New York Mayor says stop protests

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio is catching plenty of heat in the aftermath of the execution-style killings of two of the city's cops over the weekend. Critics - including those in the police force - accuse him of stoking an anti-police fervor that contributed to the deaths of officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos. He came into office promising police reform. Now he's trying to cool tensions after encouraging people to protest the killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, two unarmed African-American men, at the hands of white police officers. Neither officer was charged. He said the murders this weekend were "an attack on all of us" and called for a hiatus yesterday from the protests. The mayor said during luncheon remarks at the Police Athletic League shortly before his afternoon press conference, "It's time for everyone to put aside political debates, put aside protests, put aside all of the things that we will talk about in due time," he said. "Let's accompany these families on their difficult journey. Let's see them through the funerals... then the debate can begin again."

In Other News Joe Cocker, the British blues-rock singer whose raspy voice brought plaintive soul to such hits as "You Are So Beautiful" and the duet "Up Where We Belong," died Monday after a battle with lung cancer. He was 70. Cocker's performing career spanned some 50 years, from Woodstock, where he sang the Beatles' "With a Little Help From My Friends," to the digital-music era. He had tour dates scheduled well into The Obama administration has consistently supported measures aimed at reforming mandatory minimum prison sentencing for nonviolent drug offenders. President Barack Obama's recently decided to commute the prison sentences of eight federal inmates -- incarcerated for drug crimes. The forgiveness of a crime after a sentence is served or the reduction of a sentence currently being served (called a pardon) is one of the few presidential powers widely unchecked by Congress or the courts. Commutations are traditionally issued in the weeks leading up to the holidays. The eight offenders granted commutations this year were all serving lengthy sentences, half of them life sentences, for drug offenses related to crack cocaine and methamphetamine. Although this was the same number of commutations granted in 2013, many expected the number to be much greater given the Justice Department's April announcement of a new prison reform initiative aimed at making it easier for the administration to pardon or reduce sentences of non-violent offenders. Obama has received 15,646 petitions for commutation since 2009 and, with the addition of the eight granted this year, has granted a total of 21. That's more than the number granted by Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan at the same stage in their presidencies.