Jaywalking fine revoked for senior

An 82-year-old woman who was given a jaywalking ticket for taking too long to cross a busy street won’t have to pay the $114 fine.

Mayvis Coyle had become something of a sensation after her case was publicized in April. Senior citizen advocates were outraged at her treatment. News camera crews showed up at her door unannounced.

Last week, however, Coyle received a mailed notice that a court commissioner had found her guilty of jaywalking but suspended the fine.

“It sounds like a compromise, like they’re trying to save face,” Coyle’s son, Jim Coyle, told the Los Angeles Daily News, which first reported the ticketing. “We’re grateful for everyone’s support.”

Los Angeles

Clinton praises Bush, not GOP

Former President Bill Clinton praised President Bush on Saturday for supporting reforms that would allow millions of illegal immigrants to seek citizenship but said the debate in Congress is being fomented by Republicans who want to divide America.

“I’m proud of him for doing it and I thanked him for doing it,” he said of Bush during a “Cafe con Clinton” breakfast speech to the annual conference of the National Council of La Raza, the nation’s largest Hispanic civil rights advocacy group.

Clinton said Bush’s roots in Texas – which has one of the nation’s largest Hispanic populations – have helped him view immigrants as people rather than statistics.

“It’s hard to demonize people if you know them,” Clinton said.

But he also argued that the nation’s government is controlled by Republican ideological hard-liners who want to use immigration to divide Americans and distract them from issues such as the war in Iraq and the health care crisis.

Clinton supports an immigration reform measure passed by the Senate that would provide a way for many of the estimated 12 million foreigners living in the country illegally to become citizens. A House-approved bill would make illegal immigrants felons and build 700 miles of border walls.