WASHINGTON

CHENEY TO GIVE BACK TO HOSPITAL THAT OPERATED ON HIM

Vice President Cheney plans to donate $2.7 million to the hospital that saved his life. The George Washington Medical Faculty Associates announced on Monday that the vice president will give the money to fund the university’s new heart center, which will be called the Richard B. and Lynne V. Cheney Cardiovascular Institute.

“Lynne and I have been grateful for the first-rate care provided by the doctors at the George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates, and we are pleased to support their efforts to advance the treatment of cardiac disease,” Mr. Cheney said.

The vice president has been treated multiple times at the hospital. In August 1988, Dr. Benjamin Aaron performed a four-vessel coronary bypass operation on Mr. Cheney, two months after his third heart attack. In November 2000, physicians at the hospital performed a balloon angioplasty and installed a stent in the vice president’s chest after it was determined that he had a fourth, mild heart attack. And a few days after re-election in 2004, Mr. Cheney was taken to the hospital after complaining of shortness of breath.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

MIDWEST

FIFTH MEMBER OF ILLINOIS HATE CRIMES PANEL RESIGNS

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – A fifth member of the state’s hate crimes commission resigned yesterday amid controversy over another member of the panel who is a high-ranking official in the Nation of Islam, a spokesman said yesterday.

All five departing members of the Governor’s Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes are Jewish.

Alan Spellberg, a supervisor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office, said he hand-delivered his resignation letter to the governor’s office, but would not comment beyond what was in the letter.

Mr. Spellberg’s letter states that the commission has been “damaged beyond repair” by recent events and he can “no longer participate in good conscience.”

The other four who resigned said they were leaving rather than serve alongside Sister Claudette Marie Muhammad, the minister of protocol for the Nation of Islam.

Criticism of her has mounted since she invited other commissioners to attend a speech last month by Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, in which he referred to “Hollywood Jews” promoting homosexuality and “other filth.”

– Associated Press