Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies
© St. Petersburg Times, published October 22, 2002
The Pennsylvania mine where nine men were trapped underground for days this summer was wet and getting wetter even before the accident that flooded it, and the mining company knew it, one survivor testified Monday.
A mining company representative disputed that account during Monday's congressional hearing. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the hearing, said he was troubled by the conflicting testimony.
"I think there is evidence that the mining company had reason to know that the encroachment was likely," Specter said during the hearing of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education.
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department on Monday sought to delay a court order requiring the Bush administration to turn over documents from Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force by Election Day.
Prior to any disclosure, a federal appeals court should be allowed to sort out serious constitutional issues surrounding a lawsuit against the Cheney task force, the department told U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan in a 10-page court filing.
Sullivan last Thursday ordered the Cheney task force to surrender some of its documents by Nov. 5.