SOUTH

PATIENTS’ BODIES RECOVERED FROM FLOODED HOSPITAL

NEW ORLEANS – Search teams found more than 40 bodies, many of them elderly patients, inside a hospital flooded out by Hurricane Katrina, officials said yesterday.

Many of the patients died while waiting to be evacuated over the four days after the storm hit, as temperatures inside Memorial Medical Center rose to 106 degrees, said Dave Goodson, assistant administrator at the hospital, owned by Tenet Healthcare.

A Tenet spokesman, Steven Campanini, said some of those found Sunday had died before the hurricane hit, and none of the deaths resulted from lack of food, water, or electricity to power medical equipment. Many of the patients were seriously ill, Mr. Campanini said.

– Associated Press

NORTHEAST

ESPIONAGE ARRESTS AT NEW JERSEY ARMY BASE

NEWARK, N.J. – An FBI intelligence analyst with top secret clearance who worked at a New Jersey Army base was charged yesterday with passing classified information about Filipino leaders to current and former officials of that nation.

The analyst, Leandro Aragoncillo, of Woodbury, sent some of the material to Michael Ray Aquino, a former deputy director of the Philippines National Police who lives in New York City, according to an FBI complaint unsealed with the arrests.

Mr. Aragoncillo, 46, a Marine for 21 years, and Mr. Aquino, 39, were ordered held without bail following an appearance before a federal magistrate.

– Associated Press

COURT UPHOLDS DECISION ON WWII SWISS ACCOUNTS

A federal appeals court has upheld the allocation of funds from Swiss banks accused of looting the assets of victims of the Nazis during and after World War II.

In a series of rulings on Friday, the 2nd Circuit Appeals Court overruled objections from a gay organization and some American Jews to the distribution of the settlement fund, which amounted to $1.25 billion plus interest.

The court said the judge who oversaw the settlement, Edward Korman of Brooklyn, acted within his discretion when he allocated 75% of a fund set up for needy victims of the Holocaust to survivors located in the former Soviet republics.

A group representing homosexual victims of the Holocaust, the Pink Triangle Coalition, urged that 1% of the total settlement be set aside for education and research, but the appeals court agreed that the fund should be spent directly on supporting and compensating those injured by the Nazis.

While thousands of living Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Romani have been identified to receive benefits from the settlement, only seven needy gay Holocaust victims were located.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

WASHINGTON

WHITE HOUSE THREATENS VETO ON MERCURY REGULATIONS

The White House threatened yesterday to veto a congressional effort to overturn new regulations of mercury emissions that environmentalists have decried as too lax.

The veto threat came as the Senate prepared to take up a resolution that would block a rule the Environmental Protection Agency issued in March to limit mercury pollution from power plants.

The EPA contends that the rule would reduce mercury emissions by 70%, using a market-based “cap-and-trade” approach under which plant owners could buy and sell rights to emit mercury.

Senators from the Northeast generally support tighter regulation of mercury, while those from the Midwest, where many coal-fired power plants are located, back the Bush administration’s approach.

The Senate is scheduled to vote today on overturning the EPA rule.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

BASE CLOSINGS SEEN YIELDING LARGE ANNUAL SAVINGS

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has advised President Bush that a plan presented to the White House last week for closing 22 major military bases and realigning 33 others will yield an annual savings of $4.2 billion, even though fewer bases would be closed than Mr. Rumsfeld wanted, a Pentagon official said yesterday.

Mr. Bush has until September 23 to either accept the commission’s report and forward it to Congress or return it to the commission for further work.

– Associated Press

FBI AGENTS VIOLATE BUREAU’S RULES FOR INFORMANTS

FBI agents frequently violate the bureau’s rules for handling confidential informants, instructions that were rewritten following FBI abuses in the 1990s, the Justice Department’s internal watchdog said yesterday.

A review of 120 confidential informant files from FBI offices around the nation found violations in 104 cases, or 87%, Inspector General Glenn Fine said in a 301-page, partially blacked-out report that examined the FBI’s compliance with rules that govern most investigations.

Agents failed to assess informants’ suitability, get authorization for informants to engage in activity that otherwise would be illegal, convey proper instructions or tell prosecutors when informants had committed serious crimes, Mr. Fine said.

Confidential informants are critical to some prosecutions, but their use by the FBI also “presents serious risks, including the risk that informants may claim that their criminal activities were authorized or acquiesced in by the government,” Mr. Fine said. – Associated Press

WEST

ALLEGED WOULD-BE TERRORISTS PLEAD NOT GUILTY

SANTA ANA, Calif. – Two men pleaded not guilty yesterday to federal charges alleging they planned terrorist attacks against military facilities, the Israeli Consulate, and other targets in the Los Angeles area.

Levar Haley Washington, 25, and Gregory Vernon Patterson, 21, were ordered held without bail after their pleas in U.S. District Court. Prosecutors contend the plot was orchestrated by Mr. Washington, Mr. Patterson, and Hammad Riaz Samana, 21, at the behest of Kevin James, an inmate of the California State Prison, Sacramento. James founded the radical group Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh, or JIS.

All but Mr. Samana are American born and Muslim converts. Counterterrorism officials have said they found no evidence directly connecting the group to Al Qaeda or other foreign terror networks.

– Associated Press