Nation in brief

Ariz. bishop testifies he didn't see jaywalker

PHOENIX - Catholic Bishop Thomas O'Brien testified at his hit-and-run trial Monday that he heard a loud crash on the night he struck and killed a jaywalking pedestrian but never saw anyone in the road.

Because he didn't realize he had struck someone, "it never entered my mind" to stop, O'Brien said, making his first public comments about the accident that ended his 21-year career as head of the Phoenix Diocese.

O'Brien said he winced and put up his right hand upon hearing the noise on the passenger side of his car. He said he saw his windshield had been damaged but did not see anyone. The accident caused a spider-web crack over much of the passenger side of the windshield.

Under questioning from a defense attorney, O'Brien said that he drove on without figuring out what had happened. He said he thought more about the windshield after arriving home.

"It might have been a dog," O'Brien said. "It might have been a rock. I just didn't know."

O'Brien is accused of leaving the scene of an accident that killed pedestrian Jim Reed on June 14. If convicted, O'Brien, 68, could get nearly four years in prison.

WASHINGTON - President Bush's press secretary and a former White House press aide testified on Friday to a federal grand jury investigating who improperly disclosed the identity of a CIA agent, the press secretary and a lawyer for the aide said on Monday.

The appearances of the press secretary, Scott McClellan, and the press aide, Adam Levine, reflected what lawyers in the case said was the rapidly quickening pace of a criminal inquiry in which a special prosecutor is examining conversations between journalists and the White House.

Levine left the Bush administration in December after working as the principal liaison between the White House and the television networks.

CORAL GABLES - U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow announced Tuesday that the Bush administration is cracking down on illegal travel to Cuba by freezing the assets of Cuban-run travel companies and prohibiting U.S. citizens and residents from doing business with those companies.

"We're cracking down," Snow said. "We mean business. We're cutting off American dollars headed to Fidel Castro, period."

The Treasury Department on Monday unveiled a list of ten entities it said are owned and run by either the Cuban government or Cuban citizens. They include Havana-based Corporacion Cimex S.A. and Cubanacan Group, along with companies operated by those corporations in Canada, Argentina, Chile and other countries.

The companies are not based in the United States, but Snow said the federal government will freeze any U.S. assets of the companies.

Federal officials ended their investigation Monday into the country's first case of mad cow disease after failing to locate almost two-thirds of the 80 cattle that had entered the United States from Canada with an infected Holstein.

The 52 missing animals include 11 cows believed to be at higher risk because they were born about the same time as the Holstein and may have eaten the same contaminated feed.

"The paper trail has gotten cold; we have not been able to trace those animals," said W. Ron DeHaven, chief veterinary officer at the Department of Agriculture.

Officials said their decision to halt the inquiry was supported by an international panel of experts. They said that even if other animals had mad cow disease, the risks to humans were low.

PETERSON JUDGE SEALS NAMES OF WITNESSES, JURORS: The judge presiding over Scott Peterson's murder trial ordered Monday that the witness lists and names of potential jurors remain confidential, despite protests by the media.

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