Co-writer of carol dies

Co-writer of carol dies

Gloria Shayne Baker, who co-wrote the modern-day classic Christmas carol “Do You Hear What I Hear?” with her then-husband Noel Regney, has died. She was 84. Baker died March 6 at her home in Stamford, Conn., of lung cancer that had metastasized, her daughter, Gabrielle Regney, said. A pianist whose fort√© was popular music, Baker usually wrote the lyrics and Regney composed the music for their collaborations. But the roles were reversed for the Christmas tune they wrote in October 1962 during the Cuban missile crisis, when the U.S. and Soviet Union were locked in a confrontation over the Soviets’ placement of ballistic missiles in Cuba. Inspired by the sight of infants in strollers on the streets of New York, Regney opened the song with the words, “Said the night wind to the little lamb, ‘Do you see what I see?’ ” and included the line, “Pray for peace, people everywhere.” “Noel wrote a beautiful song,” Baker told an interviewer years later, “and I wrote the music. We couldn’t sing it, though. ... Our little song broke us up. You must realize there was a threat of nuclear war at the time.”

Iranians go to the polls

TEHRAN, Iran — Reformist leaders pushed for Iranians to vote in parliamentary elections Friday, hoping to prevent a sweep by hard-liners allied with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad after the country’s clerical leadership threw many liberal candidates out of the race. Many Iranians who support liberal reforms spent the day deliberating going back and forth between two options: vote and give legitimacy to an election many of them saw as unfair, or boycott and ensure an even stronger conservative domination of parliament. According to the official IRNA and semiofficial Fars news agencies, initial results showed hard-liners leading the elections but reformists were polling strongly in some provincial cities. Reformists are hoping a strong turnout can win them a large enough minority bloc in parliament to at least have an impact after four years with only a small presence.

Call girl’s lawyer sends a warning to the media

MELVILLE, N.Y. — Ashley Alexandra Dupre, Eliot Spitzer’s alleged call girl known as Kristen, has sent out a lawyers’ warning telling the media to stop using Spitzer’s misfortune as “an excuse to exploit Ms. Dupre’s persona for commercial purposes by, among other things, displaying a montage of suggestive photographs of Ms. Dupre that has nothing to do with the Spitzer story.” The warning comes in the form of a news release from Don Buchwald of Kelley Drye Warren. The letter reads, in part, “Ex-Governor Spitzer is a public figure. Ms. Ashley Dupre is not. She was thrust into the public glare at age 22 without her consent.”

Cartoon heightens risks, Danish officials warn

COPENHAGEN, Denmark — The reprinting of a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad has brought “negative attention” to Denmark and may have increased the risk to Danes at home and abroad, the Danish intelligence service said Friday. The warning issued by the police intelligence agency PET also appeared on the Danish Foreign Ministry’s Web site. It did not name any specific threats but said Danish interests, particularly those in the Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan and Afghanistan, could be targeted. The cartoon “has led to renewed negative attention about Denmark in a series of countries, and as an immediate consequence of the case, there can be an increased threat,” the agency said. Danish newspapers republished a cartoon showing Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban Feb. 13 to show their commitment to freedom of speech after police said they uncovered a plot to kill the artist. The drawing was one of 12 cartoons first published in a Danish newspaper that triggered major protests in Muslim countries in 2006.

Eavesdropping rules OK’d

WASHINGTON — The House on Friday approved a Democratic bill that would set rules for the government’s eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails inside the United States. The bill, approved as lawmakers departed for a two-week break, faces a veto threat from President Bush. The margin of House approval was 213-197, largely along party lines. Because of the promised veto, “this vote has no impact at all,” said Republican Whip Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri. The president’s main objection is that the bill does not protect from lawsuits the telecommunications companies that allowed the government to eavesdrop on their customers without a court’s permission after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Combined dispatches