Another exhibit on WTC with jumpers draws ire

NEW YORK -- A second artistic rendering of people falling from the World Trade Center towers after the terrorist attacks last year has outraged residents who called the works insensitive.

"This is a time for healing, not opening wounds," said Helen Marshall, the Queens borough president, about an art center that decorated its windows with white cutout images of people plunging from the twin towers.

Earlier in the week, Rockefeller Center removed from display a bronze sculpture called "Tumbling Woman" that had been presented as a memorial.

At the Queens Center for the Arts and Learning, the art by Israeli immigrant Sharon Paz was installed Sept. 10.

Bush presses Democrats on homeland security

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Saturday pressed Senate Democrats to stand up to the challenge of terrorism by agreeing to his proposal for a Homeland Security Department with broad power to "move people and resources to meet new threats."

Bush, in his weekly radio address, said the bill now before the Senate was unacceptable and he favored a compromise by Sens. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, and Zell Miller, D-Ga. Bush said their measure would meet his demands for flexibility while adequately protecting the 170,000 federal workers expected to staff the new department.

Bush was going after the votes of Democratic moderates and of one middle-of-the road Republican, Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.

Judge says Constitution main point in terror case

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A federal judge said the Constitution, not fears about terrorism, will guide his decision about whether six suspected members of a New York terror cell must remain jailed until their trial.

U.S. Magistrate H. Kenneth Schroeder Jr. asked prosecution and defense lawyers to file memoranda next week and said he will rule by Oct. 3.

"I know there are people out there who say if we let these people out and we have another 9-11 -- God forbid -- but that's a risk I would be taking," Schroeder said Friday after three days of arguments about bail risks. "I'm not concerned with what other people think."

Schroeder said his aim is to protect the Constitution, which he called "probably the most valuable aspect of all."

Prosecutors allege the six men, all U.S. citizens of Yemeni descent and Muslims, were schooled in the tools of terror, including the use of suicide as a weapon, at a camp run by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network in Afghanistan.

Cop accused in torture case gets five years

NEW YORK -- A former police officer was sentenced to five years in prison Saturday night in a last-minute deal that avoided a fourth trial on charges he lied about the torture of a Haitian immigrant in a precinct bathroom.

U.S. District Judge Reena Raggi sentenced Charles Schwarz to five years in prison -- the maximum penalty for perjury. In exchange, prosecutors dropped outstanding civil rights charges and a second perjury count.

At sentencing, Raggi scolded Schwarz for lying about "a senseless and brutal attack."

"No free society can tolerate such conduct from a police officer," she said.

INS settles lawsuit with agent over racial bias

MIAMI -- The Immigration and Naturalization Service settled a lawsuit alleging its Miami offices fostered anti-Cuban and anti-Hispanic sentiments and retaliated against an agent who aired bias accusations after the armed raid to seize Elian Gonzalez.

Friday's settlement came just days before the federal whistle-blower lawsuit, brought by INS agent Ricardo Ramirez, had been scheduled to go to trial. Most terms of the settlement are secret, but the court will monitor its enforcement.

Ramirez, a 17-year veteran of the agency, claimed he has been the target of about 20 internal complaints since he spoke out after the armed federal raid to seize Elian from the home of his Miami relatives in April 2000.

--From wire reports