NPR 2012-07-24

 The accused gunman in the Colorado movie theater shooting rampage had his first court appearance today. James Holmes was advised his rights, but prosecutors 1 won't file their full charges against him until next Monday. Colorado Public Radio's Megan Verlee was in the courtroom in the Town of San Antonio near the site of Friday's massacre 2. 

 
Holmes appeared in a maroon 3 jail jump suit with his curly hair dyed bright red. He didn't say anything during the brief proceedings 4 and seemed vague and uninterested. Arapahoe County District Attorney Carol Chamber 5 says she expects the court case to take at least a year. 
 
It's still a very active ongoing 6 investigation 7. We're still doing subpoenas 8, search warrants. We're still looking at this case from every angle. Five relatives of Holmes victims attended the hearing. District Attorney Chamber says her office is consulting with victims' families as prosecutors decide whether to seek the death penalty. For NPR News, I'm Megan Verlee in San Antonio, Colorado. 
 
The NCAA has slapped major penalties on Penn State University's football team in the wake of Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal. The sanctions were announced in Indianapolis by NCAA President Mark Emmert this morning. 
 
The NCAA is imposing 9 a fine of 60 million dollars on the university with the funds to be used to establish an endowment to support programs around the nation that served the victims of child sexual abuse and seek to prevent such abuse from happening. This amount is equivalent of one year's gross revenue of the football team. Second, Penn State football will banned from ball games and any other post season play for 4 years.  
 
The /telease/ also include probation 10, the loss of scholarships, and stripping from former head coach Joe Paterno of every football win from 1998 through 2011. Sandusky is awaiting sentencing after being convicted of sexually abusing 10 boys.
 
A civilian 11 worker has admitted to starting a fire abroad the USS Miami nuclear submarine last night. The fire caused 400 million in damage and was followed by another suspicious dock fire. New Hampshire public radio's Ryan Lessard says he scheduled to appear in court this afternoon.
 
The US attorney's office has charged 24 year old Casey James Fury with 2 accounts of arson 12 for willfully and maliciously 13 setting fires on and around the USS Miami. Fury told the investigators 14 she started the first fire on May 23rd at one of the ship's staterooms using the big lighter 15. The fire burned much of the forward sections of the vessel 16 and took 12 hours to extinguish. Fury also admitted to setting a second fire on the dry dock below the ship on June 16th. Fury claims to have been suffering from anxiety episodes that triggered both arson cases. For NPR News, I'm Ryan Lessard, in Concord 17, New Hampshire.
 
At a last check on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 125 points at 12'698. 
 
This is NPR.
 
Journalist Alexander Cockburn has died. He passed away in Germany on Friday at the age of 71. As NPR's Neda Ulaby reports Cockburn earned his reputation as a left wing crusader after decades of writing for publications as diverse as the Village Boys and the Wall Street Journal.
 
Alexander Cockburn was best known as a columnist 18 for the magazine The Nation and for cofounding CounterPunch, a website he described to CNN a few years ago.
 
We occupy a definite sight when people say there's must be more delight in the Democratic Party even though we loathe 19 the Republicans. There's CounterPunch saying on you can move here.
 
Cockburn had the Democratic Party to tenant 20?. Israel was a favorite target, yet Cockburn was a climate change skeptic 21. In the 1980s he lost the job for accepting a grant funded a group /zenus/pro-Arab. Even while under treatment for the cancer that would kill him, Alexander Cockburn pulled no punches. A recent essay accused the United States of proto-fascism for condoning 22 the patriot 23 act and stopping /fis/ practices by New York police. Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
 
Two civilian police training contractors 24 who were killed by an Afghan policeman were American and a third was a British citizen. Earlier two Afghan police officials had said all three of the victims were Americans. The shootings took place yesterday at a training academy in western Afghanistan. 
 
The world's largest AIDS conference opens this week at a key turning point. Doctors, researchers and patients are expected to urge the world's governments not to cut back on the fight against the epidemic 25 at such a crucial point. Even though there's still no cure or vaccine 26, scientists say they have tools to finally stamp? this threat of the virus. 
 
I'm Windsor Johnston, NPR News in Washington.