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A group of women in Chicago has banded together to address a mounting backlog of untested rape kits at the Illinois State Police Crime Lab. The Women’s DNA Initiative announced their plans on Sunday in the Chicago Tribune to raise as much as $1 million to have the rape evidence tested at private firms. Shortly thereafter, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich vowed to find $3 million in the state’s budget to address the three-year backlog of some 1,500 rape kits, the Tribune reports.

The National Rape Evidence Project estimates that the backlog nationwide is at least 350,000 rape kits. “The reality is a woman gets raped and she goes through a second invasive process of having a rape kit done where they swab all different parts of her body,” former New York City police commissioner Howard Safir told the Tribune. “She leaves thinking she went through the second invasive process because it’s going to help catch a rapist. In many locations around the country, they just sit on the shelves.” In 1999 Safir convinced then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to spend $12 million to analyze a backlog of more than 17,000 kits, according to the Tribune.

The US House of Representatives recently passed a bill that designates $755 million over five years to the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program, focused on eliminating the current backlog of DNA rape kits nationwide. “This new law will pull rapists off the streets and throw them behind bars, case closed.” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), author of the original Debbie Smith Act, in a press statement. “This action guarantees prevention of future sexual assaults and resolution for some unsolved rapes … Rape kits should be in the lab undergoing analysis, not stuck on the shelves of a warehouse.”

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US Park Police Chief Teresa Chambers was suspended on Friday for speaking out about the need for increased funding to hire more park police officers to patrol national monuments. The Associated Press reports that she is under investigation and was asked to clear out her desk, relinquish her badge, firearm, and government ID. US Park Service Deputy Director Don Murphy claims that Chambers broke two federal rules by speaking about a budget issue before the budget was finalized but refuses to identify which specific rules she had violated, the Washington Post reports.

Chambers, who was appointed as the first woman chief of the US Park Police in February 2002, had truthfully answered reporters’ questions about US Park Police needs for the future and said that there was a shortfall of officers covering certain parks because of new orders to place more officers at the major monuments like the Washington Monument, the Post continued. Due to the shortfalls some parks are reporting more crime and there has been an increase in accidents on parkways.

Doug Hartnett of the watchdog group Government Accountability Project told the Post, “Rather than focus on the real issue of the threat to security and public safety that the police chief identified, they try to distract the public by citing some arcane ‘rule’ that doesn’t exist or doesn’t apply. It is all a bluff. But unfortunately, they often get away with destroying a good public servant’s career, and making sure no one else considers ‘committing the truth.'”

LEARN MORE Read National Center for Women and Policing Director Margie Moore’s Editorial

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Anti-abortion extremist Clayton Lee Waagner was convicted on Wednesday for mailing envelopes containing fake anthrax to over 700 abortion clinics in 24 states. Of the 53 charges against him, the jury found Waagner guilty of 51 of them, including the threatening use of a weapon of mass destruction, violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrances (FACE) Act, extortion, and mailing threatening communication, according to Knight Ridder.

Waagner, who represented himself in the trial, said he was “tickled” that the threatening letters disrupted abortion clinics back in 2001 but claimed the government had not proven he had sent the envelopes, according to the Associated Press. Because he has committed a variety of other crimes, this conviction means that Waagner will probably spend the rest of his life in prison.

In 2001, when Waagner mailed his anthrax threats, Congress and media outlets had just received real anthrax by mail. Therefore, Waagner’s threats were taken very seriously. When the fake anthrax was mailed to abortion clinics nationwide, the Feminist Majority Foundation, Planned Parenthood, and the National Abortion Federation immediately alerted clinics to prevent clinic workers from opening mail they thought was contaminated. These alerts helped law enforcement by directing them to the “scope of the investigation,” allowing the FBI to immediately “declare it a national investigation and start the collection of evidence across the nation,” according to Margaret Moore, director of law enforcement for the Feminist Majority Foundation.

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A man who was arrested last month for allegedly plotting to bomb abortion clinics, lesbian and gay bars, and churches that did not condemn abortion was indicted by a grand jury last week. Stephen Jordi was indicted on counts of attempted arson, distributing explosives information, and possessing a silencer, according to the Associated Press. The FBI had been watching Jordi since August after receiving a tip from his brother, Michael Jordi, that Stephen Jordi was planning to attack abortion clinics. The FBI gathered information on Jordi using an informant posing as an anti-abortion extremist. FBI spokesperson Beverly Esselbach said, “He was perilously close to carrying out his plans,” according to the Associated Press.

In September 2003, Jordi attended the anti-abortion activities in Florida surrounding the execution of Paul Hill, who murdered an abortion provider and a volunteer escort. He was photographed during these activities with convicted clinic bomber Joshua Graff and Neal Horsley, creator of the “Nuremberg Files” website. FBI agents traced at least six phone calls from Jordi to Graff or Horsley following the execution, the Miami Herald reports.

Earlier in November, US Magistrate Judge Ann Vitunac denied bail for Jordi, declaring him a danger to the community, the Herald reports. If convicted, Jordi faces up to 20 years in prison and as much as $750,000 in fines, according to the Associated Press.

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The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed the Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology Act (HR 3214), authorizing over $1 billion to facilitating the testing and processing of DNA kits in criminal cases. Sponsored by Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-WI), HR 3214 designates $755 million over five years to the Debbie Smith DNA Backlog Grant Program, focused on eliminating the current backlog of 300,000 DNA rape kits nationwide. In addition, the measure supports Sen. Joseph Biden’s (D-DE) DNA Sexual Assault Justice Act (S. 152), providing grant monies for training and education of law enforcement, medical, and judicial professionals involved in using DNA data for sexual assault cases. Finally, the package also extends upon the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), offering legal assistances for dating violence victims and grant funding for coalitions servicing violence victims.

Under provisions of this bill, death row inmates would be permitted to call on DNA testing to prove their innocence. Rep. Sensenbrenner was pleased with the measure’s passage through the House, “Many crimes could be solved, many guilty people taken off the streets, and many victims could be spared from further crimes,” the AP reported.

LEARN MORE Read a story in Ms. magazine about women on Death Row

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On Tuesday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Stephen Jordi of Coconut Creek, Florida for planning to bomb “an unspecified number” of abortion clinics. According to the FBI, Jordi was “perilously close” to starting his bombing campaign, according to the Associated Press. The FBI had been watching Jordi since August after receiving a tip from his brother, Michael Jordi, that Stephan Jordi was planning to attack abortion clinics. In September 2003, Stephan Jordi attended the anti-abortion activities surrounding the execution of Paul Hill. Hill was executed on September 3, 2003 for the murder of abortion provider Dr. John Britton and his volunteer escort, Lt. Col. James Barrett; his execution served as a rallying point for the most extreme members of the anti-abortion movement, including those who advocate violence against abortion providers. Before his execution, Hill showed no remorse, stating, “I think it was a good thing, and instead of being shocked, more people should do what I did. I think more people should act as I acted,” according to the Associated Press. Although severe clinic violence is down from its peak in 1994, “our national clinic violence survey reveals that violence is still threatening our nation’s clinics at an intolerable level,” said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation. The most recent survey found that levels of severe violence have slightly increased in the past two years, from 20 percent of clinics experiencing severe violence in 2000 to 23 percent in 2002. FMF’s National Clinic Access Project is the largest of its kind in the US, leading efforts to keep women’s health clinics open in the face of a war of attrition waged by abortion opponents. DONATE to the Feminist Majority Foundation and support our National Clinic Access Project

Against the protests of women’s rights advocates, Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger recently hired a private investigation firm to look into allegations that he groped at least 16 women in the past three decades. Women’s groups and California Attorney General Bill Lockyer (D), a Schwarzenegger supporter, have called for an independent investigation. “If someone came to me and said I am working for Arnold Schwarzenegger and I want to investigate what you said about him, I wouldn’t feel very secure,” Helen Greico, executive director of the California National Organization for Women, told the Los Angeles Times. “An independent investigation would be the right call.”

The inquiry into the allegations is meant to fulfill a campaign promise by Schwarzenegger, that he would address the charges that surfaced in the last days of the recall election by the LA Times. Schwarzenegger is reportedly upset with Lockyer for supposedly violating “attorney-client privilege,” although this claim has been repeatedly dismissed by legal experts, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Lockyer has been accused of trivializing Schwarznegger’s actions by calling it “frat boy behavior,” according to the Times. Though he tried to clarify his remarks by explaining that in his mind, “frat-boy behavior runs from rowdy drunkenness to rape,” women’s rights groups are not convinced, the Times reports. “[Lockyer] should not be see-sawing back and forth. He should take a stand with women, not with Arnold,” Greico told the Chronicle.

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A women’s health clinic is seeking a permanent injunction against an anti-abortion extremist. In September, the Emma Goldman Clinic obtained a restraining order against longtime anti-abortion activist Dan Holman, who, with his wife Donna, was a regular fixture outside the clinic in Keokuk, Iowa. In November, the clinic will return to court in an attempt to make the restraining order permanent. The temporary order requires Dan Holman to stay across the street from the clinic and prohibits him from coming within 100 feet of the clinic’s executive director or the medical director’s homes, according to the Iowa City Press Citizen.

The Holmans’ behavior outside the Goldman clinic has steadily escalated, culminating in an interview Dan Holman gave to the New York Times at the execution of Paul Hill for murdering an abortion provider and his volunteer escort. Holman told the Times, “Some day, I hope I will have the courage to be as much as a man as [Hill] was,” according to the Kaiser Daily Reproductive Health Report. He also told the Orlando Sentinel, “I haven’t killed anyone yet, but I believe they deserve to die,” the Associated Press reports. “First they had the bloody signs, then they were videotaping us, and then the yelling at clients and staff, standing right at the edge of the law,” said the clinic’s executive director, Karen Kubby, AP reports. “When you see that, and then the comments he made at the Paul Hill execution, it’s my job to make sure our clients and our staff are safe.”

LEARN MORE Read “Drawing the Line,” a guide to legal strategies clinics can use to curb anti-abortion violence and harassment

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Months after the administrative shakeup replaced top brass at the US Air Force Academy, officials at the institution say incidents of sexual assault or harassment continue to occur. Academy spokesman John Van Winkle told the Associated Press, nine cases have been reported since April.

Despite implementing new proposals (termed the Agenda for Change) including dramatic shifts in student body structure, greater adult oversight, a weakened student command chain, and 24-hour dorm security and monitoring, a survey of nearly 600 female cadets released by the Defense Department last week revealed that 18 percent admitted to being sexually assaulted at least once, and 11 percent of fourth-year women said they had been victims of rape or attempted rape, according the AP.

Meanwhile, the academy is reconsidering its position regarding the confidentiality of victims reporting assault. In June, officials altered the academy’s previous position and rejected victim confidentiality, mandating participation from criminal investigators, a chaplain, a nurse, and a cadet representative in every reported assault case. Rape victim advocates continue to insist that confidentiality is critical for victims to come forward.

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A judge upheld a $115 million judgment against Eric Robert Rudolph for maiming an abortion clinic nurse in a 1998 bombing. Rudolph’s lawyers had asked Jefferson County Circuit Judge Helen Shores Lee to dismiss the monetary judgment, claiming that Rudolph was not properly served with the suit when it was filed in 2000, according to the Birmingham News. The suit was filed by Emily Lyons, a nurse who worked at Birmingham, Alabama’s New Woman All Woman Health Care Clinic, and her husband Jeff. Lyons was severely injured when the clinic was bombed in 1998 by suspected serial bomber Rudolph. She lost one eye and has undergone 20 operations because of injuries sustained during the bombing, which killed an off-duty police officer, according to the Associated Press.

Rudolph is also charged with bombing an Atlanta abortion clinic, a lesbian and gay nightclub, and Centennial Park in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics. He remained on the run for five years, and he was captured in June in Murphy, NC. The four bombings that Rudolph is charged with left two people dead and over one hundred injured. He was placed on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list in May of 1998. He is the third anti-abortion extremist in the last five years to be placed on an FBI list and the third to be captured.

LEARN MORE Read in-depth coverage of the anti-abortion extremist movement in Ms. magazine

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A civilian panel appointed by Congress to investigate the sexual assault scandal at the US Air Force Academy released its findings Monday, charging that the institution’s commanders repeatedly failed to take responsibility and adequately respond to the problem. Former Florida Rep. Tillie Fowler, chair of the seven-member panel, said “Most [sexual assault victims] suffered alone because of an atmosphere of fear and retribution by peers aided by either indifference, incompetence or a combination of both by an academy leadership they believe failed them,” according to the Boston Globe.

The report, which found 142 sexual assault allegations at the academy during the period from 1993 to 2002, was delivered to Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Air Force Secretary James Roche on Monday and followed two other recent reports, including one in August by the Department of Defense and one in June by Air Force general counsel Mary Walker. Addressing a conclusion from the Defense Department document, the civilian panel report wrote, “The panel believes that the Air Force general counsel attempted to shield Air Force headquarters from public criticism by focusing exclusively on events at the academy… The failure of… leadership to respond aggressively and in a timely and committed way to eliminate causes of serious problems was a failure of leadership. Those responsible should be held accountable,” reported the Globe. Among the top brass criticized were current dean of faculty Brig. Gen. David A. Wagie as well as former officials Lt. Gen. John Dallager, Brig. Gen. S. Taco Gilbert III and Col. Laurie Sue Slavec. The panel offered 21 recommendations, including greater oversight of the academy, more access to trained counselors, and confidential reporting for victims of sexual assault.

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Anti-abortion extremist Paul Hill, who in 1994 killed a Pensacola, Florida doctor and his volunteer escort, is scheduled to die tonight by lethal injection. Hill, an early proponent of “justifiable homicide” of abortion providers, shot and killed Dr. John Britton, 69, and volunteer escort James Barrett, 74, outside the Pensacola clinic that had previously been the site of Michael Griffin’s murder of Dr. David Gunn. Hill also wounded volunteer escort June Barrett in the attack. In an interview yesterday, Hill said, “I don’t feel any remorse because I think it was a good thing, and instead of being shocked, more people should do what I did. I think more people should act as I acted,” according to the Associated Press.

Abortion rights advocates fear that Hill’s death could make him a martyr and trigger more violence against abortion clinics. Abortion clinics in Florida and across the country are taking extra precautions. “Security’s at a very, very high level,” Carole Ann Steiger, of Planned Parenthood’s Beach Boulevard clinic in Florida, told First Coast News. “It is so important that women have access to reproductive health care, … that they can come to [a] place that is safe and secure.”

Although severe clinic violence is down from its peak in 1994, “our national clinic violence survey reveals that violence is still threatening our nation’s clinics at an intolerable level,” said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation. The most recent survey found that levels of severe violence have slightly increased in the past two years, from 20 percent of clinics experiencing severe violence in 2000 to 23 percent in 2002. FMF’s National Clinic Access Project is the largest of its kind in the US, leading efforts to keep women’s health clinics open in the face of a war of attrition waged by abortion opponents.

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LEARN MORE Read the 2002 National Clinic Violence Survey