Senate OKs new rules for terror surveillance

Senate OKs new rules
for terror surveillance

WASHINGTON — The Senate approved new rules Tuesday for government eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails, giving the White House much of the latitude it wanted and granting legal immunity to telecommunications companies that helped in the snooping after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Protection for the telecom companies is the most prominent feature of the legislation, something President Bush had insisted on as essential to getting private sector cooperation in spying on foreign terrorists and other targets. The bill would give retroactive protection to companies that acted without court permission.

The House did not include the immunity provision in a similar bill it passed last year. House Republicans now want to adopt the Senate bill, which would avoid contentious negotiations to work out differences between the competing legislation.

About 40 lawsuits have been filed against telecom companies by people alleging violations of wiretapping and privacy laws.

Tornadoes, severe storms
cause damage in the South

NEW ORLEANS — Tornadoes and other severe weather raked the deep South on Tuesday, pushing Mississippi River ships around like toys, damaging homes and killing at least one person.

A tornado near a hospital sucked up a woman who had just left after visiting, killing her, officials said.

Several river vessels broke loose in the winds, said Port of New Orleans spokeswoman Cynthia Swain. A freighter docked at the Andry Street Wharf was pushed across the river and collided with two vessels downstream.

The Coast Guard also said a ship was grounded on the riverbank. There were no indications of serious levee damage, and the ship was not sinking, said Chris Bonura, another spokesman for the port.

The river remained open, and there were no reports of injuries, Swain said.

A woman was killed by a tornado after leaving the Lallie Kemp Regional Medical Center in Independence, La., at the height of the storm against advice, said Sherre Pack-Hookfin, the hospital’s acting administrator.

10 people injured in
pileup on Calif. highway

FRESNO, Calif. — Eighteen vehicles piled up in a chain-reaction accident in dense fog Tuesday, scattering mangled cars along a highway and sending 10 people to hospitals, the California Highway Patrol said.

The crash, reported just before 8:20 a.m., temporarily shut down part of the southbound lanes of Highway 99 south of Fresno. The CHP had initially said 50 vehicles were involved.

Rescue crews had to cut three people out of a car that slammed into a tractor-trailer rig, CHP Officer Joseph Miller said. One woman was pinned in her car for almost 40 minutes while crews attempted to pry her out from between two big rigs.

“The driver’s side was tucked up underneath a big rig, but luckily all the air bags deployed and I’m sure that saved her life,” said Mike Bowman, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Specialists to help put
out fire at sugar plant

PORT WENTWORTH, Ga. — Specialists arrived Tuesday to help extinguish a five-day-old sugar-refinery fire burning too intensely and deeply for standard firefighting to douse, and officials feared the deadly blaze could once again trigger explosions.

Thick masses of molten sugar were smoldering at temperatures as high as 4,000 degrees, and three more fires ignited Tuesday, even after a helicopter dumped thousands of gallons of water on the fire.

“We’re dealing with a dormant volcano full of lava,” said Capt. Matt Stanley from the fire department in nearby Savannah. Six people are confirmed dead in Thursday’s fire.

Astronomers take
pictures of young galaxy

WASHINGTON — Astronomers took pictures of a far-off lumpy galaxy just forming 13 billion years ago, putting it among the earliest and most distant cosmic objects ever photographed.

Though the black-and-white images are fuzzy, they are the most detailed and best-confirmed look back in both time and distance that humans have seen, said Johns Hopkins University astronomy professor Holland Ford. He was part of a team of scientists taking the pictures with NASA’s space telescopes, Hubble and Spitzer.

The galaxy, called A1689-zD1, is from when the universe was about 700 million years old.

Associated Press