WASHINGTON

SENATE APPROVES PENSION OVERHAUL PLAN

Hoping to reverse the deterioration of pension plans covering 44 million Americans, the Senate voted yesterday to force companies to make up underfunding estimated at $450 billion and live up to promises made to employees. The action came a day after the federal agency that insures such plans reported massive liabilities and predicted a troubled future. The Senate legislation, passed 97-2, takes on the daunting task of compelling companies with defined-benefit plans to live up to their funding obligations – without driving those companies into abandoning the plans and further eroding the retirement benefits of millions of people.

– Associated Press

CHENEY JOINS BARRAGE OF GOP CRITICISM OF DEMOCRATS ON IRAQ

Vice President Cheney added his voice yesterday to the chorus of Republican criticism of Democrats who have accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence on Iraq, calling it “one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city.”

“Some of the most irresponsible comments have, of course, come from politicians who actually voted in favor of authorizing force against Saddam Hussein,” Mr. Cheney said in remarks prepared for a GOP fundraiser.

– Associated Press

U.S. INDICTS GUATEMALA’S TOP ANTI-DRUG COPS ON COCAINE CHARGES

Guatemala’s top anti-drug investigators have been arrested on charges they conspired to import and distribute cocaine in America after being lured here for what they thought was training on fighting drug traffickers.

A three-count indictment issued yesterday by a federal grand jury in Washington names Adan Castillo, chief of Guatemala’s special anti-drug police force, who has lamented the slow pace of progress in combating cocaine smugglers in Guatemala. Also indicted were Jorge Aguilar Garcia, Mr. Castillo’s deputy, and Rubilio Orlando Palacios, another police official.

– Associated Press

TENTATIVE DEAL ON PATRIOT ACT WOULD CURB FBI POWER

House and Senate negotiators have struck a tentative deal on the expiring Patriot Act that would curb the FBI’s investigative power and require the Justice Department to report more fully its secret requests for information about ordinary people.

Democrats and civil libertarians said that while the tentative deal makes some improvements, it doesn’t address their chief concern: the curbing of FBI power to gather certain information by requiring investigators to prove the subject’s records are connected to a foreign agent or government.

– Associated Press

FEMA PUSHING MORE STABLE HOUSING FOR HURRICANE EVACUEES

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is stepping up the pressure on an estimated 53,000 families still staying in hotel rooms after losing their homes to hurricanes Katrina and Rita to get into longer-term housing by the end of the month.

The agency said Tuesday it will stop paying hotel bills December 1 for most of the families, even though housing advocates say they fear they won’t have enough time to find other places.

Most of the people still staying in hotels and motels are in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia, and Mississippi.

FEMA had previously set the December deadline as a goal to have evacuees out of hotels and into travel trailers, mobile homes, or apartments until they find permanent homes.

– Associated Press

DOCUMENTS SHOW NIXON DECEPTION ON WAR IN CAMBODIA

Even after Richard Nixon’s secret war in Cambodia became known, the president persisted in deception. “Publicly, we say one thing,” he told aides. “Actually, we do another.”

Newly declassified documents from the Nixon years shed light on the Vietnam War, the struggle with the Soviet Union for global influence and a president who tried not to let public and congressional opinion get in his way.

The release yesterday of some 50,000 pages of documents by the National Archives means about half the national security files from the Nixon era now are public. On May 31, 1970, a month after Nixon went on TV to defend the previously secret American bombings and troop movements in Cambodia, asserting that he would not let his nation become “a pitiful, helpless giant,” the president met his top military and national security aides at the Western White House in San Clemente, Calif.

Disclosure of the operation had sparked protests and congressional action against what many lawmakers from both parties considered an illegal war. Nixon noted that Americans believed the Cambodian operation was “all but over,” even as 14,000 troops were engaged across the border in a hunt for North Vietnamese operating there.

In a memo from the meeting marked “Eyes Only, Top Secret Sensitive,” Nixon told his military men to continue doing what was necessary in Cambodia, but to say for public consumption that America was merely providing support to South Vietnamese forces when necessary to protect American troops.

“That is what we will say publicly,” he asserted. “But now, let’s talk about what we will actually do.”

He instructed: “I want you to put the air in there and not spare the horses. Do not withdraw for domestic reasons but only for military reasons.”

“We have taken all the heat on this one.” He went on: “Just do it. Don’t come back and ask permission each time.”

– Associated Press

TERROR WAR DETAINEES TOTAL PASSES 83,000

America has detained more than 83,000 foreigners in the four years of the war on terror, nearly enough to fill the NFL’s largest stadium.

The administration defends the practice of holding detainees in prisons from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay as a critical tool to stop the insurgency in Iraq, maintain stability in Afghanistan and get known and suspected terrorists off the streets.

– Associated Press