Police evict ex-nuns

Police evict ex-nuns

KAZIMIERZ DOLNY, Poland — Police evicted a band of rebellious ex-nuns Wednesday from a Polish convent they had occupied illegally since rejecting a Vatican order in 2005 to replace their mother superior, Jadwiga Ligocka, a charismatic leader who reportedly claimed to have religious visions.

Hours later, after mild resistance and insults from the ex-nuns and the intervention of psychologists, about 65 defeated ex-nuns, escorted by policewomen, walked out calmly in their black habits — some carrying guitars, others tambourines or small drums — and boarded buses.

The women had taken over the building in Kazmierz Dolny in eastern Poland in rebellion against the Vatican, which had ordered the Mother Jadwiga’s replacement two years ago.

Body scans at airports?

WASHINGTON — The federal government will begin testing a body-scanning machine that could eventually be used instead of the metal detectors passengers walk through at airports.

Tests were scheduled to begin today at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport with passengers pulled out of the security line for secondary screening. Passengers may request the full-body scan — which blurs faces so the person being screened cannot be recognized — instead of the traditional pat-down. The new machine uses radio waves to detect foreign objects.

Since February, the Phoenix airport has been testing a similar machine that uses so-called backscatter radiation to scan the entire body. The backscatter uses a narrow, low-intensity x-ray beam that’s scans the entire body at a high speed. The amount of radiation used during this scan is equal to 15 minutes of exposure to natural background radiation such as the sun’s rays.

Officials are trying to determine if the body-scan machines are a more effective search tool than a pat-down. Both types of machines check for explosives, metal, plastic and liquids — anything hidden on the body, said Mike Golden, the Transportation Security Administration’s chief technology officer.

Pushing surveillance bill

WASHINGTON — House Democrats pushed their government eavesdropping bill through two committees Tuesday with only minor changes, setting the stage for a confrontation with the Bush administration.

President Bush said Wednesday that he will not sign the bill if it does not give retroactive immunity to U.S. telecommunications companies that helped conduct electronic surveillance without court orders.

Bush said the bill, which envisions a greater role for a secret court in overseeing U.S. surveillance of overseas communications, would “take us backward” in efforts to thwart terrorism.

The measure advanced by the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees left out the immunity provision Bush wants. Democrats also voted down Republican attempts to tailor the legislation more to the administration’s liking.

Mayor in N.J. resigns

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Mayor Bob Levy resigned Wednesday morning, two weeks after checking into a North Jersey psychiatric clinic because his use of prescription pain medications had left him in a deteriorating condition, his lawyer said.

Levy’s resignation was effective immediately, and by Wednesday afternoon William “Speedy” Marsh, the president of the city council, had been sworn in as acting mayor.

Levy, 60, decided to call it quits on his $100,000-a-year job because of health concerns and a federal investigation into whether he embellished his Vietnam War military service record to collect a larger pension than he is due, said his attorney, Edwin J. Jacobs Jr.

Levy checked into the Carrier Clinic in Belle Meade, N.J. — a private, nonprofit hospital in Somerset County specializing in psychiatric and addictive illnesses — after he disappeared from public life Sept. 26, and remained there until last Thursday.

German wins Nobel Prize

STOCKHOLM, Sweden — Gerhard Ertl of Germany won the 2007 Nobel Prize in chemistry on Wednesday for studies of chemical reactions on solid surfaces, which are key to understanding questions like how pollution eats away at the ozone layer. Ertl’s research laid the foundation of modern surface chemistry, which has helped explain how fuel cells produce energy without pollution, how catalytic converters clean up car exhaust and even why iron rusts, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said.

His work has paved the way for development of cleaner energy sources and will guide the development of fuel cells, said Astrid Graslund, secretary of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry.

Combined dispatches