WASHINGTON

COURT RULES AGAINST FORMER SPIES WHO TRIED TO SUE CIA

Foreigners hired as spies by the Central Intelligence Agency cannot take the agency to court if they feel they have been mistreated, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday.

A husband and wife, known only as Jane and John Doe, attempted to sue the agency, claiming it had failed to provide the financial assistance they had been promised in exchange for their espionage services during the Cold War.

The top court ruled unanimously that their suit cannot proceed to trial because litigation would force the agency to acknowledge the existence of secret agreements. The Does had defected to America from a Soviet Bloc country and claimed they had been promised life-long financial help there. While the agency found Mr. Doe a job in Washington state, he was eventually laid off in a corporate merger. Denied further assistance by the agency, the Does said they faced either poverty or returning to their home country.

Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote that that allowing the Does or other spies to sue would expose the agency to the risk of revealing secret information, as well as making it vulnerable to “graymail” – lawsuits brought to force the agency to settle or risk revealing classified information in litigation that may undermine ongoing cover operations.

“The possibility that a suit may proceed and an espionage relationship may be revealed…is unacceptable,” he wrote.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

SENATOR BYRD CRITICIZED FOR ‘HITLER’ REMARKS

Jewish groups and fellow lawmakers accused Senator Byrd yesterday of making an outrageous and reprehensible comparison between Adolf Hitler’s Nazis and a Senate GOP plan to block Democrats from filibustering. A GOP senator called for Mr. Byrd to retract his remarks.

Byrd spokesman Thomas Gavin denied that Mr. Byrd, a Democrat of West Virginia, had compared Republicans to Hitler. He said that instead, the reference to Nazis in a Senate speech on Tuesday was meant to underscore that the past should not be ignored. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, said Mr. Byrd’s remarks showed “a profound lack of understanding as to who Hitler was” and that the senator should apologize to the American people.

– Associated Press

EAST

SMARTY JONES’ JOCKEY IMPRISONED BY CUSTOMS ON 2001 FELONY

PHILADELPHIA – Kentucky Derby winning jockey Stewart Elliott was on his way back from an overseas trip when his past caught up with him again.

Elliott, a Canadian citizen who won the Derby and Preakness aboard Smarty Jones last year, was taken into custody Tuesday and detained by customs agents in connection with a guilty plea to felony assault four years ago, the Department of Homeland Security said yesterday.

The 40-year-old Toronto native was returning from a trip to Hong Kong late last year when federal agents interviewed him at John F. Kennedy International Airport at New York, but let him go on his way, said Homeland Security spokesman Manny Van Pelt. Elliott was asked to return to a Customs and Border Protection office at New York, where officials said he was arrested and transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Philadelphia.

Elliott was held at the York County Prison in central Pennsylvania. He was released shortly after 5 p.m. yesterday, said Kelly Wietsma, a spokeswoman for Elliott. The jockey was expected to appear before a federal judge today.

– Associated Press

SOUTH

SCHOOL BUS DRIVER FATALLY SHOT

CUMBERLAND CITY, Tenn. – A 14-year-old boy was charged with shooting a school bus driver to death as she drove her morning route yesterday. A relative of the driver said she had reported the boy a day earlier for using smokeless tobacco on the bus.

None of the 24 students on the bus, ranging from kindergarten to the 12th grade, was hurt, even though the bus crashed into a utility pole after driver Joyce Gregory was shot. Authorities declined to comment on a motive for the shooting or identify the high school freshman accused of killing Gregory.

– Associated Press

DOZENS OF DOLPHINS STRANDED OFF FLORIDA KEYS

MARATHON, Fla. – About 49 dolphins stranded themselves yesterday off the Florida Keys and more than 20 were in a nearby canal or boat channel, officials said.

The rough-tooth dolphins were reported on flats and sand bars about a quarter of a mile off Marathon, said Laura Engleby, a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service. They were in about six inches of water at low tide, she said.

Marine mammals may strand when they are sick, injured or disoriented, she said. Denise Jackson, a member of the Marine Mammal Rescue Team assisting the dolphins, said darkness and the extreme low tide was complicating the search.

– Associated Press