Compromise reached on terrorism surveillance bill

Compromise reached on terrorism surveillance bill

WASHINGTON — House and Senate leaders have agreed to a compromise surveillance bill that would effectively shield from civil lawsuits the telecommunications companies that helped the government wiretap phone and computer lines after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks without court permission.

The House was expected to pass the bill today, potentially ending a monthslong standoff about the rules for government wiretapping inside the United States.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland said the bill “balances the needs of our intelligence community with Americans’ civil liberties and provides critical new oversight and accountability requirements.”

Israeli, Palestinian truce

SDEROT, Israel — Raz Elraz, for the first time, will be able to take his 14-month-old son to a playground in this rocket-scarred Israeli town. A few miles away in Gaza, Palestinian teenagers ride their bicycles, and Hamas guards play pingpong.

The six-month truce that took effect Thursday was welcomed by both sides, although the Palestinian economy is still being held in check by a closed border.

The cease-fire is meant to end Palestinian rocket barrages and Israeli reprisals in Gaza that have killed more than 400 Palestinians — many of them civilians — and seven Israelis in fighting since the Islamic Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip a year ago.

Halting all violence is the first step of the deal.

Record-breaking heat hits Southern California

LOS ANGELES — Southern California roasted Thursday in a record-breaking, end-of-spring heat wave that sent temperatures soaring past 100 degrees in many areas, posing hazards for anyone who ventured outside.

The Woodland Hills area of Los Angeles reached 113 degrees by 1 p.m. Firefighters worked in extreme heat to corral small brush fires as a strong high-pressure system cooked the air from the central coast south to Los Angeles and San Diego.

At Ice Station Valencia, a rink in the broiling Santa Clarita Valley, hockey director Larry Bruyere, 55, said: “You don’t mind working here on days like this.”

Woman pleads guilty in Mich. sex scandal

TROY, Mich. — A woman accused of having paid sex with the husband of Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow has pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of trespassing.

Prosecutors dropped a prostitution charge against 21-year-old Alycia Martin in exchange for Thursday’s plea.

Investigators staking out a Troy hotel room Feb. 26 stopped 46-year-old Thomas Athans after he spent 15 minutes in the room. They say Athans acknowledged meeting Martin through the Internet and paying her $150 for sex.

Authorities didn’t bring sex charges against Athans.

Court limits access to workers’ messages

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court has made it more difficult for employers to snoop legally on e-mails and text messages their workers send from company accounts.

Under Wednesday’s ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, employers that contract an outside business to transmit text messages can’t read them unless the worker agrees.

Users of text-messaging services “have a reasonable expectation of privacy” regarding messages stored on the service provider’s network, Judge Kim Wardlaw wrote in the three-judge panel’s unanimous opinion.

The ruling limits employers’ access to employee e-mail on internal servers.

Group files lawsuit over ‘I Believe’ plates

COLUMBIA, S.C. — A group that advocates separation of church and state filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to prevent South Carolina from becoming the first state to create “I Believe” license plates.

The group contends that South Carolina’s government is endorsing Christianity by allowing the plates, which would include a cross superimposed on a stained-glass window.

Washington-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed the lawsuit on behalf of two Christian pastors, a humanist pastor and a rabbi in South Carolina, along with the Hindu American Foundation.

“I do believe these ‘I Believe’ plates will not see the light of day because the courts, I’m confident, will see through this,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn, the group’s executive director.

Associated Press