Nation in brief

Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published November 1, 2000

First crew on way to space station

BAIKONUR, Kazakstan -- American astronaut Bill Shepherd and two Russian cosmonauts rocketed into orbit Tuesday on a quest to become the first residents of the international space station and begin fulfilling the once-fantastic dream of permanent occupancy in space.

"Let's go do it!" Shepherd, the space station's inaugural commander, shouted before climbing into the Soyuz rocket and blasting off from the same pad where the Space Age began 43 years ago, with Sputnik.

The 17-story green rocket vanished into dense fog three seconds after liftoff from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Its brightly burning engines were visible several seconds later as the rocket gained speed and altitude. The roar, by then, was deafening to the more than 500 gathered at the Central Asian cosmodrome.

Nine minutes later, Shepherd and his crew mates, Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev, were in orbit and giving chase to the international space station.

The three men will reach their new home on Thursday and settle in for a four-month stay.

Los Angeles police agree to reform plan

LOS ANGELES -- The city of Los Angeles and the U.S. Department of Justice agreed Tuesday on the most comprehensive set of reforms ever imposed on the Los Angeles Police Department, ending months of tense negotiation over a settlement that will chart the future of the city's long-embattled Police Department.

Under the terms of the proposed consent decree, an outside monitor with broad powers to examine the inner workings of the department will be appointed no later than March 1, 2001. That person will be in place for five years and will be able to spend as much as $10-million on staff and other expenses -- even more, if special circumstances arise.

Never before in its history has the Police Department been subjected to outside monitoring of that type.

Aryan Nations leader declares bankruptcy

COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho -- The leader of the Aryan Nations has filed for bankruptcy, days before he was to surrender his 20-acre compound to satisfy a civil rights lawsuit.

Richard Butler, 82, was vilified on the streets of Coeur d'Alene during the weekend and denied use of a hotel for a news conference. On Monday, he listed assets of about $300,000, mostly in the land and buildings of the compound, against liabilities of more than $5.8-million, his share of the $6.3-million lawsuit judgment.

Under the Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing, his assets are to be liquidated to pay his debts, said Norm Gissel, the attorney who represented Victoria and Jason Keenan, who were attacked by guards outside the Aryan Nations compound.

The compound was scheduled to be turned over to the Keenans this week, but Gissel said that likely will not happen because of the filing.

White House says more e-mails not archived

WASHINGTON -- Government lawyers say a larger volume of White House e-mail messages than previously known may have escaped review in various investigations of the Clinton administration.

Justice Department lawyers alerted a federal judge, four congressional committees and five sets of criminal investigators to the latest problem in the e-mail controversy that began early this year, according to court papers.

In a two-page letter to Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., White House counsel Beth Nolan revealed that some message traffic from several computer systems was not stored in electronic archives.

The new problem means that the White House's electronic document searches in response to subpoenas ranging from the Monica Lewinsky scandal to the campaign fundraising controversy were even more faulty than thought earlier.

Judge dismisses charges against N.J. state troopers

TRENTON, N.J. -- A New Jersey judge Tuesday dismissed all charges against two state troopers in connection with the shooting of three unarmed minority men during the traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1998 that made racial profiling a national issue.

The troopers, John Hogan and James Kenna, had faced attempted murder and aggravated assault charges for firing 11 shots at the occupants of a van that they stopped on the Turnpike in April 1998. But the judge dismissed those charges, ruling that prosecutors had violated the troopers' civil rights by taking such an inappropriately adversarial approach before the grand jury that the hearings were essentially a "mini-trial."

Gov. Christie Whitman said the state would appeal the ruling. Even if the appeal fails, the state attorney general can resubmit the evidence to a grand jury and ask for a new indictment. And both men still face charges of official misconduct.

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