No charges expected, lawyer for ex-cop says

No charges expected,
lawyer for ex-cop says

CHICAGO — A lawyer representing a former police officer suspected in the disappearance of his wife said Monday he does not believe his client will face charges stemming from the investigation. Speaking on NBC’s “Today” show, lawyer Joel Brodsky also criticized the media for their coverage of Drew Peterson, who resigned as a Bolingbrook police sergeant after his 23-year-old fourth wife, Stacy, vanished three weeks ago. Police have named the 53-year-old Peterson as a suspect in her disappearance, and authorities have called the case a possible homicide. He has denied any involvement in her disappearance.

Still, the investigation into her disappearance caused prosecutors to reopen the investigation into the death of Peterson’s third wife, Kathleen Savio, whose body was found in a bathtub in 2004. At the time, authorities ruled her death an accidental drowning, but investigators exhumed her body last week at the request of a prosecutor, who has said after examining evidence he believes her death was a homicide staged to look like an accident.

Townsend resigns

WASHINGTON — Fran Townsend, the leading White House-based terrorism adviser who gave public updates on the extent of the threat to U.S. security, is stepping down after 41⁄2 years. President Bush said in a statement Monday morning that Townsend, 45, “has ably guided the Homeland Security Council. She has played an integral role in the formation of the key strategies and policies my administration has used to combat terror and protect Americans.” Her departure continues an exodus of key Bush aides and confidants, with his two-term presidency in the final 15 months. Top aide Karl Rove, along with press secretary Tony Snow, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and senior presidential adviser Dan Bartlett, have already left.

Church sex scandal

DECATUR, Ga. — The 80-year-old leader of a suburban Atlanta megachurch is at the center of a sex scandal of biblical dimensions: He slept with his brother’s wife and fathered a child by her. Members of Archbishop Earl Paulk’s family stood at the pulpit of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit at Chapel Hill Harvester Church a few Sundays ago and revealed the secret exposed by a recent court-ordered paternity test.

In truth, this is not the first — or even the second — sex scandal to engulf Paulk and the independent, charismatic church. But this time, he could be in trouble with the law for lying under oath about the affair. The living proof of that lie is 34-year-old D.E. Paulk, who for years was known publicly as Earl Paulk’s nephew.

Lots of big talk

TEHRAN, Iran — The presidents of Venezuela and Iran boasted Monday that they will defeat U.S. imperialism together, saying the fall of the dollar is a prelude to the end of Washington’s global dominance. Hugo Chavez’s visit to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran followed a failed weekend attempt by the firebrand duo to push the Organization of Petroleum Exporting States away from trading in the slumping greenback.

Their proposal at an OPEC summit was overruled by other cartel members led by Saudi Arabia, a strong U.S. ally. But the cartel agreed to have OPEC finance ministers discuss the idea, and the two allies’ move showed their potential for stirring up problems for the U.S. The alliance between Chavez and Ahmadinejad has blossomed with several exchanged visits — Monday’s was Chavez’s fourth time in Tehran in two years — a string of technical agreements and a torrent of rhetoric presenting their two countries as an example of how smaller nations can stand up to the superpower.

Security guards detained

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi soldiers detained two American security guards along with several other foreigners traveling in a private security convoy after they opened fire Monday in Baghdad, wounding one woman, an Iraqi military spokesman said. U.S. military and embassy officials had no immediate information about the report, which follows a series of recent shootings in which foreign security guards have allegedly killed Iraqis. Last month, the Iraqi Cabinet sent parliament a bill to lift immunity for foreign private security companies that has been in effect since the U.S. occupation began in 2003.

Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said the convoy was driving on the wrong side of the road in the central Baghdad neighborhood of Karradah when the shooting took place about midday.

Associated Press