Sean Penn: Nothing to hide over drug lord interview
Sean Penn: Nothing to hide over drug lord interview
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Actor Sean Penn said he has “nothin’ to hide,” after images published Monday indicated he was under surveillance when he met with the Mexican actress who led him to Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman — and the pair was apparently followed and photographed as they set out for the supposedly secret meeting with the drug lord.
In a brief email exchange with The Associated Press, Penn also dismissed criticism over his interview with the fugitive, who was captured on Friday, a day before Penn’s 10,000-word story was published in Rolling Stone magazine.
Mexican officials have said that contacts between Guzman’s lawyers and Penn and actress Kate del Castillo helped them track down the fugitive and they raided his hideout in rural Durango state a few days after their Oct. 2 meeting. Guzman evaded authorities then, but was finally captured after a shootout Friday in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa.
Penn wrote in the Rolling Stone article of elaborate security precautions, including switching phones. As he flew to Mexico for the meeting, he wrote, “I see no spying eyes, but I assume they are there.”
He was right — and they had apparently been following del Castillo for months based on contacts with Guzman’s lawyers.
Task force: Mammograms an option at 40, do more good at 50
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mammograms do the most good later in life, a government task force declared Monday in recommending that women get one every other year starting at age 50. It said 40-somethings should make their own choice after weighing the pros and cons.
When to start routine mammograms and how frequently to get them has long been controversial. The latest guidelines from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force stick with its advice that women should one every two years between ages 50 and 74. But they also make clear that it’s an option for younger women even though they’re less likely to benefit.
Some health groups urge mammograms every year starting at 40 — although last year the American Cancer Society upped its starting age to 45.
There is some common ground emerging, that mammography advice shouldn’t always be one-size-fits all. “Age 50 isn’t magic,” said task force past chairman Dr. Michael LeFevre of the University of Missouri.
High court seems ready to scrap mandatory public union fees
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court appears ready to deliver a major setback to American unions as it considers scrapping a four-decade precedent that lets public-sector labor organizations collect fees from workers who decline to join.
During more than an hour of oral arguments Monday, the high court’s conservative justices seemed likely to side with a group of California teachers who say those mandatory fees violate the free-speech rights of workers who disagree with a union’s positions.
Labor officials fear unions’ very existence could be threatened if workers are allowed to get all the benefits of representation without at least paying fees to cover the costs of collective bargaining. The case affects more than 5 million workers in 23 states and Washington, D.C.
But Justice Anthony Kennedy rejected arguments by lawyers for the state of California and the California Teachers Association that the current fee system is needed to prevent non-members from becoming “free riders” — workers who reap the rewards of union bargaining and grievance procedures without paying for it.
“The union basically is making these teachers compelled riders for issues on which they strongly disagree,” Kennedy said, noting the political nature of bargaining issues like teacher salaries, merit promotions and class size.
For some theater shooting jurors, trial began after verdict
CENTENNIAL, Colo. (AP) — For nearly 14 weeks, they sat in a suburban Denver jury box, listening for hours as witnesses described the searing pain of gunshot wounds and the terror they felt as they fled the movie theater, the gunman still firing at them.
They sat feet from a poster-sized photo of a 6-year-old girl’s bullet-ravaged body. They held the murder weapons. And when the jurors announced they couldn’t agree that James Holmes should die for his crimes, they heard the cries of his anguished victims.
Four months later, they are still haunted — their struggles showing how the scars of a mass shooting can stretch from the victims, to the first responders and even to the jurors who must decide what to do with the perpetrator.
One juror cut her hair, fearing she’d be recognized by a victim she saw at a grocery store. Another can no longer hunt with her husband, worried the sound of a gunshot will trigger her post-traumatic stress disorder. Another can’t sleep without nightmares.
Some started seeing therapists as they work through the shame they feel for the flashbacks and anxiety they suffer despite never having set foot inside the theater in July 2012, when 12 were killed and scores of others injured.