Thursday, May 24, 2001
McVeigh lawyers getmore FBI documents
WASHINGTON -- Hundreds more pages of FBI investigative documents have been turned over to Timothy McVeigh's attorney, who said the Oklahoma City bomber's defense team was continuing to weigh options after the belated disclosure of the papers.
Nathan Chambers, McVeigh's lawyer, said he received several hundred pages Wednesday, about 500 last Friday and 100 to 200 last Tuesday.
McVeigh's lawyers already have been looking over 3,135 pages that federal prosecutors turned over earlier this month after the FBI said it found documents that should have been given to defense attorneys before McVeigh's trial but weren't because of computer and record-keeping blunders.
The discovery led the Justice Department to postpone McVeigh's execution for one month to June 11.
The documents delivered Wednesday could be ones located in a final records search ordered by FBI Director Louis Freeh on May 11. Freeh told lawmakers that additional documents had been found but didn't say how many. FBI officials have for several days declined to specify the number of new documents found.
Refurbished Triceratops
WASHINGTON -- Thanks to a computerized face-lift, Triceratops is looking good -- for a 65-million-year-old.
The wraps come off today as the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History returns the three-horned dinosaur to public display after more than two years being refurbished.
The new display, a full-size cast of the 23-foot-long animal, shows "how really easily Triceratops could do its job. ... It just looks like a very good animal that happens to have a whopping big head," said museum paleontologist Ralph E. Chapman.
When it first went on display in 1905, the museum's Triceratops may have been the first horned dinosaur to be shown publicly. By 1998 the fossilized bones were deteriorating, Chapman explained.
Not only did it need repairs, but over the years scientists had learned more about the dinosaur's posture, and they had realized that the original display contained bones from other animals.
Vt. House OKs repealof civil unions law
MONTPELIER, Vt. -- The House narrowly approved a bill Wednesday to replace Vermont's civil unions law with one that would offer marriage benefits not only to same-sex couples but also to others who cannot legally marry. Critics say it is an attempt to demean gay relationships.
Speaker Walter Freed had to break a 69-69 tie to advance the proposal to a final vote today. At least two House members said they might vote against the bill then because they do not want the state endorsing same-sex relationships at all.
The measure appears doomed in the Democratic-controlled Senate. Democratic Gov. Howard Dean, who signed the civil unions law, has also said he would veto a repeal.
The bill given preliminary approval in the GOP-controlled House would provide marriage benefits to those in "reciprocal partnerships." Gay couples would be eligible, but so would other couples who cannot legally marry -- primarily blood relatives, such as an elderly woman and her adult child.
Search teams find bodyof Japanese adventurer
TOKYO -- A Japanese adventurer who crossed a desert and scaled some of the world's highest peaks was found dead in the Arctic, his support team said today.
The six-member volunteer team based in Resolute in Canada's Northwest Territories discovered the frozen body of Hyoichi Kohno near his sled at around 6:45 a.m. Japan time today, said Toji Goto, director of Kohno's Japan-based expedition office.
The team had chartered an aircraft to continue looking for Kohno after the Canadian air force called off its search earlier this week, Goto said from Kohno's hometown of Matsuyama, about 420 miles southwest of Tokyo.
Hopes of finding Kohno had faded after he failed to check in via satellite communication with the support group in Matsuyama last week -- just two months into a planned six-year expedition. He was believed to have fallen into thin ice floes while skiing across the Arctic Ocean.
Kohno, 43, had been out of contact since he last turned on his global positioning system, or GPS, satellite location finder last Thursday, according to the support group.
Associated Press