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
QUESTIONS ABOUT LIBBY, LAWYER’S CONTACTS WITH MILLER CAMP
New details about Judith Miller’s decision to cooperate in the CIA leak probe are raising questions about whether Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff and his defense lawyer tried to steer the New York Times reporter’s testimony.
The dispute arose as the newspaper yesterday detailed three conversations that Ms. Miller had with the Cheney aide, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, in the summer of 2003 about Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson and Mr. Wilson’s wife, covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.
The issue over the contacts between representatives for Ms. Miller and Mr. Libby has arisen even though Mr. Libby’s lawyer insists his client granted an unconditional waiver of confidentiality more than a year ago for the reporter to testify. The criminal investigation into the leaking of Ms. Plame’s identity is nearing an end, and two Democratic senators said any Bush administration aide indicted in the probe ought to step aside.
Presidential aide Karl Rove gave grand jury testimony Friday – his fourth appearance. He was warned ahead of time by the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, that there is no guarantee he would escape indictment.
– Associated Press
MIDWEST
FIVE KILLED IN BUS CRASH
OSSEO, Wis. – A bus carrying high school students home from a band competition crashed into a tractor-trailer that had jackknifed on the interstate early yesterday, killing four adults and an 11-year-old girl, officials said.
Twenty-nine others were injured, some seriously, troopers said.
The semi had gone off the shoulder of Interstate 94 and jackknifed, and was blocking the westbound lane, a Wisconsin state patrol captain, Douglas Notbohm, said. Officials didn’t know why the truck went off the interstate and overturned. The driver told investigators he had not fallen asleep, Captain Notbohm said.
– Associated Press
HEALTH
REPORT: DAILY WEIGH-INS HELP DIETERS KEEP OFF LOST POUNDS
If you want to tip the scales in your favor, try stepping on one each day.
Research presented yesterday at an obesity conference suggests that the simple act of regularly weighing in helps prevent people from regaining lost pounds. That’s important because experience shows that most dieters regain a third of what they lost within the first year, and two-thirds of it in the second year.
The study was led by Rena Wing, a psychologist and director of the weight control center at Brown University Medical School in Providence, R.I. It involved 291 people, mostly women, who in the previous two years had lost at least 10% of their body weight, an average of 44 pounds. .
– Associated Press
SOUTH
TROPICAL STORM WARNING FOR CAYMAN ISLANDS
A tropical storm warning was in effect yesterday for the Cayman Islands as a tropical depression moved through the Atlantic on a path that could threaten the Gulf Coast later this week as a hurricane, forecasters said.
The system was expected to become Tropical Storm Wilma by today, which would make it the 21st named storm of the season, tying the record for the most storms in an Atlantic season, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
The only other time so many storms have formed since record keeping began 154 years ago was in 1933.
– Associated Press
WEST
WIFE OF CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY FOUND DEAD
LAFAYETTE, Calif. – The wife of prominent defense attorney and TV legal analyst Daniel Horowitz was found slain in the couple’s San Francisco-area home, police said.
Mr. Horowitz, currently leading the defense in a sensational murder trial in Martinez, called 911 Saturday evening to report that the body of his wife, 52-year-old Pamela Vitale, was in the entryway of their home, police said.
Contra Costa County authorities confirmed her identity yesterday morning and were investigating her death as a homicide, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman, Jimmy Lee, said. An autopsy was planned for today.
Mr. Horowitz is a regular television legal commentator who appears frequently on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. He frequently gave commentary during the Laci Peterson murder trial.
– Associated Press
CLINTON FUND-RAISER IN L.A. DRAWS ANTI-WAR PROTEST
A fund-raising brunch held in Los Angeles Saturday for Senator Clinton’s re-election bid drew a protest from two groups opposed to the war in Iraq.
Members of Iraq Veterans Against the War and a women’s group, CodePink, attended the demonstration to call attention to Mrs. Clinton’s vote in 2002 in favor of giving President Bush the authority to use force in Iraq, a Los Angeles television station, KABC, reported. The station’s video showed about two dozen protesters outside the fund-raiser, which took place at the home of one of the producers of the “Friends” television program, Marta Kauffman.
“We have never been afraid of holding both Republican and Democratic leaders’ feet to the fire,” a spokeswoman for CodePink, Tiffany Burns, said in a written statement. “This is a war based on lies and it’s time Sen. Clinton said so.”
A spokesman for Mrs. Clinton, Philippe Reines, responded, “They have a right to express their opinion.”
– Staff Reporter of the Sun