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Plan for illegal immigrant drivers' licenses to be shelved

By Times Wires
Published November 14, 2007

NEW YOR

New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has decided to abandon a plan to issue drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants, officials familiar with the decision said Tuesday night.

The governor is due to meet this morning with New York's congressional delegation, many of whom openly oppose the program. Debate over the issue has spilled into New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign.

The governor's office signaled to New York lawmakers Tuesday that Spitzer will say at the meeting that he is shelving the plan and that immigration is a federal issue to be handled by Washington, according to congressional aides who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because no formal announcement had been made.

Spitzer introduced the plan with the goal of increased security, safer roads and an opportunity to bring immigrants "out of the shadows." Opponents said Spitzer would make it easier for would-be terrorists to get identification, and make the country less safe. Many New Yorkers agreed with them.

Clinton has been criticized by her Democratic and Republican rivals for her noncommittal answers on the subject.

WASHINGTON

Woman got FBI, CIA jobs via fake marriage

A Lebanese national who fraudulently gained U.S. citizenship through a sham marriage managed to obtain sensitive jobs at both the FBI and CIA, and at one point used her security clearance to access restricted files about the terrorist group Hezbollah, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

U.S. officials say there is no evidence that Nada Nadim Prouty, 37, passed secrets to Hezbollah. But her ability to conceal her past from the antiterrorism agencies raised new concerns about the agencies' vulnerability to infiltration. Prouty pleaded guilty Tuesday to faking the marriage.

WASHINGTON

Bush changes courseon spy inquiry access

Just four days after Michael Mukasey was sworn in as attorney general, President Bush reversed course Tuesday and approved long-denied security clearances for the Justice Department's ethics office to investigate the National Security Agency's warrantless surveillance program.

The department's inspector general has been investigating the department's involvement with the NSA program for about a year, but the move suggested that Mukasey wanted to remedy what many in Congress saw as an improper decision by Bush to block the clearances and that the White House chose to back him. White House spokesman Tony Fratto and Brian Roehrkasse, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to say whether Mukasey had pressed Bush.

NEW YORK

Police: Teen threatened in 911 call, at the scene

An unarmed, mentally ill teenager could be heard cursing and yelling "I've got a gun!" during a frantic 911 call made Monday by his mother before police arrived and killed him with a 20-bullet barrage, according to a tape of the call released Tuesday.

Police officials said that although the woman had said her son didn't have a gun, Khiel Coppin gave five officers no choice but to open fire after he suddenly charged them outside her home with a black object in his hand. It turned out to be a hairbrush.

PHOENIX

O'Connor's ill husband having affair, son says

Sandra Day O'Connor's husband struck up a romance with a fellow Alzheimer's patient after moving into an assisted living center, and under the circumstances, the retired Supreme Court justice is just glad that he is comfortable and isn't jealous, her son, Scott O'Connor, told a TV station in Phoenix last week.

Sandra Day O'Connor cited her husband's illness and her need to take care of him when she retired in 2005.

[Last modified November 14, 2007, 01:38:50]