News & Events

For media inquiries and other press-related questions, please contact the NAAG Press Center at (202) 326-6027.

Press Room

State News Headlines

January 23, 2007

The following headlines are compiled as an internal service for state Attorney General offices only. This list is not exhaustive and is a snapshot of news from around the country compiled through the use of various search engines.

Court Ruling Spotlights Calif. Prisons

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The U.S. Supreme Court's decision striking down California's criminal sentencing rules may cause disruptions, but it could be a blessing in disguise as the state grapples with severely overcrowded prisons. The high court made clear Monday that juries, not judges, must determine facts that justify harsher prison sentences. That means about 10,000 of 173,000 California inmates are eligible for reduced terms…"It does raise the salience and importance of the way sentences are handed out and what those sentences are," Attorney General Jerry Brown said of the justices' ruling. "It certainly is calling attention to the issue of sentencing, and that might well move higher up on the legislative scale the priority of sentencing reform." Nine other states, including Illinois and Texas, urged the court in vain to uphold the California law. Full Article

MySpace to Send U.S. Users Missing Children Alerts

NEW YORK ( Reuters) - Popular online social network MySpace said on Tuesday it will begin sending online alerts to users in certain U.S. regions to help find missing children as part of an expansion of plans to expand safeguards for users. MySpace struck a partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children to enable MySpace AMBER alerts, a program between the media and law enforcement to issue early warning broadcast bulletins in serious child abduction cases. It is part of an upgrade by News Corp.-ownedMySpace of safety features designed to address concerns of child safety advocates, some of whom say it has been slow to keep its many teenage members safe from adult predators. Full Article

States Seek to Rein In Home Insurers

A backlash against insurers is building in several coastal states where homeowner premiums have increased sharply despite several years of rising industry profits and an uneventful hurricane season in the East. In Florida, where back-to-back hurricanes have helped some rates more than double since 2004, the state legislature yesterday approved a measure aimed at reducing homeowner premiums offered by private insurance companies by 5% to 25% or more. The legislature has been meeting since last week in a special session specifically aimed at addressing the state's insurance crisis. Full Article

Leslie R. Kershaw
Communications Assistant
Office: (202) 326-6027
Fax: (202) 408-8061
Email: lnelson@naag.org

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