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Interim U.S. attorney won't get nod

By TIMES WIRES
Published February 17, 2007

WASHINGTON

The prosecutor whose appointment as an interim U.S. attorney in Arkansas has ignited a furor in Congress will not be nominated for the job permanently, the Justice Department said on Friday.

The appointment of the prosecutor, J. Timothy Griffin, as the temporary successor to H.E. Cummins III as U.S. attorney prompted Democrats to complain that Cummins and several other U.S. attorneys had been removed for political motives.

Griffin had been a political director for the Republican National Committee and, more recently, a deputy to Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser.

LAS VEGAS

Dogs and cats killed after disease outbreak

An outbreak of contagious diseases at a Las Vegas shelter where officials admit they kept animals for too long without destroying them has forced the killing of about 1,000 dogs and cats, officials said. Visiting inspectors from the Humane Society of the United States discovered the outbreak of the diseases, Lied Animal Shelter spokesman Mark Fierro said.

WASHINGTON

Bush has two moles removed from face

President Bush had two moles removed from his left temple Friday. His doctors at Walter Reed Army Medical Center expect tests on the skin growths to show that they are noncancerous.

Bush has had lesions removed before: one on his left arm in August, a skin growth on his neck in 2005, small lesions from his left shoulder and face in 2004, and others from his face in 2001.

Elsewhere

BURLINGAME, CALIF: California on Friday doled out nearly $45-million in grants to about 20 state universities and nonprofit laboratories for human embryonic stem cell research, exceeding the federal government's annual outlays of $25-million.

WASHINGTON: The Dole Fresh Fruit Co. recalled several thousand cartons of cantaloupes Friday after the fruit tested positive for salmonella. The recall covers the eastern United States and Canada's Quebec province.

SAN FRANCISCO: Police on Friday issued an arrest warrant for a New Jersey man suspected of roughing up Nobel laureate and Holocaust scholar Elie Wiesel at a San Francisco hotel this month. Eric Hunt, 22, faces several charges.

BOSTON: A black Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who said racism led to the decision to deny him tenure ended a hunger strike Friday. James Sherley, 49, is a stem cell scientist.

[Last modified February 17, 2007, 00:52:34]