WASHINGTON

SPYING COURT JUDGE QUITS IN PROTEST

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush’s secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice Roberts late Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation.

Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Judge Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court’s work.

Judge Robertson, who was appointed to the federal bench in Washington by President Clinton in 1994 and was later selected by then-Chief Justice Rehnquist to serve on the FISA court, declined to comment when reached at his office late yesterday. – The Washington Post

DEMOCRATS SAY BRIEFINGS ON WIRETAPPING WERE NOT APPROVED

Some Democrats say they never approved a domestic wiretapping program, undermining suggestions by President Bush and his senior advisers that the plan was fully vetted in a series of congressional briefings.

“I feel unable to fully evaluate, much less endorse, these activities,” said Senator Rockefeller of West Virginia, the Senate Intelligence Committee’s top Democrat, said in a handwritten letter to Vice President Cheney in July 2003. “As you know, I am neither a technician nor an attorney.”

Mr. Rockefeller is among a small group of congressional leaders who have received briefings on the administration’s four-year-old program to eavesdrop – without warrants – on international calls and e-mails of Americans and others inside America with suspected ties to Al Qaeda.

– Associated Press

HEALTH

FDA OKAYS ORAL KIDNEY CANCER TREATMENT

A new treatment that slows the spread of advanced kidney cancer won government approval yesterday, offering potential relief from a disease that kills 12,000 Americans a year.

It’s the first new treatment option for kidney cancer patients in more than a decade. In trials, patients treated with Nexavar, also known as sorafenib tosylate, went longer without their cancer progressing than those taking a placebo. The drug was developed by Bayer and Onyx Pharmaceuticals.

“We believe this represents, from a medical point of view, truly a major advance,” Dr. Richard Pazdur, director of the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Oncology Drug Products, said in a conference call with reporters.

The medicine is for patients with advanced renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer. The FDA said that in one trial, patients taking the drug went twice as long – a median of six months versus three months for those taking a placebo – without the cancer progressing or the patient dying.

– Associated Press

SOUTHWEST

REAL ESTATE HEIR ROBERT DURST BACK IN CUSTODY

HOUSTON – A New York real estate heir who was acquitted of murdering his Galveston neighbor was arrested yesterday because he returned to Galveston in violation of the terms of his supervised release, a prison spokesman said.

Robert Durst was acquitted in 2003 but served 5 1/2 months in prison for carrying a weapon across state lines while fleeing prosecution in the murder case. Mr. Durst, 62, was released from a New Jersey prison in July and placed on supervised release in Texas until 2006. A Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman, Mike Viesca, said a warrant was issued for Mr. Durst because he was spotted in Galveston on December 16. Mr. Durst was arrested at his Houston home.

– Associated Press