World/Nation

Drug shortages promote firing squad in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY - A vote by Utah lawmakers to bring back executions by firing squad is the most dramatic illustration yet of the nationwide frustration over bungled executions and shortages of lethal-injection drugs.

Utah and several other states are scrambling to modify their laws on the heels of a botched Oklahoma lethal injection last year and one in Arizona in which the condemned man took nearly two hours to die. Meanwhile, Texas executed a Mexican mafia hit man Wednesday evening with its second-to-last dosage of drugs.

Utah Republican Gov. Gary Herbert has declined to say if he will sign the firing-squad bill, a decision that's not expected for a week or so.

"States are wondering which way to go, and one way is to send up a warning flag that if you don't allow us freedom in this lethal-injection area, we'll do something else," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Death Penalty Information Center, which opposes capital punishment. "This might be a message rather than a preferred route of punishment."

States have struggled to keep up their drug inventories as European manufacturers opposed to capital punishment refuse to sell the components of lethal injections to U.S. prisons.

Ferguson chief resigns after scathing report

FERGUSON, Mo. - The police chief in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson resigned Wednesday in the wake of a scathing Justice Department report prompted by the fatal shooting of an unarmed black 18-year-old by a white police officer.

Calling Chief Thomas Jackson an "honorable man," Mayor James Knowles III announced the city had reached a mutual separation agreement that will pay Jackson one year of his nearly $96,000 annual salary and health coverage.

Jackson's resignation becomes effective March 19, at which point Lt. Col. Al Eickhoff will become acting chief while the city searches for a replacement.

Jackson had previously resisted calls by protesters and some of Missouri's top elected leaders to step down over his handling of the fatal shooting of Michael Brown and the weeks of sometimes-violent protests that followed. He was widely criticized from the outset, both for an aggressive police response to protesters and for his agency's erratic and infrequent releases of key information.

He took nearly a week to publicly identify Officer Darren Wilson as the shooter and then further heightened tension in the community by releasing Wilson's name at the same time as store security video that police said showed Brown stealing a box of cigars and shoving a clerk only a short time before his death.

Focus is on weather in Black Hawk crash

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. - Searchers struggled Wednesday to find the seven Marines and four soldiers killed when a helicopter crashed, hampered by the same fog that plagued a nighttime training mission.

A second helicopter turned back safely shortly before the wreck, which left debris washing ashore along the Florida coast, officials said.

Military officials haven't said what caused the crash of the UH-60 Black Hawk, but the weather was bad enough for the other crew to return to land, said Maj. Gen. Glenn H. Curtis, adjutant general of the Louisiana National Guard.

The helicopter that crashed had a veteran crew from Hammond, Louisiana, that served multiple tours in Iraq and helped humanitarian missions after Gulf Coast hurricanes and the BP oil spill.

They were carrying unconventional warriors from the Marines Special Operations Command. Like the Army's Green Berets and the Navy's SEALs, they were highly trained to endure grueling conditions and sensitive assignments on land and at sea, from seizing ships to special reconnaissance missions and direct action inside hostile territory.

Dempsey: Iran-backed militias are fighting IS

WASHINGTON - Iran is playing a helpful role against Islamic State militants in Iraq now, but once the extremists are vanquished, Tehran-backed militias could undermine efforts to unify the country, the top U.S. military officer said Wednesday.

Army Gen. Martin Dempsey told lawmakers that any move to counter IS is a 'positive thing." But he said there are worries about whether those Shiite militias will later turn against Sunni or Kurdish Iraqis and hamper efforts to bridge ethnic and political divisions that have made peace elusive in Iraq.

"We are all concerned about what happens after the drums stop beating and ISIL is defeated, and whether the government of Iraq will remain on a path to provide an inclusive government for all of the various groups within it," Dempsey said, using an acronym for the militant group.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said officials are watching to see whether the militias, after recapturing lost ground, "engage in acts of retribution and ethnic cleansing." At this point, "there no indication that that is a widespread event."

Dempsey joined Secretary of State John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ash Carter in testifying for more than three hours at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing called to examine President Barack Obama's proposal for new war powers to fight IS, which holds about one-third of Iraq and neighboring Syria.

Democrats stand by Clinton amid email scrutiny

WASHINGTON - Democrats closed ranks around Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday after her public explanation of her email practices - yet party officials in important election states appeared resigned to the prospect that her all-but-certain presidential campaign will be saddled with drama and controversy.

The mood among Democrats around the country suggested Clinton has work to do to bolster party enthusiasm as she nears the launch of her 2016 campaign, though there's still no sign she'll face a robust primary challenge.

Brady Quirk-Garvan, the Democratic Party chairman in Charleston, South Carolina, said the intense focus on Clinton's use of her private email account as secretary of state leaves him concerned that side issues could overshadow the party's message.

- The Associated Press