CHICAGO
The Chicago City Council on Friday approved what city officials say is the strictest handgun ordinance in the nation, but not before lashing out at the Supreme Court ruling they contend makes the city more dangerous because it will put more guns in people’s hands.
The new ordinance bans gun shops in Chicago and prohibits gun owners from stepping outside their homes, even onto their porches or in their garages, with a handgun. It becomes law in 10 days, Corporation Counsel Mara Georges said.
The vote comes just four days after the high court ruled Americans have the right to have handguns anywhere for self-defense — a ruling that makes the city’s 28-year-old ban on such weapons unenforceable.
LOS ANGELES
More than 180,000 people packed into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum over two days for a rave party that featured spectacular light shows, pulsating techno music on stages the size of small buildings — and a lot of bad drug trips.
The suspected overdose death of a 15-year girl and the scores of injuries in the mayhem that resulted when people tried to force their way closer to the event’s five stages have cast a critical spotlight on what has become a trend, particularly in Southern California, of mega-raves.
Some critics have come forward to complain that raves are nothing more than open-air drug bazaars where tragedy is waiting to happen. Those who follow raves say officials should concentrate on learning from what happened last weekend in Los Angeles and strive to make them safer.
BRIEFLY ...
● PORTLAND, Maine — A Pakistani man held on an immigration violation in Maine while police were investigating the attempted Times Square car bombing will soon be free on bail, his wife said Friday. Sara Rahman and her husband’s attorney have begun the process of arranging for bond for Mohammad Shafiq Rahman of South Portland, one of three Pakistani men in New England charged with immigration violations as authorities investigated the May 1 attempted car bombing.
● INDIANAPOLIS — A federal judge sentenced two high-ranking members of a major international online child pornography ring to 15 years in prison Friday. Michael Baratta, 49, of Sacramento, Calif., and William Watkins, 39, of Lake Worth, Fla., were among five people sentenced Friday on various child pornography charges related to the Cache, an online message board where members shared millions of pornographic images and videos.
● STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Two off-duty deputy coroners in central Pennsylvania showed they’re pretty good with living patients too. Centre County deputy coroners Judy Pleskonko and Debra Smeal — still wearing their scrubs — were having dinner at a steakhouse Wednesday when a 15-year-old boy near them started choking on a piece of meat.
WASHINGTON
Preservation scientists at the Library of Congress have discovered that Thomas Jefferson, even in the act of declaring independence from England, had trouble breaking free from monarchial rule.
In an early draft of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson wrote the word “subjects,” when he referred to the American public. He then erased that word and replaced it with “citizens,” a term he used frequently throughout the final draft.
Fenalla France, a research chemist at the Library, said her lab made the discovery last year by using hyperspectral imaging, using a high resolution digital camera that compiles a series of images to highlight layers of a document. Some of those invisible layers — like erased text and even fingerprints — pop into view on a computer screen.
Compiled from wire reports
