SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – A ban on bird imports to Puerto Rico has forced the cancellation of more than 100 cockfights, dealing a blow to a lucrative industry in the U.S. territory, an official said yesterday.
Puerto Rico halted all bird imports Thursday after a rare outbreak of avian flu in nearby Dominican Republic.
The cancellation of the fights could cost the industry millions of dollars in lost revenue from people who come to watch or enter their birds, said Carlos Quinones, the cockfighting director for the island's sports and recreation department.
Cockfighting has been outlawed in 49 U.S. states, and Louisiana has approved legislation to make it a crime beginning in August. But in Puerto Rico, the sport is still legal and remains big business.
Associated Press
Police: Man stole $20 from tot's piggy bank
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. – A man was charged Thursday with sneaking into a toddler's bedroom and stealing $20 from a piggy bank while the 2-year-old girl slept.
Authorities say DNA evidence linked Ryan A. Mueller, 30, of Sheboygan Falls to the crime that occurred Aug. 10 in Wilson.
Authorities say the girl's mother was in another room with another child when she saw a light turn on in her 2-year-old daughter's room. She walked into the girl's bedroom and saw a man shaking the piggy bank as the girl slept.
The man fled before police arrived, stealing the money but leaving the piggy bank. Authorities say blood was found on a window blind where the burglar had forced his way into the home.
Associated Press
N.Y. board outlines
voting machine plan
ALBANY, N.Y. – The New York Board of Elections gave a federal judge a timetable yesterday under which it plans to replace all of the state's lever-action voting machines by September 2009.
The upgrades are required by the federal Help America Vote Act enacted after the disputed 2000 presidential election. The U.S. Justice Department sued New York in March 2006 because it was the only state that still hadn't complied.
Associated Press
Court brief defends D.C.'s handgun ban
WASHINGTON – The Second Amendment's provisions protecting the right to keep and bear arms apply only to the federal government, not to the 50 states and the District of Columbia, lawyers for the nation's capital argued yesterday in a written brief to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The district is seeking to preserve its three-decade ban on handgun possession after a federal appeals court ruled in March that the ban is an unconstitutional infringement on an individual's right to keep and bear arms.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to take the case, setting up what could be a landmark ruling on the scope of the Second Amendment. The court has not addressed the issue in a significant way for nearly 70 years.
Associated Press
