WASHINGTON

GOVERNMENT POSTS SURPLUS IN JANUARY

The federal government ran a surplus of $8.67 billion in January and the shortfall for the first four months of the budget year is running 17% below the red ink of a year ago, the Treasury Department said yesterday.

In its monthly budget statement, the department said the deficit from October through January totaled $109.2 billion, down from $131.5 billion in red ink for the same period last year.

The Bush administration, in the budget it submitted to Congress on Monday, predicted the deficit for the budget year that began last October 1 will climb to a record $427 billion, up 3.6% from last year’s $412 billion, the current record in dollar terms.

After this year, the administration is forecasting that the deficit will gradually decline, hitting $233 billion in 2009, the year the administration has pledged that the deficit will be cut in half from the 2004 level as a proportion of the total economy. The 2004 deficit was 3.6% of the economy and the 2009 deficit is projected to be 1.5% of the total economy.

For January, the government enjoyed an actual surplus: $8.67 billion. In January 2004, there was a deficit of $1.38 billion. The January surplus followed a revised $2.73 billion deficit in December, which originally had been reported as a larger deficit of $3.44 billion. It was the first monthly surplus since last September, when receipts outran spending by $24.6 billion.

– Associated Press

WEST

COURT TO REHEAR FRENCH YAHOO! NAZI CASE

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed yesterday to rehear a case involving a dispute between the Web portal Yahoo! and two French groups that fought to ban the service from allowing online auctions of Nazi memorabilia.

The organizations, the Union of Jewish Students of France and the League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, won a judgment from a French court in 2000 barring Yahoo! from offering Nazi materials to French customers. Yahoo! challenged the decision in an American court. A federal judge at San Jose, Calif., ruled that the First Amendment shielded the company from having to comply with the French court’s order.

Last year, a 9th Circuit panel ruled 2-1 that the American courts had no jurisdiction to consider the case. In an order released yesterday, the appeals court set aside that decision and granted Yahoo!’s request that the case be reheard by a larger, 11-member panel of appeals court judges. Under French law, the possession or sale of Nazi memorabilia is illegal. Yahoo! no longer permits the sale of most “hate group” merchandise, but continues to allow trading of Nazi coins, stamps, and bank notes on its American Web site. The company has said it continued the court fight to preserve its rights in similar situations that could arise in the future.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MIDWEST

MAN CONVICTED IN FATAL DAY CARE ATTACK

DETROIT – A man was found guilty of first-degree murder yesterday in the beating death of his 3-year-old daughter during an attack on her day care center. The jury also convicted Bernard Kelly, 37, of shooting the day care operator and her niece, who were both critically wounded. Prosecutors said Kelly came to the in-home day care center run by Annette Rice on September 28, inquiring about services, and attacked Ms. Rice and her niece, Sherita Griggs, before beating his daughter, Stefanie Belue, to death. They said he killed the girl because he did not want to pay child support.

Charleen Belue, Stefanie’s mother, testified that she had initiated court proceedings several months earlier to force Kelly to pay child support. They were due in court the day of the attack. John McWilliams, Kelly’s lawyer, maintains Kelly was not the killer. Whoever killed the girl, he said yesterday, was actually targeting the women and struck Stefanie in a “spontaneous, impulsive action.”

Kelly faces mandatory life in prison without parole at his sentencing March 3.

– Associated Press

VETERAN FIREFIGHTER CHARGED WITH ARSON

CHICAGO – A 25-year veteran of the Chicago Fire Department was charged yesterday with setting four fires in the city over the past week, and suburban police said they suspect him in 10 more dating back to 1998. No one was injured in the blazes, but a fire Monday at a Chicago school damaged its computer room.

Police said Lieutenant Jeffrey Boyle, 46, admitted setting the four fires in Chicago. He was charged with eight felony arson counts in all, including four from the series of fires in suburban Park Ridge.

Police Lieutenant Wayne Micek said Lieutenant Boyle mentioned girlfriend problems and losing bets as events that brought on stress and that he dealt with the impulse to set fires “for some time.”

Defense attorney James Tunick said Lieutenant Boyle “has served the Chicago Fire Department for years in an excellent capacity” and helped to battle a number of blazes. “We’ll deal with the case,” Mr. Tunick said.

– Associated Press

SOUTHEAST

NEWBORN TOSSED OUT OF CAR WINDOW

NORTH LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A newborn baby was in serious condition after it was tossed out a car window onto the grass beside a busy street yesterday afternoon, authorities said. The car sped off.

Investigators were seeking the parents of the boy, whose umbilical cord was still attached when he was found by a woman passer-by. Doctors believe the infant was less than an hour old at the time. Broward County Sheriff’s Department spokesman James Leljedal said the woman brought the infant to the sheriff’s office. The baby was taken to Broward General Medical Center, which upgraded his condition to serious from critical last night. It was unclear what injuries the eight pound, two-ounce child suffered. The woman who rescued the baby, whom she found inside a small plastic bag, said she saw a man and woman arguing inside the vehicle. The baby was thrown from the passenger side, landing three or four feet away in the grass.

– Associated Press