WASHINGTON

SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE PREPARES QUESTIONS FOR BOLTON

Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee prepared a list of about 20 questions yesterday for John Bolton, including requests for e-mails and telephone logs relating to confrontations he has had with intelligence analysts, according to Senate staff.

Mr. Bolton, President Bush’s embattled pick to be U.N. ambassador, spent part of his day in meetings on Capitol Hill. Several GOP senators on the committee whose support for him has wavered said they did not see him. Mr. Bolton did meet with Senator Ensign, a Republican of Nevada, who is not on the committee.

“Our ambassador to the United Nations should be more concerned with being pro-U.S. than pro-U.N., and that’s the type of mind-set John Bolton has,” Mr. Ensign said in a statement.

The Senate panel is also setting up interviews over the next few days with up to 19 people, including former intelligence officers, subordinates who reported problems with Mr. Bolton, and Mr. Bolton’s former chief assistant, according to a Senate committee aide who spoke on condition of anonymity.

– Associated Press

HIGH COURT: THOSE CONVICTED OF CRIME OVERSEAS CAN OWN GUN IN U.S.

The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that people convicted of a crime overseas may own a gun in America. In a 5-3 decision, the court ruled in favor of Gary Sherwood Small, of Pennsylvania. The court reasoned that American law, which prohibits felons who have been convicted in “any court” from owning a gun, applies only to domestic crimes.

Justice Breyer, writing for the majority, said interpreting the law broadly to apply to foreign convictions would be unfair to defendants because procedural protections are often less in international courts. If Congress intended foreign convictions to apply, they can rewrite the law to specifically say so, he said.

“We have no reason to believe that Congress considered the added enforcement advantages flowing from inclusion of foreign crimes, weighing them against, say, the potential unfairness of preventing those with inapt foreign convictions from possessing guns,” Justice Breyer wrote.

He was joined by Justices Stevens, O’Connor, Souter, and Ginsburg. In a dissent, Justice Thomas argued that Congress intended for foreign convictions to apply. “Any” court literally means any court, he wrote. “Read naturally, the word ‘any’ has an expansive meaning, that is, ‘one or some indiscriminately of whatever kind,'” Justice Thomas said.

– Associated Press

SOUTH

MERCK ASKS JUDGE TO THROW OUT VIOXX WRONGFUL-DEATH LAWSUIT

ASHLAND, Ala. – Lawyers for New Jersey-based Merck & Company asked a judge yesterday to throw out a wrongful-death lawsuit, contending the woman who said the pain reliever Vioxx caused her husband’s death lied and committed fraud against the court.

Seeking to shelve the first Vioxx suit set for trial, Merck attorney Mike Brock said the medicine Cheryl Rogers claimed her husband, Brad, took did not even leave the company until six months after he died. “Mrs. Rogers has asserted an impossibility,” Mr. Brock said.

But Mrs. Rogers’s lawyers told Circuit Judge John Rochester they had expert medical testimony stating that Vioxx caused the death, and that Cheryl Rogers and other family members will testify they saw her husband take Vioxx before he died.

“There is no question he was taking Vioxx,” Mrs. Rogers’s lawyer, Jere Beasley, said. Judge Rochester said he will rule by the end of the week. He did not address other motions in the case, but did reiterate that a protective order keeps documents gathered during trial preparations confidential. Merck, based in Whitehouse Station, N.J., pulled Vioxx off the market last September after a study showed it doubled the risk of heart attacks and strokes in patients taking the drug for more than 18 months.

– Associated Press

MARINES TESTIFY AT HEARING FOR OFFICER ACCUSED OF MURDERING 2 IRAQIS

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. – Fellow Marines testified yesterday that an officer who is accused of murder shot two Iraqis in the back and put a sign near the bodies bearing a Marine slogan: “No better friend, no worse enemy.” The testimony came on the first day of a preliminary hearing for Second Lieutenant Ilario Pantano, 33. He has admitted shooting the two men during a search last April for a terrorist hideout. Lieutenant Pantano has said the shooting was in self-defense.

Lieutenant Samuel Cunningham testified that after seeing the sign, he told Lieutenant Pantano to remove it, then called to have the bodies taken away by Iraqi National Guardsmen because Lieutenant Pantano’s unit was headed to another assignment. “I was surprised,” Lieutenant Cunningham said of the sign. “I told him it was inappropriate. … It’s just unprofessional.” Lieutenant Cunningham called it “a death card.”

– Associated Press

SOUTHWEST

SURROGATE MOTHER GIVES BIRTH TO QUINTUPLETS; DECLINES $15,000 FEE

PHOENIX – A woman who agreed to be a surrogate mother for a childless couple delivered five baby boys yesterday, and has declined to collect her fee.

Teresa Anderson, 25, delivered the quintuplets by Caesarean section. One of the babies was born with a defective heart; the others were said to be doing fine. Ms. Anderson was “doing really good. She’s happy. She’s crying,” a spokesman for Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, Craig Fischer, said.

The babies were delivered in just five minutes and were named Enrique, Jorge, Gabriel, Victor, and Javier by their genetic parents, Luisa Gonzalez and Enrique Moreno. Ms. Anderson had agreed to carry the couple’s child to earn $15,000, and five embryos were implanted to increase the chances that at least one of them would take hold. But after discovering that all five embryos were developing, Ms. Anderson declined to accept any payment from the couple because of the expenses they will face.

– Associated Press

MIDWEST

COLLEGE STUDENT CHARGED WITH HATE CRIME AGAINST FELLOW MINORITIES

BANNOCKBURN, Ill. – A black college student was charged with a hate crime yesterday for allegedly mailing racist threats to fellow minorities on campus, apparently because she was homesick and wanted to convince her parents the school was dangerous, authorities said.

The hate mail at 3,300-student Trinity International University spread fear among blacks and Hispanics on campus and prompted authorities at the Christian school to move more than 40 minorities out of their dormitories and into a hotel last week. Alicia Hardin, 19, of Chicago, was charged with disorderly conduct and a hate crime.

The hate-crime charge carries up to five years in prison. She confessed to police on Monday, saying she was unhappy at Trinity and wanted to leave, Lieutenant Ron Price, said. “It’s kind of a sad story, actually,” Lieutenant Price said. The letters, filled with threats and racial slurs, were sent to three students over the past three weeks. The third letter contained a threat to use a weapon against a black female student.

– Associated Press