In brief: McDermott asks court for decision
Rep. Jim McDermott said Friday he will ask the Supreme Court to decide whether he had a right to disclose contents of an illegally taped telephone call involving House Republican leaders a decade ago.
A federal appeals court ruled in May that the Washington state Democrat should not have given reporters access to the tape-recorded telephone call of Republican leaders discussing the House ethics case against former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga.
McDermott’s offense was especially egregious since he was a senior member of the House ethics committee, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said in a 5-4 ruling.
McDermott, who represents Washington’s 7th District in the Seattle area, called the ruling an infringement of his free speech rights.
“With all due respect to the Court of Appeals, the constitutional issues involved here are much too important to be confused by a split decision,” he said in a statement Friday.
The ruling upheld a previous decision ordering McDermott to pay House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, more than $700,000 for leaking the taped conversation.
Orange Beach, Ala.
11-year-old drives, speeds, crashes
Police who chased a car for miles along a highway at speeds up to 100 mph said the driver was drunk, hardly a rarity in this resort town. But there was more: When they looked inside the flipped vehicle with guns drawn, they found an 11-year-old girl at the wheel.
“You go up there thinking it’s a felon you’re dealing with,” Assistant Police Chief Greg Duck said.
The girl, who was slightly injured in the crash, is now charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, speeding, reckless endangerment and leaving the scene of an accident. Duck said she sideswiped another vehicle during the roughly 8-mile-long chase.
Duck said the girl, whose name was not released because of her age, told police she was on her way to pick up her sister at a concert. Investigators found no alcohol in the car but believe the girl drank before getting behind the wheel of the car, which belongs to relatives.
New Delhi
India AIDS estimates halved
India has about half as many people infected with the AIDS virus as previously believed, the government confirmed Friday.
New estimations of the country’s infection rate, based on a nationwide house-to-house survey with blood sampling as well as on prenatal blood tests of pregnant women, suggests the country has about 2.47 million people infected with the virus that causes AIDS, a sharp drop from the previous estimate of 5.7 million, said Anbumani Ramadoss, the national minister of health and family welfare.
That reduced estimate, which mirrors similar revisions of AIDS prevalence in a variety of African countries, drops India from first in the world in HIV infections to third place, behind South Africa and Nigeria.