Nation in brief

U.S. prison system population spikes

WASHINGTON - The number of Americans under the control of the criminal justice system grew by 130,700 last year to reach a new high of nearly 6.9-million, according to a Justice Department report that is being released today.

The total includes people in jail and prison as well as those on probation and parole. This is about 3.2 percent of the adult population in the United States, the report said.

The growth in what the report termed the "correctional population" comes at a time when the crime rate nationwide has been relatively stable for several years.

The report does not address why the number of men and women in jail and prison and on probation and parole has continued to increase. But experts say the most likely reason is the cumulative effect of the tougher sentencing laws passed in the 1990s, which led to more people being sent to prison and being required to serve longer terms.

The number of women on parole has steadily increased in recent years, the report found. Women totaled 13 percent of parolees at the end of 2003, up from 10 percent at the end of 1995. This increase reflects a slow but steady growth in the number of women being arrested for and convicted of serious crimes.

DENVER - The judge and prosecutors in the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case have failed to show why the media should be barred from publishing material the court accidentally gave them, media attorneys argued Sunday.

In a filing with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, attorneys for seven media organizations that received transcripts of a closed court hearing said District Judge Terry Ruckriegle's order barring the groups from publishing the information is unconstitutional.

The attorneys asked Breyer to put Ruckriegle's order on hold while they prepare a petition asking the full U.S. Supreme Court to review it.

"(Attorneys for the judge and prosecutors) fail to make the extraordinary showing that is necessary to justify this court taking the enormously significant step of approving what the First Amendment has abhorred for two centuries - a governmentally imposed restraint on what the press may publish," the filing said.

Several hours after a court reporter mistakenly e-mailed the transcripts to seven media groups, Ruckriegle threatened a contempt citation against any news organization that releases details from the hearing. The order was upheld last week by the Colorado Supreme Court.

WASHINGTON - The new high school equivalency examination, which demands more analysis and has fewer multiple-choice answers, drew fewer participants in its first year, but they passed at a slightly higher rate, a review has found.

The number who took the General Educational Development program, or GED, dropped 43.6 percent in 2002, the first full year of the new test series, according to the GED Testing Service report released today. It said many GED candidates had rushed to take the old test before new standards were implemented.

With the overhaul of the GED, participants were required to complete the test series before the end of 2001 or to start over with the 2002 series.

This requirement caused a surge in test-takers to more than 1-million people in 2001 and a decline in those showing up to take the test a year later.

SALT LAKE CITY - The family of a missing pregnant woman said Sunday they were clinging to diminishing hopes of finding her alive, and appointed a spokesman after a week of media coverage.

"We are all exhausted and we feel we need to concentrate our efforts and our energies on finding Lori," said Thelma Soares, Lori Hacking's mother.

The family had been holding as many as two news conferences a day since the 27-year-old woman was reported missing a week ago. But they have been more reluctant to face reporters since questions arose about the credibility of Hacking's husband, Mark.

Scott Dunaway, the family's new spokesman, said they had learned little as far as new developments.

A clump of brown hair was found Saturday in a trash bin at a gas station less than a block from the store where Mark Hacking bought a mattress before reporting his wife missing last Monday. But police say they don't know whether the hair was Lori's.

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