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Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times, published April 22, 2001
FBI warned of spy two years ago
WASHINGTON -- Two years before the arrest of a veteran FBI agent accused of spying for Russia, a senior investigator at the FBI concluded in a classified report that Moscow might have recruited a mole in the bureau's ranks, current and former bureau officials say.
In early 1999, FBI Director Louis Freeh was told by Thomas Kimmel, the investigator, about his findings. In response, the officials said, senior bureau officials convinced Freeh that Kimmel's reasoning was flawed, and investigators focused their hunt for a mole at the CIA, not the bureau.
But with the arrest in February of the bureau agent Robert P. Hanssen on charges of spying for Moscow, Kimmel's suspicions proved correct. In the aftermath of Hanssen's arrest, Kimmel's findings, which had not been previously disclosed, have emerged as a warning within the bureau. The warning came even as the bureau's spy hunters were searching in the wrong place.
Hanssen, a 25-year FBI veteran and counterintelligence expert, was arrested in a Virginia park on Feb. 18, after the government said he left a package of secret documents for his Russian handlers.
NEW YORK -- Diplomats and environmental activists from 40 countries met Saturday for talks on climate change and criticized the United States for its rejection of a U.N. agreement designed to combat global warming.
President Bush announced last month that the United States would not ratify the 1997 Kyoto Protocol because its mandatory pollution reductions were too harmful to the American economy. His stance has drawn sharp criticism from environmentalists and many foreign governments.
Saturday's daylong meeting was part of a series of efforts to build an international consensus on climate change in the wake of Bush's statement and the collapse of U.N. talks last November aimed at hammering out detailed rules for implementing the Kyoto pact.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Peak wholesale electricity prices this summer for California could be more than double those of last summer, when soaring costs drove three utilities to the brink of financial ruin, an economist warns.
It is the first time anyone has put firm numbers into a forecast for this summer.
Numerous factors are at play: A drought-induced reduction of hydroelectric supplies in the Pacific Northwest, a predicted hotter-than-average summer and competition from other states.
WASHINGTON -- A Ford Motor Co. analysis blames faulty tire design and manufacturing, as well as customers' tire care, for accidents involving Firestone tires on its Explorer sport utility vehicle.
The report submitted to federal investigators reflects the automaker's long-standing position that the Explorer is not to blame for the accidents that have been linked to 174 deaths and more than 700 injuries.
In most of the fatal accidents the Explorer flipped over after the tread came off a tire. The tread separation occurred most often on the driver's-side rear tire.
According to Ford's analysis, the driver's-side rear tire failed in 623 of 1,171 -- or 53 percent -- of the cases involving legal claims for property damage or injuries.
A spokeswoman for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the agency is taking the report under consideration in its investigation of Bridgestone/Firestone's Aug. 9 recall of 6.5-million ATX, ATX II and Wilderness AT tires. The agency hopes to finish its investigation later this year.
IDAHO EARTHQUAKE: An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.3 hit southeastern Idaho on Saturday. Tremors were felt from Pocatello to Yellowstone, and as far away as Salt Lake City.
No damages or injuries were reported in the quake..