Judge cuts sentence because of man's race

A federal judge in Boston reduced the sentence of a black man becausehis criminal record was mostly made up of traffic offenses, sayingresearch shows black drivers are stopped more than whites. AlexanderLeviner was placed in the court system's second-highest criminalcategory - one usually reserved for violent offenders - after hepleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. But thecrimes that led to his sentence were mostly minor traffic andsmall-time drug offenses, which Judge Nancy Gertner suggested mayhave had something to do with his race. She sentenced him to 2 1/2years; prosecutors sought four.S. Koreans claim cloning progress A South Korean medical team saidWednesday that it had made an important advance in cloning humancells to create replacement organs. The work they did could alsoserve as a first step in cloning people. The team said it replacedthe nucleus of a woman's egg with the nucleus of one of her bodycells, transferring her DNA to the egg. The team then cultivated theegg until it grew into four cells, an early embryonic stage. Theteam stopped there because a resolution adopted by South Koreanscientists in 1993 banned taking the experiment further. The nextstep would have been implanting the egg in a woman's womb and lettingit grow to create stem cells - primordial cells from which all of ahuman's bodily tissues and organs develop. The South Korean team washeaded by Dr. Lee Bo-yeon, a professor at the fertility clinic ofKyonghee University Hospital in Seoul.Retribution for Serb attack fearedWith church bells pealing and anger building, thousands in Pec,Yugoslavia, on Wednesday mourned six young Kosovo Serbs killed in abarroom attack blamed on ethnic Albanian rebels. Monday's attack,condemned as "appalling beyond words" by U.S. envoy RichardHolbrooke, prompted Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to renewhis quest to wipe out "terrorism" by separatists. It also raisedfears that inflamed ethnic passions would cause more fighting in thesouthern province.Zimbabwe's ex-president arrestedFormer President Canaan Banana of Zimbabwe, who fled to South Africalast month just before being convicted of sex charges, was placedunder house arrest Wednesday after returning home. Banana, 63, wasreportedly handed over to Zimbabwe police by South Africanauthorities in a deal seen as a major thaw in strained relationsbetween the two nations. He was convicted Nov. 26 of 11 sexcharges, including sodomy and assault.D'Amato to guide Holocaust suitSen. Alfonse D'Amato (R-N.Y.) was appointed Wednesday to overseenegotiations in Holocaust survivors' lawsuits against German andAustrian banks. Five plaintiffs representing at least 50,000survivors sued two of Germany's biggest banks - Deutsche Bank andDresdner Bank - and Austrian banks, accusing them of stashing assetsbelonging to Jews headed for death camps. Banks are accused ofprofiting by accepting, laundering or selling their cash, securities,art and family heirlooms. D'Amato chairs the Senate BankingCommittee.Mosque falls to commercial quests A Qing-era mosque in the centralChinese city of Chengdu that local Muslims transformed into a symbolof China's endangered cultural heritage has been demolished to makeway for commercial development, sources in the city confirmedWednesday. Muslims had tried for months to rally support for theImperial City mosque, built in 1666. Scores of workers and policeconverged on the site in a swift, nighttime raid Nov. 22 anddestroyed the classical wooden temple. The city built a new mosquenearby.

Judge cuts sentence because of man's raceA federal judge in Boston reduced the sentence of a black man becausehis criminal record was mostly made up of traffic offenses, sayingresearch shows black drivers are stopped more than whites. AlexanderLeviner was placed in the court system's second-highest criminalcategory - one usually reserved for violent offenders - after hepleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. But thecrimes that led to his sentence were mostly minor traffic andsmall-time drug offenses, which Judge Nancy Gertner suggested mayhave had something to do with his race. She sentenced him to 2 1/2years; prosecutors sought four.S. Koreans claim cloning progress A South Korean medical team …