MIDWEST

FORMER ILLINOIS GOVERNOR CONVICTED OF CORRUPTION

CHICAGO – A former Illinois governor, George Ryan, was convicted of corruption yesterday in the scandal that ended his political career in 2003 at the same time he was winning international acclaim for commuting the sentences of everyone on Illinois’s death row.

Ryan, 72, sat stone-faced as the verdict was read, and vowed afterward to appeal. He was convicted of steering state contracts and leases, including a $25 million IBM computer deal, to political insiders while he was Illinois secretary of state in the 1990s and then governor for one term. In return, he got vacations in Jamaica, Cancun, and Palm Springs, and gifts ranging from a golf bag to $145,000 in loans to his brother’s floundering business.

The jury in the state’s biggest corruption trial in decades found Ryan guilty on all counts, including fraud, lying to the FBI and racketeering conspiracy, which alone could bring 20 years in prison at sentencing August 4.

– Associated Press

SOUTH

DEFENSE PSYCHOLOGIST: MOUSSAOUI IS SCHIZOPHRENIC WITH DELUSIONS

ALEXANDRIA, Va.- A defense psychologist testified yesterday that Zacarias Moussaoui is a paranoid schizophrenic with delusions, as defense lawyers presented additional evidence the confessed September 11 conspirator believes he will be freed from prison by President Bush.

Psychologist Xavier Amador testified Moussaoui displays symptoms of the brain disorder, including delusions and disorganized thoughts and speech. Dr. Amador has never examined Moussaoui, who refused to see him. He said his diagnosis is based in part on conclusions of other mental-health professionals and an analysis of Moussaoui’s actions and writings, including numerous rambling and abusive legal motions Moussaoui filed during the 18 months he represented himself.

– Associated Press

WASHINGTON

LOTT, COCHRAN ADD $700 MILLION FOR GULF COAST RAIL LINE TO WAR BILL

Mississippi’s two American senators included $700 million in an emergency war spending bill to relocate a Gulf Coast rail line that has already been rebuilt after Hurricane Katrina at a cost of at least $250 million.

Republican Senators Trent Lott and Thad Cochran, who have the backing of their state’s economic development agencies and tourism industry, say the CSX freight line must be moved to save it from the next hurricane and to protect Mississippi’s growing coastal population from rail accidents. But critics of the measure call it a gift to coastal developers and the casino industry that would be paid for with money carved out of tight Katrina relief funds and piggybacked onto funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

– The Washington Post