Prosecutor seeks to challenge Clinton
By Times Staff
Published August 9, 2005
Jeanine Pirro, above, the Westchester County (N.Y.) district attorney, said Monday she will seek the Republican nomination to challenge Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton next year. "I am running against Hillary Clinton because New York state deserves a senator who will give her all to the people of New York for a full term, who will not miss votes to campaign in (presidential) primaries," Pirro said. There was no immediate comment from Clinton. Pirro, 54, has won praise for her Internet stings of would-be child molesters, her work with battered women and her battle against underage drinking.
Trial opens in N.Y. for "Junior' Gotti
John A. "Junior" Gotti went on trial Monday in New York on charges of kidnapping, extortion and fraud. A prosecutor said Gotti, 40, ordered the 1992 kidnapping of a radio host to silence him for his harsh verbal attacks on the Gotti family. Gotti's lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, said his client left crime years ago after pleading guilty to racketeering in another case. He became a new man after he "realized his children might grow up without him if he doesn't change," Lichtman said. If convicted, Gotti could be sentenced to 30 years in prison.
TH E UNUSUAL
Robbers in Brazil pull $65-million heist
Thieves tunneled nearly 300 feet to a Central Bank vault in northeastern Brazil and stole about $65-million sometime over the weekend, federal police said Monday, in what has been described as the biggest such robbery in Brazil. The thieves built an elaborate tunnel with electric lights from a house to the vault in Fortaleza, about 1,550 miles northeast of Sao Paulo, police said. They said cameras and motion detectors inside the vault didn't work. The biggest previous bank heist in Brazil was in 1999, when thieves took about $16-million from a Sao Paulo bank.
UPDATE
Tropical weather
Tropical Storm Irene weakened into a tropical depression Monday, and Tropical Storm Harvey was falling apart in the cooler waters of the north Atlantic, forecasters said. Neither threatened land. Irene's top sustained winds were 35 mph. The National Hurricane Center's five-day forecast indicates the storm will turn north and pass near Bermuda. Harvey had top sustained winds near 50 mph but was losing its tropical storm qualities, forecasters said. Harvey was centered about 535 miles southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland, and moving northeast near 20 mph.