N.J. Senate president sworn in as governor

WEST ORANGE, N.J. - State Senate President Richard Codey on Sunday took the oath of office as New Jersey's acting governor, a role he will assume Tuesday after Gov. James E. McGreevey's resignation becomes official.

The transfer of power caps a transition period that began with McGreevey's stunning disclosure in August that he would resign because of a gay sex scandal.

Codey, 57, a Democrat, opted for a private swearing-in ceremony in deference to the circumstances of McGreevey's departure, aides said. The event at his West Orange home was closed to the public and the news media, except for an Associated Press photographer.

"I'm looking forward to governing and bringing back calm, peace and a sense of harmony to the state of New Jersey," Codey said outside his home minutes after the brief ceremony.

He was sworn in by state Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance, a Republican from Hunterdon County. Besides a few staff members and state police security, the only other people at the ceremony were Codey's wife, Mary Jo, their two sons and Monsignor Michael Kelly of Seton Hall Prep.

McGreevey's announcement that he had an extramarital affair with a man and would resign threw the state's executive branch into turmoil and put Codey in line to assume the governor's job with 14 months left in McGreevey's term.

Because New Jersey is one of eight states without the position of lieutenant governor, Codey will wield the clout of both governor and Senate leader for a time, filling the governor's term that ends in January 2006.

Aides said McGreevey's last day in office was expected to be quiet, spent with family away from Trenton. He is not expected to grant any pardons or conduct state business.

Vice president suffering from bad cold, says wife

WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney, back home after a brief hospital visit, has nothing more than a bad cold and his heart is fine, his wife and an adviser said Sunday.

Cheney, who has had four heart attacks, had three hours of tests Saturday after experiencing shortness of breath. They showed no heart problems - "none whatsoever," said Mary Matalin, a former top White House aide to the 63-year-old vice president.

Cheney's most recent heart attack was in November 2000, just before he assumed the vice presidency. He had a pacemaker implanted in his chest in June 2001.

Lynne Cheney, the vice president's wife, said the entire family has had a bad cough and cold.

On Sunday, the vice president was resting, drinking lots of fluids and generally taking it easy - "doing everything you're supposed to do when you have a cold" - but planned to show up for work today, she told CNN's Late Edition .

FDA to use antennas to fight drug fraud

WASHINGTON - The Food and Drug Administration and several major drugmakers are expected to announce an agreement today to put tiny radio antennas on the labels of millions of medicine bottles to combat counterfeiting and fraud.

Among the medicines that will soon be tagged are Viagra, often counterfeited, and OxyContin, one of the most abused medicines. The tagged bottles - for now, only the large ones from which druggists get the pills to fill prescriptions - will start going to distributors this week, officials said.

The labels are called radio-frequency identification. As with automated highway toll systems, they consist of computer chips embedded into stickers that emit numbers when prompted by a nearby radio signal.

Radio labels fight counterfeiting by providing a unique identifier that is almost impossible to copy. When pharmacists receive delivery, they should be able to pass a wand over the bottles and, through an online database, check the history of each.

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