SOUTHWEST

TOP ENRON ACCOUNTANT STRIKES PLEA BARGIN, WILL TESTIFY

HOUSTON – Enron’s former chief accounting officer, Richard Causey, has struck a plea bargain with federal prosecutors and will avoid going to trial with the fallen energy company’s two top executives, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.

Mr. Causey was expected to plead guilty today to one or more of the 34 criminal charges pending against him, this person told the Associated Press yesterday on condition of anonymity because of the private nature of the discussions.

Mr. Causey, 45, agreed to testify against his former bosses, Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former CEO Jeffrey Skilling, in exchange for a much lesser prison sentence than he would receive if convicted on all counts. The trial is scheduled to begin next month, but a delay is considered likely since defense attorneys would want more time to prepare for the government’s new witness.

– Associated Press

BUSH READS UP ON TEDDY ROOSEVELT WHILE ON VACATION

CRAWFORD, Texas – Read nothing into President Bush’s current choice in books, the White House said. The president is reading “When Trumpets Call: Theodore Roosevelt After the White House,” but presidential spokesman Trent Duffy said Mr. Bush is not thinking about his post-Oval Office days.

“He is an avid reader, and the president knows full well that he’s got a lot of time left in this second term, and he’s going accomplish big things,” Mr. Duffy said yesterday from Crawford, Texas, where Mr. Bush is relaxing between Christmas and New Year’s. Mr. Duffy said Brian Williams, anchor of “NBC Nightly News,” recommended the book to the president.

Mr. Duffy said Bush also is reading “Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground” by Robert Kaplan. The book is about how American imperialism and the global war on terrorism are executed around the world.

– Associated Press

SOUTH

TENNESSEE SENATOR TAKES AIM AT LOCAL NEWSPAPER ADVERTISERS

CLEVELAND, Tenn.- A state lawmaker is warning business owners not to advertise in a weekly newspaper that reported he is dating a woman while waiting for his divorce to come through. Senator Jeff Miller, a Republican who has represented this town of about 38,000 people 20 miles from Chattanooga for 11 years, sent the warning in a letter December 13. Some business owners said they resented the threatening tone of the letter, but Mr. Miller said he was trying to call attention to what he considers unfair treatment from the free Bradley News Weekly.

In the letter, Mr. Miller wrote, “Myself and many others are going to be watching in the next several weeks to identify and remember those in this community that wish to subsidize the destructive nature of this type of publication in our community.”

In an interview, Mr. Miller did not dispute the newspaper’s report about his girlfriend, but said he and his wife are working toward a divorce settlement and his “personal life should be left just that.”

– Associated Press

WEST

MAN ACQUITTED OF ATTEMPTED MURDER WINS DISCRIMINATION CASE

A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that a California telephone company, Pacific Bell, was liable for discrimination when it refused to reinstate a service technician who omitted from his job application the fact that he was acquitted by insanity in an attempted murder case and spent time in an asylum.

The company, now known as AT&T, argued that it feared the technician, Joshua Josephs, would be a danger to customers, but a jury found that Mr. Josephs was discriminated against in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act because of his perceived mental problems. A panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2 to 1 that the jury verdict should stand. “The evidence simply does not compel a conclusion that, in the eyes of Pac Bell, Josephs was not qualified for the service technician position because of his past violent acts,” Judge Edward Leavy wrote.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun