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Nation in brief
Compiled from Times wires Cheney ordered to give up recordsWASHINGTON -- A federal judge has ruled that Vice President Dick Cheney must turn over documents detailing whom he met with last year in forming the administration's energy policy -- specifics sought by special-interest groups that contend the industry heavily influenced plans for more oil and gas drilling and a revived nuclear power program. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, in a ruling made late Tuesday and released Wednesday, gave Cheney two weeks to release the documents or more clearly explain why they should be withheld from public inspection. The lawsuit was filed by the Sierra Club and Judicial Watch, urging full disclosure of who met with the vice president and how they may have influenced his secretive energy task force in 2001. $900-million to boost online security researchWASHINGTON -- President Bush on Wednesday signed a bill authorizing $900-million in grants to spur federal agencies, industry and universities to devote more energy to cybersecurity research. The five-year program would require the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology to bring industry and academic experts together to fund new research and to help attract top researchers to the field. It also would encourage efforts to recruit new students into cybersecurity programs. Nuclear lab fires two investigatorsALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Los Alamos National Laboratory has fired two internal investigators after someone delivered their reports alleging widespread theft and fraud at the lab to a national watchdog group. At least one congressional investigation was under way Tuesday, a day after Glenn Walp and Steven Doran received identical letters terminating their employment. Walp and Doran were hired to investigate the nuclear research lab's handling of government property and money. They said they uncovered a lack of controls on money and hardware. Errant currency litters interstateST. PAUL, Minn. -- Money doesn't grow on trees, but $50 and $20 bills blew like leaves over Interstate 94 in St. Paul during rush hour Wednesday morning. A bank bag containing $50,000 that was supposed to be transported by an armored car company somehow fell onto the highway, scattering cash for more than a mile as motorists and officers scrambled to recover it. "Basically everyone started picking up money off the freeway," said Cynthia Lehman, a spokeswoman for the Minnesota Department of Public Safety. "It was blowing all over." Sniper suspects cleared in La. serial killingsBATON ROUGE, La. -- DNA evidence has cleared the Washington-area sniper suspects of any connection to the serial murders of three Baton Rouge women, police said Wednesday. "They are no longer considered suspects in the serial homicides," police spokeswoman Cpl. Mary Ann Godawa said of Baton Rouge-raised John Muhammad and his teenage companion John Lee Malvo.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
