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Brazil acquits rancher in killing of Ohio nun
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) - An Amazon rancher earlier convicted of ordering the killing of an Ohio nun has been acquitted in a retrial, a court official said Tuesday.
A jury voted 5-2 to acquit Vitalmiro Moura, one of two ranchers who allegedly ordered the killing of the 73-year-old Dorothy Stang three years ago, court spokeswoman Gloria Lima said.
Moura had been convicted and sentenced to 30 years in May 2007 of ordering the killing of the rain forest defender over a land dispute. But Brazil requires retrials for first offenders who are sentenced to more than 20 years.
Human rights groups had hailed his initial conviction a sign that Brazil was cracking down on long-standing impunity in the region.
But immediately following Tuesday’s new verdict, Judge Moises Flexa ordered Moura, who had been jailed since 2005, released.
(Refer to page 2 of the Kenton Times) |
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Cuyahoga audit shows evidence of glitches
By M.R. KROPKO
Associated Press Writer
CLEVELAND (AP) - An audit of the presidential primary election shows that slightly more ballots than should have been were scanned through a new voting system in a county with a history of difficulties tabulating votes, an election official said Tuesday.
But the problem in Cuyahoga County is considered minor and was likely the result of errors in the way the paper ballots were run through the high-speed computerized scanners used for the first time during the March 4 primary in the state’s most populous county, which includes Cleveland.
At the direction of Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, the county eliminated touch-screen electronic voting, which had been troublesome, in the days prior to the election.
Brunner, a Democrat, had asked Ohio counties for voluntary audits to help determine consistency and performance of the voting process. She was aware of the Cuyahoga audit findings and suggested the elections board in Cleveland may want to amend its official primary election vote count to reflect the discrepancy, spokesman Jeff Ortega said.
(Refer to page 2 of the Kenton Times) |
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| TUESDAY MAY 6, 2008 |
Timber-framed barns get new uses
DAYTON, Ohio (AP) - People are dismantling, moving and rebuilding some timber-framed barns to preserve the old structures, many of which have been lost due to neglect, housing developments and natural causes.
Rudy Christian has a family business in Wayne County that dismantled a Civil War-era barn in the Dayton suburb of Miamisburg and moved it to George Rogers Clark State Park near Springfield. He estimates at least one-third of Ohio's timber-framed barns - many of them built in the late 1800s - have been lost.
"They represent really the peak of ... one of the trades that this country was built on, and that's timber framing," Christian said. "It represents such an important part of our cultural heritage."
The construction method involves heavy timber usually joined with wooden pegs. Today's barn construction typically uses smaller lumber fastened with nails.
Steve Gordon, formerly of the Ohio Historical Society, estimates 35,000 timber-framed barns built in Ohio before 1910 survive.
(Refer to page 2 of the Kenton Times) |
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Cuyahoga vote audit matches scan results
CLEVELAND (AP) - A hand-count audit of a sample of presidential primary votes in Ohio's largest county matches the results delivered by a machine that scanned the same paper ballots, an election official said Monday.
Cuyahoga County Board of Elections Deputy Director Pat McDonald said the audit reviewed 7 percent of ballots cast during the March 4 election, including 30,814 paper ballots from 99 precincts. They were hand-counted by teams composed of Republicans and Democrats last week.
The hand count was compared to a fresh scan of the same ballots and finished Friday. On Monday, the county's staff was comparing the outcome of the audit to tallies arrived at on Election Day.
The recheck of the voting was not due to any challenge or concern that vote totals were wrong. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner had asked Ohio counties for voluntary audits to help determine consistency and performance of the voting process.
(Refer to page 2 of the Kenton Times) |
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