San Diego mayor agrees to step down in deal
SAN DIEGO – Mayor Bob Filner agreed Friday to resign on Aug. 30, bowing to enormous pressure after lurid sexual harassment allegations brought by at least 17 women eroded his support after just nine months on the job.
The City Council voted 7-0 on a deal that ends a political stalemate after more than a dozen women publicly identified themselves as targets of unwanted advances, including touching, forcible kisses and lurid comments.
The 70-year-old Filner, a Democrat who served 20 years in Congress before becoming mayor of the nation’s eighth-largest city, apologized to accusers but denied ever sexually harassing them.
He previously insisted he still could be an effective mayor and underwent two weeks of behavioral therapy before returning to work this week.
Regulators to seek new silica dust limits
WASHINGTON – Federal regulators are proposing a long-awaited rule that would dramatically limit workplace exposure to silica dust.
Officials at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration say the new limits would save nearly 700 lives each year and prevent thousands of illnesses, including cancer and lung disease.
The rule would cut in half the amount of silica exposure currently allowed for general industry and maritime workers.
Soldier receives life in deaths of Afghanis
JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. – The U.S. soldier who massacred 16 Afghan civilians last year in one of the worst atrocities of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was sentenced Friday to life in prison with no chance of parole – the most severe sentence possible, but one that left surviving victims and relatives of the dead deeply unsatisfied.
“We wanted this murderer to be executed,” said Hajji Mohammad Wazir, who lost 11 family members in the attack by Staff Sgt. Robert Bales. “We were brought all the way from Afghanistan to see if justice would be served. Not our way – justice was served the American way.”
Bales, 40, pleaded guilty in June in a deal to avoid the death penalty for his March 11, 2012, raids in Kandahar province.
Associated Press
