SOUTH

JURY INDICTS ORGANIZATION FORMED BY DELAY

AUSTIN, Texas – A Texas grand jury has indicted a political organization formed by Tom DeLay, accusing it of taking illegal corporate money as the House majority leader helped Republicans win control of the Texas Legislature and keep Congress in GOP hands.

Rep. DeLay, a Republican of Texas, was not indicted by a Travis County grand jury in the charges made public yesterday, although three of his political associates were charged earlier. District Attorney Ronnie Earle, a Democrat, said he had no jurisdiction over Mr. DeLay’s personal conduct.

A prominent Texas business group also was charged, in what Earle called an attempt to funnel “massive amounts of secret corporate wealth” into Texas campaigns.

State law prohibits use of corporate contributions to advocate election or defeat of state candidates.

– Associated Press

WASHINGTON

JUDGE ORDERS BERGER TO PAY $50,000 FINE

President Clinton’s national security adviser, Sandy Berger, who was once entrusted with the nation’s most sensitive secrets, was fined $50,000 yesterday for taking classified documents from the National Archives.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson handed down the punishment in federal court, stiffening the $10,000 fine recommended by government lawyers. Under the deal, Berger avoids prison time but he must surrender access to classified government materials for three years.

She also sentenced Berger to two years’ probation and 100 hours of community service.

– Associated Press

SCHUMER URGES FIRING OF FEMA CHIEF

Senator Schumer, a Democrat of New York and the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, issued an appeal yesterday urging people to sign an online petition to fire the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency over his handling of the Katrina response.

After an inquiry from the Associated Press, the DSCC quickly pulled down the page and said they would donate to charity any money raised by the anti-FEMA petition.

When recipients clicked on a link to the petition, the top center of the screen – above the call to “Fire the FEMA director”- had asked for a donation to the DSCC. Other DSCC Web pages have the same appeal for contributions, but several do not.

– Associated Press

ADMINISTRATION LOSES SUPREME COURT REQUEST ON BASE CLOSINGS

The base closing commission hit a snag yesterday over the deadline for its recommendations to the White House, as the administration lost a last-minute bid to get the Supreme Court to intervene and protect the panel’s plan.

What was to be a routine paperwork delivery of those proposals to President Bush was threatened by a cross-country legal fight.

Judges in Connecticut and Tennessee blocked the panel from recommending changes at local Air National Guard bases.

The Tennessee decision was overruled by an appeals court yesterday afternoon, but the Connecticut injunction stood.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg rejected the Bush administration’s request for intervention, although another appeal could be filed later and handled by the full court.

Separately, Illinois, Missouri, and New Jersey lost emergency Supreme Court appeals intended to stop the commission from sending the report, as is, to the president. Facilities in those states are among hundreds targeted by the base-closing panel for closure or consolidation in the first round of base closings in a decade.

– Associated Press

PFIZER WINS APPROVAL FOR INHALED INSULIN

Pfizer, the world’s biggest drugmaker, won an American committee’s support for the first inhaled insulin as an alternative to needles for 4 million American diabetics.

A panel of doctors and statisticians voted 7-2 today to advise the Food and Drug Administration to clear New York-based Pfizer’s Exubera for use in people with both juvenile and adult-onset diabetes. The agency usually follows the advice of its committees.

Global annual sales of Exubera may reach $1.4 billion in 2009, an S.G. Cowen analyst in Boston, Ian Sanderson, said August 31 in a note to clients. The company also is seeking European Union approval.

– Bloomberg News

COURT QUESTIONS HANDLING OF GUANTANAMO DETAINEES

A federal appeals court yesterday questioned the Bush administration’s operations at Guantanamo Bay, where almost all detainees were categorized by military tribunals as enemy combatants.

The two hours of arguments were in sharp contrast to those of nearly three years ago when the appeals court suggested that the detainees at Guantanamo Bay were not entitled to have access to the U.S. courts, and subsequently ruled against them. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed that decision a year ago.

Yesterday, the court suggested the judiciary might have the legal authority to become involved in reviewing the tribunal procedures.

“There is nothing in the habeas statute that requires us to defer to a military tribunal,” said Appeals Judge A. Raymond Randolph, an appointee of President Bush’s father.

Judge Randolph was on the panel in 2003 that rejected the detainees’ plea for access to U.S. courts. The other judges on the current panel are an appointee of President Reagan, David Sentelle, and an appointee of President Clinton, Judith Rogers.

– Associated Press