SOUTH

CABBIE: LACROSSE PLAYER BEHAVED NORMALLY

DURHAM, N.C. – A cab driver called to take a Duke University lacrosse player home from a team party says his passenger, now charged with raping an exotic dancer, seemed calm and even jovial that night. But a second passenger he picked up later was talking about a stripper, he said. Moez Mostafa said the second passenger spoke about a stripper in a tone that made it “look to me like somebody get hurt.” Defense attorneys have said they have time-stamped photos from the party, bank records, cell phone calls, and a taxi driver’s statement to support Reade Seligmann’s claim that he is innocent of raping the woman on the night of March 13. Mr. Mostafa declined to speak to the Associated Press on Wednesday but confirmed to other press outlets that he picked up Mr. Seligmann and another passenger at 12:19 a.m., took them to a bank and a drive-through hamburger stand, then dropped them off at a Duke dormitory. “They were just joking and laughing inside my car and everything just fine,” Mr. Mostafa said in an interview broadcast yesterday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

– Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS POLICE GIVING BACK WEAPONS CONFISCATED POST-KATRINA

NEW ORLEANS – Under pressure from the National Rifle Association, police this week began returning guns confiscated after Hurricane Katrina. The police department is making the guns available three days a week. At the close of the second day Wednesday, police said only 17 of about 700 weapons had been returned. Police and soldiers removed guns from houses after the storm flooded the city, and they confiscated guns from some evacuees. The NRA and other groups sued the city, saying it took away people’s means of protection amid the lawlessness that gripped New Orleans. “Natural disasters may destroy great cities, but they do not destroy civil rights,” said Alan Gottlieb, founder of the Second Amendment Foundation, which joined the NRA in the lawsuit. The lawsuit was dropped after the city agreed to return the guns.

– Associated Press

WASHINGTON

SPY CHIEF SAYS NEARLY 100,000 AMERICANS WORKING IN INTELLIGENCE

Nearly 100,000 Americans are working in intelligence in America and around the world, the nation’s spy chief says, disclosing the number for the first time. In a speech at the National Press Club marking his first year on the job, National Intelligence Director John Negroponte indicated his willingness to make some normally classified information public. “The United States intelligence community comprises almost 100,000 patriotic, talented, and hardworking Americans in 16 federal departments and agencies,” he said. “To the extent that the requirements of secrecy permit,” Mr. Negroponte added later, “the country should know what they are doing, why they are doing it, and how well they are doing it.”

– Associated Press