“Roughly 6,000 federal inmates to be released”

In a move to reduce prison overcrowding and provide relief to inmates given harsh sentences in drug cases, the federal Bureau of Prisons will grant early release to about 6,000 inmates from prisons across the country between October 30 and November 2. The mass release is the largest in the Bureau of Prisons history and the first wave of what could be tens of thousands of early releases, officials said. The mass release was triggered by the U.S. Sentencing Commission, which lowered maximum sentences for drug offenders last year and made the change retroactive. The reductions are not automatic. Under the commission's directive, federal judges are required to carefully consider public safety in deciding whether to reduce an inmate's sentence. "The Department of Justice strongly supports sentencing reform for low-level, non-violent drug offenders," Quillian Yates said. Once inmates are released, she said, probation officers "are working hard to ensure that returning offenders are adequately supervised and monitored.”

In Other News Doctors Without Borders, calling the U.S. airstrike on its hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, an "attack on the Geneva Conventions," is asking for an independent investigation by a never-before-used international commission. The International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission has been in existence since 1991. It requires a request by one of the 76 nations that have signed on to it for it to begin its work. Its job is to investigate whether international humanitarian law has been violated. Doctors Without Borders -- also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF -- has said it believes the bombing was a war crime. If you've ever wondered why there are so many landmarks named after Ronald Reagan, look no further than a bearded, bespectacled man from Washington known for hating tax increases and taking an annual pilgrimage to Burning Man. Less than a decade after his presidency ended, Reagan aides made a concerted effort to convince local governments and private associations to name places after their boss across the nation. Led by lobbyist and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, the Reagan Legacy Project was founded in the 1997 with the goal of naming something substantial after the nation's fortieth president in every state and, eventually, make the Gipper's mark in each of the nation's 3,144 counties.