3 officials replaced over ATF program

3 officials replaced over ATF program

WASHINGTON

The Justice Department replaced three officials Tuesday who played critical roles in a flawed law-enforcement operation aimed at major gun-trafficking networks on the Southwest border.

The department announced that the acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the U.S. attorney in Arizona had resigned, and an administration official said a prosecutor who worked on the operation was reassigned to civil cases.

The operation, known as Fast and Furious, was designed to track small-time gun buyers in the Phoenix area up the chain to make cases against major weapons traffickers.

A congressional investigation of the program has turned up evidence that ATF lost track of many of the more than 2,000 guns linked to the operation.

Condition improves

HOUSTON

The condition of convicted polygamist-sect leader Warren Jeffs was upgraded from critical to serious after his move Tuesday to a Texas prison hospital for additional treatment after he became sick while fasting, a state corrections official said.

Jeffs was described by Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokeswoman Michelle Lyons as “awake and alert” as he was flown 215 miles from the East Texas Medical Center in Tyler, where he was admitted Sunday, to the Texas prison hospital at Galveston.

Jeffs, 55, last week was assigned to the Powledge Unit to serve his life sentence for sexually assaulting underage girls.

WikiLeaks site comes under attack

LONDON

The WikiLeaks website crashed Tuesday in an apparent cyberattack after the accelerated publication of tens of thousands of once-secret State Department cables by the anti-secrecy organization raised new concerns about the exposure of confidential U.S. Embassy sources. “WikiLeaks.org is presently under attack,” the group said on Twitter late Tuesday. One hour later, the site and the cables posted there were inaccessible.

Judge negates parts of sonogram law

AUSTIN, Texas

A federal judge on Tuesday blocked key provisions of Texas’ new law requiring a doctor to perform a sonogram before an abortion, ruling the measure violates the free-speech rights of both doctors and patients.

U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks upheld the requirement that sonograms be performed but struck down the provisions requiring doctors to describe the images to their patients and requiring women to hear the descriptions.

14 miners to retire

SANTIAGO, Chile

Chile’s government has granted the early retirement requested by nearly half of the 33 miners who survived more than two months trapped deep underground last year.

The 14 miners who have cited either physical or psychological reasons for needing to stop working will receive annuities that will pay them about $540 a month.

Report: $60B wasted

WASHINGTON

As much as $60 billion in U.S. funds has been lost to waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade through lax oversight of contractors, poor planning and payoffs to warlords and insurgents, an independent panel investigating U.S. wartime spending estimates.

In its final report to Congress, the Commission on Wartime Contracting said the figure could grow as U.S. support for reconstruction projects and programs wanes, leaving both countries to bear the long-term costs of sustaining the schools, medical clinics, barracks, roads and power plants already built with American tax dollars.

Associated Press