Sessions encourages cities to revive 1990s crime strategies

Doctors describe horrific conditions in war-torn Syria

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — A citizen's group plans public hearings in North Carolina on a government program of secret CIA interrogation sites where suspected terrorists might be tortured. The group of academics, retired military officers and ministers said Thursday they aim to investigate and focus attention on the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program that was started after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a former top aide to Secretary of State Colin Powell, hopes the North Carolina Commission of Inquiry on Torture will prevent the Trump administration from restoring secret foreign prisons and harsh interrogation. The commission has no power to compel testimony, but it plans to collect records and talk to witnesses before describing its findings in November.

Citizens' group aims to investigate CIA rendition program