WEST

LINDH ASKS BUSH TO COMMUTE SENTENCE

SAN FRANCISCO – John Walker Lindh asked President Bush yesterday to commute his 20-year prison sentence for aiding the Taliban. His lawyer, James Brosnahan, said that Lindh was fighting alongside the Taliban in a civil war against the Northern Alliance, that he is not a terrorist, and that he never fought against American troops. Mr. Brosnahan said the sentence should be reduced because Yaser Esam Hamdi, another American citizen captured in Afghanistan on suspicion of aiding the Taliban, is being released after being held for three years as an enemy combatant. Mr. Hamdi will not be charged with any crime under an agreement with federal officials made public Monday. Mr. Hamdi will be required to give up his American citizenship and will be sent to Saudi Arabia, where he grew up. “Comparable conduct should be treated in comparable ways in terms of sentencing,” Mr. Brosnahan said at a news conference. The White House referred calls to the Justice Department. Justice Department spokesman Mark Corallo, while not commenting directly on the merits of Lindh’s request, pointed out that Lindh “pleaded guilty to supporting the Taliban with his lawyers standing beside him.” “The Taliban was a brutal regime that harbored and assisted Al Qaeda,” Mr. Corallo said. “It should be pointed out we are currently engaged in a global war on terrorism against Al Qaeda and remnants of the Taliban.” Lindh’s request does not specify how much of a reduction he is seeking.

– Associated Press

WASHINGTON

$104 MILLION TO STAMP OUT SNAKE

The House yesterday authorized spending $104 million over the next five years to stamp out the brown tree snake, a voracious viper that has wreaked ecological havoc in Guam and is threatening Hawaii and neighboring islands. The bill, which now goes to the Senate, calls the snakes “a growing threat to the biodiversity, economy and human health” in the region. It calls for new quarantine protocols in the next two years for travelers, baggage, and cargo originating in Guam to prevent the spread of the species. “It is time we address this issue head-on with the goal of eradication, not simply control,” said co-sponsor Del. Madeleine Bordallo, a Democrat of Guam, a nonvoting member of the House. The mildly venomous snake was probably introduced to Guam in the 1940s or 1950s as a stowaway aboard a military cargo ship from the South Pacific. The species is native to Indonesia, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Australia. Some snakes have already hitched rides on aircraft and cargo ships to Hawaii, and could spread to the nearby Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Micronesia, the Marshall Islands or even mainland America. The brown tree snake kills by wrapping itself around its prey and injecting venom by chewing.

– Associated Press

MIDWEST

MAN SHOOTS 3-YEAR-OLD AT DAY-CARE CENTER

DETROIT – A man opened fire at an in-home day-care center yesterday, killing a 3-year-old girl and critically wounding two women, officials said. Police spokesman James Tate said the child died after being rushed to the hospital in critical condition. She’d been shot in the head, a doctor said. Police were searching for the shooter, who they said came to the door of the house, exchanged words with someone, entered and opened fire. “It appears as though this was not random,” Police Chief Ella Bully-Cummings said. Mr. Tate said one of the wounded women owned the day-care business. A 4-month-old boy suffered a head injury, possibly from being dropped, and was taken to a hospital, Ms. Bully-Cummings said. Two other children, apparently uninjured, were taken to a hospital as a precaution, authorities said. The Family Independence Agency, which oversees day-care facilities in Michigan, listed the address where the shooting took place as a licensed facility serving up to 12 infants, toddlers or school-aged children.

– Associated Press

TECHNOLOGY

IBM SAYS IT’S BUILT WORLD’S FASTEST SUPERCOMPUTER

IBM claimed unofficial bragging rights yesterday as owner of the world’s fastest supercomputer. For three years running, the fastest supercomputer has been NEC’s Earth Simulator in Japan. “The fact that non-U.S. vendor like NEC had the fastest computer was seen as a big challenge for U.S. computer industry,” said Horst Simon, director of the supercomputing center at Lawrence Berkeley Labs in California. “That an American vendor and an American application has won back the No. 1 spot – that’s the main significance of this.” Earth Simulator can sustain speeds of 35.86 teraflops. A teraflop is 1 trillion calculations per second. IBM said its still unfinished Blue Gene L System, named for its ability to model the folding of human proteins, can sustain speeds of 36 teraflops. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory plans to install the Blue Gene system next year with 130,000 processors and 64 racks, half a tennis court in size. The labs will use it for modeling the behavior and aging of high explosives, said Bob Hirschfeld, a labs spokesman.

– Associated Press