NPR 2008-07-22

Serbia’s president says his forces have arrested a man long-sought by a UN war crimes tribunal. NPR’s Michele Kelemen reports.

According to a statement by President Boris Tadic’s office, Serbian security officials arrested former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. It was a move quickly welcomed by the UN War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague. The lead prosecutor 1, Serge Brammertz, called it “an important day” for the victims who have waited for this arrest for over a decade. Radovan Karadzic was the leader of the ethnic 2 Serbs during the war in Bosnia–Herzegovina in the 1990s. He’s charged with genocide against Bosnian Muslim, Bosnian Croat and other non-Serb civilians 3, and will face charges for his alleged 4 role in the shelling of Sarajevo and the killing 5 of thousands of Bosnian Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica. It’s not clear yet when he will be transferred to The Hague. Michele Kelemen, NPR News.

A judge at the first war crimes trial at Guantanamo Bay is barring evidence obtained by highly-coercive interrogations. The ruling by a navy captain came on the first day of the trial against Salim Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin 6 Laden 7. Hamdan today pleaded not guilty to conspiracy 8 and supporting terrorism.

In a US district court in Santa Ana, California, a member of a domestic terrorist group was sentenced to prison for his role in a plot to attack military facilities, Jewish synagogues and the L.A. International Airport. NPR’s Carrie Kahn has details.

Twenty-four-year-old Gregory Patterson was sentenced in federal court to 12 years and seven months in prison. Patterson is one of four men accused of joining a domestic terrorist group formed by a state prison inmate 9. According to federal prosecutors 10, prisoner Kevin James formed a terrorist cell called “Jam’iyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh” in 1997. Patterson pledged allegiance to the cell while housed at California’s New Folsom Prison. Following his release, Patterson set out to find new recruits. He enlisted 11 two Southern Californian men to blow up local Jewish temples, military recruiting centers and the Israeli Consulate 12. The plot was uncovered when the recruits were arrested robbing local gas stations to fund their self-proclaimed Jihad War. Carrie Kahn, NPR News.

An Iraqi spokesman says his government hopes US combat troops can pull out of the country by the end of 2010. The comments followed a meeting today between Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other top leaders in Baghdad. The timeframe for withdrawal 13 is similar to the one Obama has proposed. Obama also met with US commanders and visited US troops near Basra.

On Wall Street today, the Dow fell 29 points to close at 11,467. The NASDAQ lost three points at 2,279. This is NPR.

The Food & Drug Administration says it has found a jalapeno pepper contaminated with the same salmonella strain that has sickened more than 1,100 people. Calling it “an important clue”, the agency is warning consumers not to eat fresh jalapenos. The FDA says the pepper was picked in Mexico, and identified at a distribution center in Texas. But it hasn’t determined 14 where the pepper became contaminated.

A new study has found an unexpected part of the brain is active when animals sleep. The finding could help explain how the brain determines when and for how long animals, including us, need to sleep. NPR’s Joe Palca has the story.

If you look at brain waves coming from sleeping animals, you see two distinct patterns. In one, there are relatively 15 long slow rhythmic 16 waves of electrical activity; and in the other, you see fast erratic 17 bursts. The fast activity has been associated with the dreaming while the slow waves seem to occur during restorative sleep, the kind of sleep that makes you unsleepy. Scientists used to think that a deep part of the brain called the brain stem was critical for slow-wave sleep. But now, scientists at SRI International in Menlo Park, California have found cells in the cortex that may turn out to be critical for triggering this slow-wave sleep. The research appears in the Proceedings 18 of the National Academy of Sciences. Joe Palca, NPR News, Washington.

A joint 19 military effort is under way to find the missing crew members of a B-52 bomber 20 that crashed off Guam. Two US airmen were killed; four others are missing. The Air Force says the bomber crashed shortly after taking off to perform a flyover 21 in Guam’s Liberation Day parade.