

In two years, the city of Madison will open a new high school. The project has been a long time coming, as enrollment at Bob Jones has swelled in the last decade. However, as much as the new school is needed, some worry it may end up causing just as many problems as it solves.

"I think traffic is gonna be a nightmare, I really do" said Madison resident Michelle Moyer. "It's already a nightmare in the mornings and evenings. So unless they do some road expansions, they're gonna have a lot of problems."

However, several other folks we spoke with say they're willing to put up with that problem to alleviate the overcrowding. "I am all for it, because I know our middle schools are crowded with 9th graders" said Amy Walton.

Dr. Dee Fowler, the superintendent of Madison's City Schools agrees. "Bob Jones (High School) is reaching critical stages, with 22 hundred children in grades 10, 11 and 12." Fowler told WAAY 31's Tim Reid on Thursday. "We're also critical at our middle schools that house grades 7, 8 and 9."

The new high school site, located along County Line Road, is expected to house 2,000 students. Work has already begun on the 83 acre site.

Meanwhile, several other school projects are moving along around the Valley. Earlier this week, officials in Albertville held a ribbon cutting ceremony for a new facility. Hartselle school leaders tell us that their plans for a new high school are also moving along. Funding for that project was secured this spring, and a project manager was recently hired. Hartselle School Superintendent Mike Reed tells us that a final design could be done soon, though no construction date has been set yet.

In New Market, work continues on the new Buckhorn Middle School, which is adjacent to the high school along Winchester Road. However, due to the cold conditions last winter, the project is running behind and it will not open on time.

Pope John Paul II Catholic High School on Old Madison Pike is also almost complete. It expects to open in October.

And in Huntsville, the work on the new Lee High is moving along on schedule.

Reporter : Tim Reid, treid@waaytv.com

New Madison High Already the Talk of the Town

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28Jul/10Off

Phenix City Marine injured by IED, celebrated at home

25Jul/10Off

Phenix City fully engulfed in flames

1Jul/10Off

Phenix City teen charged with carjackings, kidnapping

30Jun/10Off

Columbus economy spiking in next two weeks

29Jun/10Off

Phenix City woman dies in mobile home fire

27Jun/10Off

Tropical Storm Alex sets sights on Gulf of Mexico

BELIZE CITY -Tropical Storm Alex headed overland toward the Gulf of Mexico early Sunday, drenching Belize, northern Guatemala and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula with torrential rains.
Meteorologists project Alex, which made landfall on Belize's coast late Saturday, will weaken as it passes over the Yucatan Peninsula but will regain strength once it emerges Sunday evening over the Gulf of Mexico, where warm waters could fuel its growth into a hurricane.
According to the most recent predictions, Alex is expected to make a second landfall midweek on the Mexican Gulf coast — far south and west of the region where a deep-sea oil spill is slicking the U.S. coastline.
Hundreds of tourists and residents fled low-lying islands off Belize on Saturday as Alex swept in with torrential downpours and winds of 60 mph (95 kph). Many stocked up on gasoline, water, canned food and other emergency supplies.
Belize officials opened storm shelters in the island tourist resort of San Pedro, as some 1,400 people fled for the mainland by plane and by boat.
Along Mexico's resort-studded Caribbean coast, officials warned tourists to stay out of rough surf kicked up by the storm. But there were no immediate reports of damage to popular beach destinations such as Cancun, Cozumel, Playa del Carmen or Tulum.
State Public Safety director Miguel Ramos Real said 25 fisherman were evacuated and 17 navy personnel were brought to the mainland from a base on Banco Chinchorro, an atoll off the Mexican coast. Three shelters were opened, and ports were closed to small craft.
Now all eyes turn to the Gulf of Mexico.
When Alex became the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, officials immediately worried what effect it could have on the millions of gallons of crude spilled in the Gulf — and on efforts to clean up the slick and cap the leak deep below the waves.
A cap has been placed over the blown-out undersea well and it is carrying some of the oil to a surface ship where it is being collected. Some of the oil is being brought to the surface and burned. Other ships are drilling two relief wells, projected to be done by August, and are the best hope to stop the leak.
For the time being, the storm appears likely to miss the oil-slicked region and make landfall in Mexico, somewhere near the border of Tamaulipas and Veracruz states — but meteorologists warned that a storm's track can quickly change.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Alex was centered about 55 miles (90 kilometers) southwest of Chetumal, Mexico, early Sunday. Maximum sustained winds were about 40 mph (65 kph).
Meanwhile in the Pacific, two storms were far offshore late Saturday night and did not pose an immediate threat to land.
Once-powerful Celia weakened from a hurricane to a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph (100 kph), the hurricane center said. The storm should fall apart by Sunday.
Darby, which was also a powerful hurricane, has also weakened to a tropical storm. Its center is about 305 miles (490 kilometers) south-southwest of Zihuatanejo, Mexico.
—
Associated Press writer Gabriel Alcocer in Cancun, Mexico, contributed to this report.

Tropical Storm Alex sets sights on Gulf of Mexico

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14Jun/10Off

100,000 Uzbek refugees seek safety at border

OSH, Kyrgyzstan -Some 100,000 minority Uzbeks fleeing a purge by mobs of Kyrgyz massed at the border Monday, an Uzbek leader said, as the deadliest ethnic violence to hit this Central Asian nation in decades left a major city smoldering.
With fires raging in the southern city of Osh for a fourth day Monday, the official death toll of 124 killed and nearly 1,500 injured from the clashes that began Thursday appeared way too low.
An Uzbek community leader claimed at least 200 Uzbeks alone had already been buried, and the Red Cross said its delegates saw about 100 bodies being buried in just one cemetery.
The United States, Russia and the United Nations worked on humanitarian aid airlifts while neighboring Uzbekistan hastily set up camps to handle the flood of hungry, frightened refugees. Most were women, children and the elderly, many of whom Uzbekistan said had gunshot wounds.
The interim government, which took over after former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was ousted by a mass revolt in April, has been unable to stop the violence and accused Bakiyev's family of instigating it to halt a June 27 vote. Uzbeks have backed the interim government, while many Kyrgyz in the south have supported the toppled president.
The government said Monday it had arrested a "well-known person" suspected of stoking the violence, but gave no further details. Suspects from Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Kyrgyzstan were also detained and claimed to have been hired by supporters of Bakiyev, government spokesman Farid Niyazov said.
The interim government had planned a referendum to approve a new constitution on June 27, but it now appears unlikely the vote will take place. New parliamentary elections are scheduled for October, but the violence appears aimed at undermining the interim government before then.
From his self-imposed exile in Belarus, Bakiyev has denied any role in the violence.
Jallahitdin Jalilatdinov, who heads the Uzbek National Center, told The Associated Press on Monday that at least 100,000 Uzbeks were awaiting entry into Uzbekistan, while another 80,000 had already crossed over the border.
An AP reporter saw hundreds of Uzbek refugees stuck in no-man's-land at a border crossing near Jalal-Abad, while an AP photographer saw hundreds of refugees in a camp on the Uzbek side.
Desperate refugee women grabbed loaves of flat bread handed out by aid workers amid the chaos.
New fires raged Monday across Osh — the country's second-largest city — which is 3 miles (5 kilometers) from the border with Uzbekistan. Food and water were scarce as armed looters smashed stores, stealing everything from televisions to food. Cars stolen from ethnic Uzbeks raced around the city, most crowded with young Kyrgyz wielding sharpened sticks, axes and metal rods.
In the mainly Uzbek district of Aravanskoe, an area formerly brimming with shops and restaurants, entire streets were burned to the ground. In one still-smoldering building, an AP photographer saw the charred bodies of three people.
No police or troops were seen on the streets of the city of 250,000.
Hundreds of residents gathered at Osh's central square Monday seeking to get on buses heading to the airport. Gunman have made the road from the city to the airport too dangerous to tackle alone.
Osh police chief Kursan Asanov told the AP that 950 foreigners — mostly Russians, Pakistanis, Indians and Africans — have been evacuated since disturbances began, as well as residents who were Uzbek and Kyrgyz.
"The entire city is in the state of panic — you see for yourselves — because all people have children," said Osh resident Galina Nikolayevna.
Mukaddas Jamolova, a 54-year old housewife from Kara-Su, near Osh, said she saw looters burn down many Uzbek homes. She said her house was not burned down but the family can't flee to Uzbekistan as they fear armed attackers.
"We can't go anywhere, we have a curfew, nobody's letting us out," Jamolova told The Associated Press on the phone.
In another city beset by violence, Jalal-Abad, 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Osh, armed Kyrgyz amassed at the central square to hunt down an Uzbek community leader who they blame for starting the trouble.
At a mosque in the village of Sura-Tash, ethnic Uzbeks converted a mosque into a makeshift hospital. Using the most rudimentary supplies, health workers treated anyone who came by for with wounds from beatings at the hands of Kyrgyz, or ordinary medical issues like heat exhaustion and diabetes.
Some took shade in the mosque, but hundreds were forced to wait outside in the sun.
Vodka was used to sterilize medical equipment and powdered plaster was melted down to turn into casts for broken limbs.
One doctor said those who attacked Uzbeks seemed to have the support of the Kyrgyz military.
"Many people have died, snipers fired from more than one kilometer away, and organized gangs followed the military as they drove in with armored personnel carriers," said Lutsalla Khakimov, a doctor working at the mosque. "This was organized, they wanted to start a war."
Some victims said they had been raped.
As the clashes continued, desperately needed aid began trickling into the south. Several planes arrived at Osh airport with tons of medical supplies from the World Health Organization. Trucks carried the supplies into the city with an armed escort.
The U.S. had a shipment of tents, cots and medical supplies ready to fly to Osh from its Manas air base in Bishkek, the U.S. Embassy said.
The U.S. and Russia both have military bases in northern Kyrgyzstan, away from the rioting. Russia sent in an extra battalion to protect its air base. The U.S. Manas air base is a crucial supply hub for the coalition fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Uzbeks make up 15 percent of Kyrgyzstan's 5 million people, but in the south their numbers rival ethnic Kyrgyz. The fertile Ferghana Valley, where Osh and Jalal-Abad are located, once belonged to a single feudal lord, but was split by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin among Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, rekindling old rivalries.
In 1990, hundreds were killed in a land dispute between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in Osh, and only the quick deployment of Soviet troops quelled the fighting. Russia over the weekend refused a request by the interim government to send troops into Kyrgyzstan, so the government began a partial mobilization of military reservists.
"No one is rushing to help us, so we need to establish order ourselves," said Talaaibek Adibayev, a 39-year-old army veteran who showed up at Bishkek's military conscription office.
—
Karmanau reported from Bishkek, where Associated Press writer Leila Saralayeva contributed. D. Dalton Bennett in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, and Mansur Mirovalev in Moscow also contributed.

100,000 Uzbek refugees seek safety at border

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