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Nation in brief

Nixon papers, tapes released for library

By wire services
Published February 3, 2005

YORBA LINDA, Calif. - Three decades after the 37th president resigned in disgrace and the government seized his papers and tapes, a change in the law is sending the material home, transforming the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace from a private institution into a National Archives collection and making it eligible for millions of dollars in federal money.

Officials at the only presidential library that is without federal funding are planning an addition for the 46-million pages of records, 30,000 gifts and 3,700 hours of recordings, including the White House tapes that sealed Nixon's downfall.

Library officials note that the library, which opened in 1990, will be run by the National Archives in the same way as the 11 other presidential libraries. Duties will be split between federal archivists and private foundation staff.

The transfer was made possible by language in a 2004 spending bill deleting a federal prohibition against removing Nixon's papers and tapes from the Washington area. California Republicans, including Rep. Gary Miller, who represents Yorba Linda, sought the change.

After Nixon resigned in 1974, lawmakers afraid that he would destroy documents necessary for the Watergate investigation passed a law giving the government possession of his papers and tapes. Four years later, Congress passed the Presidential Records Act, abolishing private ownership of presidential papers.

It is expected to take until 2009 to transfer all Nixon's records to the library. The National Archives first has to finish transcribing and making public 2,800 hours of tape recordings. So far, 2,019 hours have been released.

A one-time treatment that uses a homing-device drug to zap cancer cells with radiation made a deadly lymphoma disappear in three out of four patients, many for nearly eight years, researchers report.

While the results were called promising, it's not known yet whether the novel approach will be superior to the standard early treatments normally used for a slow-growing but incurable type of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

The researchers said more studies will be needed to determine whether doctors should use Bexxar as a first treatment to fight the immune-system cancer. Bexxar is approved for use only when other therapies, including chemotherapy and radiation, fail.

Bexxar treatment starts with a test dose followed by a full dose a week later instead of over months, as with chemotherapy. One advantage is fewer side effects, such as hair loss, the researchers said.

TOPEKA, Kan. - The state House on Wednesday approved an amendment to the Kansas Constitution banning gay marriage and civil unions, placing the measure on the April 5 ballot.

The vote was 86-37, three more than the two-thirds majority necessary. The proposed amendment declares that only couples in a traditional marriage of one man and one woman are entitled to the benefits associated with marriage.

Thirteen states adopted such amendments last year.

Since 1867, Kansas law has recognized only marriages between one man and one woman. Amendment supporters argued that the additional language would protect the state's traditional definition of marriage from legal challenges.

A similar change failed Wednesday in the Idaho Senate.

CHICAGO - Some residents of Chicago's largely Hispanic Pilsen section are upset over a new doll in the popular American Girl series because her storyline says the Mexican-American youngster and her family left the "dangerous" neighborhood for a better life in the suburbs.

Many in the West Side neighborhood say the characterization is insulting and inaccurate.

"It's very offensive and it's really a slap in the face to the hardworking people of the Pilsen community," said Alvaro R. Obregon, who lives near where the doll, Marisol, supposedly lived before setting out for suburban Des Plaines.

According to the biography that accompanies the doll, she is the daughter of a transit worker and an accountant. One day her mother tells Marisol the family is leaving their apartment for a house in the suburbs.

The old neighborhood "was no place for me to grow up," the doll's story says. "It was dangerous, and there was no place for me to play."

American Girl officials said that they did not intend to insult the community.

SALT LAKE CITY - Talking on a cell phone makes you drive like a retiree - even if you're only a teen, a new study shows.

A report from the University of Utah says when motorists between 18 and 25 talk on cell phones, they drive like elderly people - moving and reacting more slowly and increasing their risk of accidents.

"If you put a 20-year-old driver behind the wheel with a cell phone, his reaction times are the same as a 70-year-old driver," said David Strayer, a University of Utah psychology professor and principal author of the study. "It's like instant aging."

And it doesn't matter whether the phone is hand-held or handsfree, he said. Any activity requiring a driver to "actively be part of a conversation" likely will impair driving abilities, Strayer said.

Motorists who talk on cell phones are more impaired than drunken drivers with blood-alcohol levels exceeding 0.08, Strayer and colleague Frank Drews, an assistant professor of psychology, found during research conducted in 2003.

Their new study appears in this winter's issue of Human Factors, the quarterly journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society.

[Last modified February 3, 2005, 01:14:56]