Scantily dressed visitors not allowed at U.S. jail (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Skimpily dressed visitors to New York City's main jail complex can only see inmates if they cover up with an oversized, baggy, green T-shirt as part of a new dress code.

The new rules at Rikers Island aim to maintain a "family friendly" environment at the jail.

The city's Department of Corrections has purchased some 750 T-shirts in an easy-to-track shade of bright green. The shirts, all size XXL, are meant to be shapeless on all but the heaviest frames.

"We are trying to keep this a G-rated experience," Sharman Stein, a spokeswoman for the department, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday. "If a visitor is dressed provocatively it could potentially spark a chain of events among inmates."

Prison officials hope to reduce the possibility of inmates making comments about other inmates' visitors' appearance -- be they derogatory or too appreciative -- that could lead to flared tempers and even violence.

The rules also deal with the opposite concern: too much clothing, which might be used to conceal contraband.

The visitor dress code forbids clothes that expose the chest, stomach or back. Hemlines must be no more than three inches (7.6 cm) above the knee. Spandex leggings are frowned upon, as are swimsuits. A visitor's clothes should not be transparent. Hat or head coverings may be worn only if a visitor's religion demands it.

Previously, visitors who fell short of the code would be denied their visit. Now they will be offered the option of shrouding themselves in one of the T-shirts to avoid the frustration of a wasted journey to the prison complex, which sits on an island off the shore of the Bronx, the city's northernmost borough.

(Editing by Barbara Goldberg and Jerry Norton)

Yahoo! News

Arizona residents evacuated by wildfire allowed to go home

(CNN) -- After 13 days of staying in campers, trailers or with out-of-town relatives to escape a raging wildfire, the 200-plus residents of Nutrioso, Arizona, will be allowed to go home Wednesday morning.

Officials with an interagency team fighting a massive blaze in eastern Arizona said late Tuesday the evacuation order issued June 2 for Nutrioso had been lifted. Those carrying forms of identification showing they live in Nutrioso will be allowed to return to the town after 10 a.m. Wednesday, officials said.

The decision to lift the order came at the end of a day in which the blaze was officially recorded as the worst wildfire in Arizona history and firefighters claimed to have made significant strides in containing it.

The Wallow Fire, which has scorched more than 733 square miles in eastern Arizona and western New Mexico, was 20% contained as of late Tuesday, officials said.

"The fire line around Nutrioso is a nice black," said Peter Frenzen, a spokesman for the Southwest Incident Management team, which is fighting the blaze. "That's just testimony to the tremendous work going on around all the threatened communities."

The black on a map signifies that the fire has been stopped outside of the town.

"I was totally surprised," Nutrioso evacuee Alan Miller told CNN affiliate KNXV after learning the evacuation order had been lifted. "I was sitting in my seat squirming. I want to go out there now but I can't do it until tomorrow."

"That feels good," Nutrioso evacuee Dave Derker told the affiliate. "I want to go home."

The blaze has raged throughout the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest since May 29. KNXV reported Tuesday night that fire investigators suspect the blaze was started by a campfire.

"I looks like it was a campfire, and we've got a couple of people of interest that we're talking to right now," U.S. Forest Service spokesman Christopher Knoff told KNXV. The names of those people have not been released.

As crews gained ground on the Wallow Fire, firefighters on Tuesday battled another blaze that has burned 5,200 acres in southwest Arizona.

The so-called Monument Fire, which according to fire officials broke out Sunday afternoon, has threatened the homes of 120 residents and 30 outbuildings. It was 10% contained, Katy Hooper of the National Park Service said Tuesday.

Across Arizona, high temperatures, strong winds and an extended stretch of very low humidity are fueling at least five fires, with a combined burn area that tops 250,000 acres.

Besides Wallow, the largest of the fires is the Horseshoe Two fire in southern Arizona, which started May 8. The blaze, which has so far scorched 171,333 acres, was 53% contained as of late Tuesday. Firefighters have said that blaze has been difficult to get ahead of because of the area's steep terrain and relative isolation.

The Wallow Fire has destroyed 32 homes and 36 outbuildings including sheds and barns. It has drawn 4,734 firefighters from Arizona and around the country. The blaze is the largest fire currently active in the United States, according to Inciweb, an interagency fire information service.

"The great news on this incident is we still have a total of seven injuries and they're all minor," Frenzen said late Tuesday.

Prior to Tuesday, the biggest wildfire on record in Arizona was the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski fire which scorched 722 square miles in Arizona.

Jayson Coil, a manager with the incident response team, said forecast winds from the northwest could fan flames in areas that have been previously sheltered from the fire and push the blaze south.

Fire teams are most closely focusing on the area north of Luna, New Mexico, and west to Alpine, Arizona, communities on the fire's eastern flank, Coil said.

Firefighters were working nine miles of fire line close to population centers in that high-priority section of the fire, he said. They were burning vegetation near the Luna Lake area Tuesday in a bid to strengthen and connect containment lines.

On the west side of the fire, commanders were focusing on shoring up containment lines around Burro Mountain and the Sunrise Ski Resort, Coil said.

"There's a line of mixed conifer where that line was put in, and because of that it's requiring a lot of extra suppression efforts," he said. "That mixed conifer holds (heat) for a long time."

Conditions around Greer, Arizona, also continued to improve, with power restored to the area, Coil said. But it is unclear when residents of that community might be allowed home. The evacuated residents of Alpine are also waiting to hear when they go home.

Regarding when the evacuation orders for Alpine and Greer might be lifted, ""We're talking a three-, four- or five-day time frame," Frenzen said.

Crews continued to patrol areas around Springerville and Eagar, where some burned-out areas began to smoke Monday because of the ultra-low humidity in the area, Coil said.

Residents were allowed to return to those communities, which are about 170 miles east-northeast of Phoenix, on Sunday.

CNN's Samuel Gardner III contributed to this report.

CNN

Afghan leader tells NATO attacks on homes "not allowed" (Reuters)

KABUL (Reuters) – President Hamid Karzai warned the NATO-led force in Afghanistan on Tuesday that launching attacks on Afghan homes in pursuit of insurgents was "not allowed" and that patience with the tactic had run out after a spate of civilian casualties.

"NATO must learn that air strikes on Afghan homes are not allowed and that Afghan people have no tolerance for that anymore," Karzai told a news conference in Kabul.

Karzai reacted angrily after NATO air strikes on a compound inadvertently killed at least nine people -- most of them children -- in southern Helmand on Sunday. The strikes were ordered after a patrol had come under fire.

Civilian casualties caused by foreign troops, usually in air strikes or "night raids" on Afghan homes as they hunt insurgents, have long been a major source of friction between Karzai and his Western backers.

Karzai warned that Afghans had had enough of the tactics, which he said were a violation of Afghanistan's sovereignty.

"If they don't stop air strikes on Afghan homes, their presence in Afghanistan will be considered as an occupying force and against the will of the Afghan people," he said.

"The international community has helped us a lot but they cannot risk the lives of Afghan people, this can't be compensated," Karzai said, adding he had warned NATO commanders "a hundred times."

Tension boiled over at the weekend after the strikes on the compound in Helmand's Nawzad district. Graphic television footage after the strikes showed grieving relatives holding the bodies of several children, including babies.

The commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in southwestern later apologized for the deaths, saying the strikes on the compound had been ordered because insurgents were using them as a base.

U.S. and NATO commanders have stepped up the use of air strikes and night raids in the past 12 months, arguing they are effective weapons against insurgents who often hide among the Afghan population.

However commanders have significantly tightened the rules for using both tactics over the past two years amid a growing outcry from Afghan leaders.

U.N. figures show that at least three-quarters of civilians are caused by insurgents but it is those by NATO forces which cause the most anger among ordinary Afghans.

Karzai repeated that he had given NATO a "last warning" over air strikes and night raids but again did not go into any details about what his government would do if the tactics were not stopped. He said he hoped to meet ISAF commanders in Kabul later this week.

"Afghanistan has a lot of ways of stopping it ... But we would like NATO to stop it on their own," Karzai said.

The latest NATO strikes came at a time of high anti-Western sentiment in Afghanistan, and with a gradual security transition from foreign forces to Afghans due to begin in several areas in July.

The argument over air strikes and night raids also comes at a time of heightened violence across the country since the Taliban began their spring offensive at the start of May.

(Additional reporting by Hamid Shalizi; Writing by Paul Tait; Editing by Alex Richardson)

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Undocumented Georgia university student allowed to stay in U.S

Student Jessica Colotl says the decision is "like a big present"She is scheduled to graduate from Kennesaw State University next weekColotl has been facing possible deportation to Mexico since she was arrested last yearActivists on both sides of the immigration debate have used her case as a rallying point

Atlanta (CNN) -- U.S. immigration officials have decided that an undocumented college student apprehended by authorities after driving without a license can stay in the United States for another year, the student said.

Reached by phone as she rushed to class Tuesday evening, Kennesaw State University student Jessica Colotl said the decision was "like a big present."

Officials at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency could not be immediately reached for comment.

Colotl, who is scheduled to graduate next week with a degree in political science, became a lightning rod in the immigration debate last spring. Activists on both sides of the immigration debate said her case was a symbol of a broken system.

Colotl has been facing possible deportation to Mexico.

Her legal problems started in March 2010, when police stopped her car on the Kennesaw State campus and accused her of stopping the flow of traffic in a university parking lot.

Born in Mexico but living in the United States since she was 11, she could not produce a driver's license, so she handed over as identification an expired passport from Mexico.

She was arrested the next day and turned over to immigration officials.

She spent more than a month in the Etowah Detention Center in Alabama.

Friends came out in force and marched on campus in her defense. In May, she was released, and her deportation was deferred for a year, which will allow her to finish her studies.

But she was quickly arrested on a warrant for the Cobb County Sheriff's Office and released on $2,500 bail.

"I'm just trying to live the American dream and finish my education," she said at the time.

Cobb County participates in a federal program that allows jail officials to initiate deportation procedures for inmates believed to be in the country illegally.

Immigration officials last year allowed her to stay until she finished finish her studies after pleas from the community and the university's president.

CNN's Dan Gilgoff and Jessica Ravitz contributed to this report.

CNN

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