WASHINGTON

SCHWARZENEGGER PUSHES REDISTRICTING, ASKS FOR FUNDING

Governor Schwarzenegger asked fellow Republicans for more money for California yesterday – even as he pushed a redistricting plan that could threaten some of their jobs. He claimed progress on federal funds for transportation and health care after meeting with House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, a Republican of California.

As for how to sell skeptical Republicans on his plan to redraw congressional and state legislative districts, Mr. Schwarzenegger offered an optimistic solution: “Magic.” “The people of California did not send me to Sacramento to support the Democrats or to support the Republicans,” Mr. Schwarzenegger told reporters. “They sent me to Sacramento to clean house and to reform and to make the government and the politicians better representative to the people of California.”

He wants a panel of retired judges to redraw California’s political map next year. That job is currently done by state lawmakers, and under the normal timeline wouldn’t happen until after the 2010 census.

Some Republicans fear redrawing districts in Democrat-leaning California could cost the party seats in Congress. Even if the GOP managed to keep the 20 seats it now holds – Democrats have 33 – powerful lawmakers who lead in the Republican-controlled House could find themselves fighting for their jobs before unfamiliar voters.

– Associated Press

NORTHEAST

COSBY WON’T FACE CHARGES IN ALLEGED SEX ASSAULT

PHILADELPHIA – Bill Cosby will not face charges stemming from a woman’s allegation he fondled her, a prosecutor said yesterday. Authorities found “insufficient credible and admissible evidence” to support the woman’s claims, Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor said in a statement.

A former Temple University employee, who now lives in her native Ontario, went to Canadian authorities January 13, contending that Mr. Cosby gave her medication that made her feel dizzy, then fondled her at his suburban Philadelphia home after a dinner out with friends in January 2004. Mr. Cosby has denied the allegations.

Mr. Castor has said that the accuser’s yearlong delay in coming forward, and her contact with Mr. Cosby in the past year, weighed in the comedian’s favor. The prosecutor said he also reviewed claims by other people that Mr. Cosby had “behaved inappropriately” toward them, but that detectives could find no instance “where anyone complained to law enforcement of conduct which would constitute a criminal offense.”

– Associated Press

PRIEST CONVICTED OF MOLESTING ALTAR BOY

BALTIMORE – A defrocked priest was convicted yesterday of molesting an altar boy who a decade later shot and wounded him on the street in a fit of rage when the clergyman refused to apologize. Maurice Blackwell, 58, former Roman Catholic pastor of a Baltimore church, was found guilty on three of four counts of sexually abusing Dontee Stokes, now 29, during the early 1990s. He could get up to 45 years in prison when he is sentenced in April. Stokes said he felt vindicated by the verdict. He testified that the priest molested him from age 13 to 17. Prosecutors declined to charge Blackwell when Stokes first raised the accusations a decade ago.

In May 2002, a tormented Stokes shot Blackwell three times in the hip and hand during a confrontation on a city street.

The following December, Stokes was acquitted of attempted murder after claiming temporary insanity – he called it an “out-of-body experience”- but was found guilty on gun charges. Jurors sent the judge a note urging him to be lenient, and Stokes was sentenced to 18 months of home detention.

In the aftermath of the shooting, prosecutors reviewed Stokes’ old allegations and charged Blackwell. The Vatican defrocked him in October.

– Associated Press