National Desk
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

WASHINGTON
NASA HEAD TO RESIGN; FAVORED FOR LSU POST NASA
Administrator Sean O’Keefe will resign this week, a government official said yesterday, and a spokesman for Louisiana State University said Mr. O’Keefe is a leading candidate to become a chancellor there.
The committee looking for someone to fill the $500,000-a-year job running the campus in Baton Rouge, La., meets Thursday, and Mr. O’Keefe will make his case for the job, search committee chairman Joel Tohline said.
Mr. O’Keefe has led the space agency for almost three years, a tumultuous period marred by the loss of the shuttle Columbia and its seven astronauts as well as budget battles and debates over the future of American space travel.
The administrator plans to resign this week, said the government official, who did not want to be identified because the procedures for Mr. O’Keefe’s departure still are not certain.
“The White House still has to decide how it wants to announce his departure,” the official said.
Despite Mr. O’Keefe’s appointment with the search committee on Thursday, the official said his resignation is not linked with an offer from LSU. The official said the resignation probably will come earlier than the scheduled meeting in Louisiana.
The White House had no comment on Mr. O’Keefe’s future, and NASA officials said they had no information about his resignation.
Another government official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the news of Mr. O’Keefe’s impending departure came as a shock – including to those at NASA – even with all the longtime speculation that he might move up in the Bush administration.
– Associated Press
PRO-DEMOCRATIC ‘SOFT MONEY’ GROUPS FAR OUTPACED GOP
Whatever the reasons Senator Kerry and the Democrats lost the race for the White House, lack of money wasn’t one.
Tax-exempt pro-Democratic groups raising big checks for this year’s election collected almost twice as much money as their Republican rivals in the presidential race, a study shows. The financial advantage comes in addition to record fundraising by Mr. Kerry and the Democratic Party.
In all, the nonparty political groups, known as 527s because of the tax code section that covers them, raised about $534 million and spent roughly $544 million in the 2003-04 election cycle, the analysis by the nonpartisan Political Money Line campaign finance tracking service found.
The prolific fund-raising is a sign that such groups, many of which debuted in the 2004 election season, will have no problem surviving the competition for contributions, Kent Cooper, co-founder of Political Money Line, said yesterday. Fundraising drives over Web sites and through e-mail helped several become political players very quickly, he said.
The presidential race drew most of their attention. Groups supporting Mr. Kerry or opposing President Bush raised $266 million. Those opposing Mr. Kerry or backing Mr. Bush collected $144 million, Political Money Line found. The study was based on a review of the organizations’ post election campaign finance reports to the Internal Revenue Service.
– Associated Press
NORTHWEST
COAST GUARD TRIES TO SALVAGE FREIGHTER WRECK
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – With the weather improving yesterday, the Coast Guard planned for a helicopter to lower a salvage team to a soybean freighter that broke in two off Alaska’s coast – a key step toward cleaning up a destructive, oily mess stretching for miles from the vessel.
Since the 738-foot Selendang Ayu wrecked Wednesday, rough seas and heavy wind have kept authorities from boarding either half of the ship. They must get on board to determine how much of the 440,000 gallons of bunker oil and 30,000 gallons of diesel fuel have leaked. Coast Guard officer Darrel Wilson said waves yesterday were between 14 and 16 feet and winds had eased to about 30 knots, milder than the 24-foot seas and 50-knot winds that pounded the ship Saturday.
Wind and waves were forecast to continue subsiding today.
The Coast Guard was proceeding cautiously, Mr. Wilson said, to avoid more casualties. Six crew members from the ship were lost when a helicopter crashed after lifting them off the vessel before it wrecked; four other people were rescued. A search for the missing crew – five from India and one from the Philippines – was suspended Friday night.
The Malaysian freighter lost power to its main engine on Tuesday and wrecked Wednesday on the west side of Unalaska Island in the Aleutian Island chain, despite efforts to control the ship. The spill is near a wildlife refuge, home to sea lions, harbor seals, sea otters, tanner crabs, and halibut. Environmental officials are concerned that resident bald eagles may scavenge on any oiled birds that could wash ashore. When the freighter split in half, it was over the No. 2 tank, which had a capacity of 140,000 gallons. Coast Guard officials say that appears to be the oil that flowed out of the ship.
– Associated Press