Knife, cleaver attack

Knife, cleaver attack

NEW YORK — Police hunted Wednesday for a man who entered a psychologist’s office with a bag of knives and a meat cleaver, hacking her to death so savagely that blood spattered the walls and floor and the entire room was torn apart. A colleague who responded to the victim’s screams was seriously injured, and investigators were trying to determine whether the attacker was a patient at the clinic. Three knives were recovered at the scene, including a 9-inch knife and the cleaver, which was apparently bent from the attack, police said. Kathryn Faughey suffered 15 stab wounds, including a gash to her head believed to be from the cleaver, police said. Authorities released a sketch of a balding, middle-aged man believed to be the killer along with surveillance videotapes of the attacker entering and leaving the building.

Ethics panel blasts Craig

WASHINGTON — The Senate Ethics Committee said Wednesday that Idaho Sen. Larry Craig acted improperly in connection with a men’s room sex sting last year and had brought discredit on the Senate. In a letter to the Republican senator, the ethics panel said Craig’s attempt to withdraw his guilty plea after his arrest at a Minneapolis airport was an effort to evade legal consequences of his own actions. Craig’s actions constitute “improper conduct which has reflected discreditably on the Senate,” the letter said. A spokesman for Craig had no immediate comment.

Iraq elections set Oct. 1

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Parliament cleared the way Wednesday for provincial elections this year that could give Sunnis a stronger voice and usher in vast changes to Iraq’s power structure. The new law — which set the vote for Oct. 1 — is one of the most sweeping reforms pushed by the Bush administration and signals that Iraq’s politicians finally, if grudgingly, may be ready for small steps toward reconciliation. Passage of benchmark reforms on healing the country’s sectarian and ethnic rifts — along with a reduction in violence — were the primary goals of the 30,000-strong U.S. troop increase that President Bush ordered early last year.

Lawyers descend on town

PORT WENTWORTH, Ga. — Crews are still working to douse the flames from a sugar refinery explosion, still trying to reach the last of the victims’ bodies, yet already the out-of-town lawyers are swooping in. “If you or a loved one was injured in this explosion, you may have valuable legal rights,” reads a come-on from one New York-based firm that snapped up the domain name www.sugarrefineryexplosion.com. Though such solicitations are nothing new after major disasters, many residents in this town of 5,000 and beyond have been disgusted by the audacity of lawyers trying to round up clients before the blaze at the refinery — which continued to burn Wednesday, six days after the blast — could be extinguished and the workers’ remains fully recovered. Savannah Fire Capt. Todd Heil said crews found another body Wednesday in the second-floor break room. The fire has killed seven people and left an eighth missing. Authorities said they were confident the final body would be found soon.

Waterboarding ban OK’d

WASHINGTON — Congress moved Wednesday to prohibit the CIA from using waterboarding and other harsh interrogation methods on terror suspects, despite President Bush’s threat to veto any measure that limits the agency’s interrogation techniques. The prohibition was contained in a bill authorizing intelligence activities for the current year, which the Senate approved on a 51-45 vote. It would restrict the CIA to the 19 interrogation techniques outlined in the Army field manual. That manual prohibits waterboarding, a method that makes an interrogation subject feel he is drowning. The House had approved the measure in December.

A $5.3 million mistake

LONDON — The British government has gotten its Newcastles confused. It sent millions of dollars in funds meant for the bustling northern city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the small English market town of Newcastle-under-Lyme. Some $5.3 million in government money was sent to the wrong Newcastle as a result of an administrative mistake, the Department for Communities and Local Government said Wednesday. The money was being distributed under a program intended to promote local enterprise, and the mistake has been made two years in a row, the department said. “This is a regrettable error, and we’ve taken action to rectify it,” a department statement said.

Associated Press