Wiretap program details stay secret
The National Security Agency is not required to release details about its secret wiretapping program, a federal judge said Monday.
The People for the American Way Foundation, a liberal advocacy group, sued to obtain records under the Freedom of Information Act. The group sought to find out how many wiretaps were approved and who reviewed the program.
President Bush has acknowledged the existence of the program, which he calls the Terrorist Surveillance Program. The National Security Agency monitors phone calls and e-mails between people in the U.S. and people in other countries when a link to terrorism is suspected.
SAVANNAH, Ga.
Homemade bomb brings suspensions
Two prep school students have been suspended for bringing to school a homemade bomb made of firecrackers, BBs and metal shavings, a school official said Monday.
One boy made the small bomb and gave it to the other student at school, said Tom Bonnell, headmaster of Savannah Country Day School.
Bonnell said he didn’t think the boys, both 14, meant to harm anyone with the device or to detonate it on school grounds.
Administrators learned about the bomb on Friday from another student who had overheard the two boys talking.
Sgt. Mike Wilson, a spokesman for Savannah-Chatham County police, said the bomb did not appear to be powerful.
HUNTINGTON, Ind.
Explosion flattens house, kills woman
An explosion flattened a home Monday, killing one person and injuring two others, while a utility worker was missing and feared dead, authorities said.
The cause of the blast was not immediately clear. But the missing Vectren Corp. worker was called to the house to investigate the smell of natural gas shortly before the fire erupted, authorities said.
It took more than an hour to extinguish the flames, which jumped to two neighboring homes.
The owner of the home, Jack Wilson, and a Comcast cable employee were taken to a Fort Wayne hospital, Assistant Police Chief Tom Hughes said. The homeowner’s wife was killed.
LOS ANGELES
Man who killed 10 given probation
An 89-year-old man whose car hurtled through a farmers market, killing 10 people, was sentenced to probation Monday by a judge who said he believed the defendant deserved to go prison but was too ill.
George Russell Weller was convicted Oct. 20 on 10 counts of vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence in a case that renewed debate over whether elderly people should lose their driver’s licenses. Weller, confined to a sickbed, was not in court for his sentencing.
Weller plowed his 1992 Buick Le Sabre at freeway speed into the crowded farmers market on July 16, 2003, killing 10 and injuring more than 70.