World / Nation Briefs August 4, 2011

Mubarak denies charges as trial opens in Egypt

CAIRO - An ailing, 83-year-old Hosni Mubarak, lying ashen-faced on a hospital bed inside a metal defendants cage with his two sons standing protectively beside him in white prison uniforms, denied charges of corruption and complicity in the killing of protesters at the start of his historic trial on Wednesday.

The spectacle, aired live on state television, was a stunning moment for Egyptians. Many savored the humiliation of the man who ruled with unquestionable power for 29 years, during which opponents were tortured, corruption was rife, poverty spread and political life was stifled.

After widespread skepticism that Egypt's military rulers would allow one of their own - a former head of the air force - to be prosecuted in front of the world, the scene went a long way to satisfy one of the key demands that has united protesters since Feb. 11, when Mubarak fell following an 18-day uprising.

Dozens charged in international child porn sting

WASHINGTON - Seventy-two people have been charged with participating in an international child pornography network that prosecutors say used an online bulletin board called Dreamboard to trade tens of thousands of images and videos of sexually abused children.

Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Wednesday a 20-month law enforcement effort called Operation Delego targeted more than 600 Dreamboard members around the world for allegedly participating in the private, members-only Internet club created to promote pedophilia.

Numerous participants in the network sexually abused children ages 12 and under, produced images and video of the abuse and then shared it with other club members, according to court papers released in the case.

At a news conference at the Justice Department, the attorney general called the criminal activity a "nightmare" for the children and said that some of the children featured in the images and videos were just infants.

In many cases, the children being victimized were in obvious, and intentional, pain - even in distress and crying, just as the rules for one area of the bulletin board mandated, the attorney general said.

FAA shutdown solution sought during recess

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama urged Congress on Wednesday to end the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration, which began nearly two weeks ago because of a partisan standoff over air service to rural communities and union organizing.

Obama noted that nearly 4,000 FAA workers have been furloughed, another 70,000 workers involved in airport construction projects are affected and the country stands to lose more than $1 billion in revenue from uncollected airline ticket taxes during the shutdown if Congress leaves the problem hanging until lawmakers return in September.

"So this is a lose-lose-lose situation," he said.

Republican leaders responded that the whole problem can be resolved almost immediately if Senate Democrats will only accept a mere $16.5 million in air service subsidy cuts that the House last month attached to a bill to extend FAA's operating authority. "The only reason so many jobs are at stake is Senate Democratic leaders chose to play politics rather than pass the House bill," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a statement.

But Democratic leaders, speaking at a Capitol Hill news conference, said the cuts are a sham. The real issue, they said, is that Republicans are provoking crisis after crisis to get Democrats to accept policy changes that the GOP wouldn't be able to achieve through normal legislative negotiations.

Tour bus full of riders overturns on N.Y. roadway

WHITNEY POINT, N.Y. - A tour bus carrying more than 30 passengers flipped over on an upstate highway Wednesday night and landed upside-down in a ditch, injuring several people and trapping at least one woman underneath it.

Four people were seriously injured and 36 others suffered minor injuries, a dispatcher for the Broome County Sheriff's Office said.

The accident, the latest in a string of bus crashes in the Northeast this year, occurred on Interstate 81 in a southbound lane near Whitney Point, a scenic village of about 1,000 residents. The bus, which appeared to have no markings on its sides, sat in the ditch on its roof with its wheels in the air.

First responders worked frantically to free a woman who was trapped under the bus, Whitney Point Fire Department Chief Nicholas Sculley said.

The woman, who was conscious and alert, had been partially ejected through the bus roof escape hatch, which had come open. She was lying on her back with her head under the bus, in a gap between the ground and the bus. She was rescued with no obvious external injuries other than a couple of cuts to her face, Sculley said.

"A centimeter either way," he said, "and it would have been a different outcome."

- The Associated Press