STOPPING THE INSANITY: Teddy Bear Teacher Pardoned By President Of Sudan
KHARTOUM, Sudan – Sudan’s president on Monday agreed to pardon a British teacher jailed here after she allowed her students to name a teddy bear Muhammad, British politician Lord Nazir Ahmed said. Ahmed and another Muslim representative from Britain’s House of Lords, Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, met with Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir Monday at his presidential palace to plead for Gillian Gibbons’ pardon. “The president has told us he has already signed the papers for her pardon,” Ahmed told reporters. Sudanese presidential spokesman Mahzoub Faidul told The Associated Press that Gibbons would “be released today and will fly back to England today.” [via ASSOCIATED PRESS]
*
Experts Question Constitutionality Of Anti-Poopie Pants Laws
“The question is what is motivating these laws? … What is so threatening about it?” says Neil Richards, a First Amendment expert at Washington University in St. Louis, adding that the ordinances seem to single out a form of dress popular with young black men and hip-hop culture. Saggy pants fashion is believed to have started in prisons, where inmates are issued ill-fitting jumpsuits but no belts to prevent hangings and beatings. David Hudson Jr., a legal scholar at the Nashville-based First Amendment Center, finds it bizarre that cities spend so much time regulating clothing. Besides possibly violating the First Amendment, Hudson says saggy pants bans raise serious concerns under the 14th Amendment’s due process clause guaranteeing life, liberty and property interests. [via ASSOCIATED PRESS]
*
NEW SHERIFF IN TOWN: Nutter’s Top Cop ‘Fine’ With Declaring A ‘Crime Emergency’
Charles H. Ramsey, Nutter’s choice to replace Sylvester M. Johnson, fully agrees with the incoming mayor’s promise to declare a crime emergency in some parts of the city on his first day in office, Jan. 7. “Declaring a state of emergency is fine with me,” Ramsey, the former Washington police chief, said in an interview Friday. “Crime is at an unacceptable level. . . . It’s certainly something we have to get a handle on real quick.” How Ramsey will carry out the emergency response is less certain. He spent much of last week getting his bearings in his new city — meeting with Johnson and the department’s command staff as well as attending several district roll calls to introduce himself to the rank and file. “One reason I came up now, even before I take over, is to start the process of getting that sense and that feel of what’s going on,” said Ramsey, 57. “I think you have to rebuild the airplane while it’s in flight. That’s the nature of the business.” [via INQUIRER]