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His life on the line, Fort Hood gunman ties hands of attorneys required to help him
• FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) -- With his life on the line, Maj. Nidal Hasan has done nothing to dissuade jurors from giving him a death sentence. When his standby lawyers pleaded in vain to argue on his behalf, he described them as "overzealous."
• Hasan presented no witnesses or evidence during sentencing after being convicted last week of gunning down 13 people in a rampage at this Texas military post.
• He has one final chance Wednesday to give a closing argument before his case goes to a panel of military officers that can give him death or life in prison without parole. But so far, the Army psychiatrist's absent defense has only stoked suspicion that his ultimate goal is martyrdom, in the form of a death sentence that would allow him to fulfill what prosecutors have described as a "jihad duty" under his Islamic faith.
• Whatever his ultimate motives, Hasan can tie his standby lawyers' hands if he wants.
• Legal experts say he has a nearly unshakable right under the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to represent himself. The military judge, Col. Tara Osborn, has repeatedly warned him about the danger of being his own attorney, and the three lawyers assigned to help him have tried to step in at least twice.
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Tied to the shore, Fukushima fishermen face demise of livelihood as new crisis strikes
• YOTSUKURA, Japan (AP) -- Fumio Suzuki, a third-generation fisherman, sets out into the Pacific Ocean every seven weeks. Not to catch fish that he can sell but to catch fish that can be tested for radiation.
• For the last 2 ½ years, fishermen from the port of Yotsukura near the stricken Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant have been mostly stuck on land with little to do. There is no commercial fishing along most of the Fukushima coast. In a nation highly sensitive to food safety, there is no market for the fish caught near the stricken plant because the meltdowns it suffered contaminated the ocean water and marine life with radiation.
• A sliver of hope emerged after recent sampling results showed a decline in radioactivity in some fish species. But a new crisis spawned by fresh leaks of radioactive water from the Fukushima plant last week may have dashed those prospects.
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