Alaska Official Resigns Over Ethics Questions
JUNEAU, Alaska -- State Attorney General Gregg D. Renkes announced his resignation Saturday after months of criticism over alleged ethics breaches as he shaped an international trade deal.
Renkes said in a statement that he wants to shield his family "from the vicious politics of personal destruction. . . . A family is priceless; a job can be done by others."
Renkes held stock in KFx Inc., a company that has patented a process it claims makes coal cleaner and more efficient. The company stood to benefit from a coal deal between Alaska and Taiwan that Renkes played a major role in shaping.
A report last month by former U.S. attorney Robert Bundy concluded that the stake was not significant enough to be considered an ethics breach. But Bundy said Renkes violated Alaska ethics law by not seeking an outside opinion on his involvement in the negotiation of the Alaska-Taiwan agreement.
Gov. Frank H. Murkowski (R) issued a letter of reprimand last week but said he would not ask for Renkes's resignation.
3 Workers Blamed for Train Crash Are Fired
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- The three workers accused of failing to switch a railroad track before last month's freight-train crash and deadly chlorine leak in Graniteville were fired by Norfolk Southern Corp.
Railroad spokesman Robin Chapman said Friday that the workers, whom he did not name, were terminated because they "failed to perform their duties properly." Union officials said the three men, each with at least 25 years of experience, will appeal.
The Jan. 6 accident killed nine people, injured hundreds more and forced the evacuation of thousands of Graniteville residents. Investigators have preliminarily determined that, after parking their train on a spur line, the three crew members failed to switch the tracks back to the main line, allowing an oncoming train to ram the parked cars.
• FORT HOOD, Tex. -- An Army judge dropped an indecent-act charge against Spec. Sabrina Harman, a former guard at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. She faces other charges.
• NEW YORK -- The city will appeal a judge's ruling against the state ban on same-sex marriages, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said. He supports same-sex marriages but said he does not want a repeat of what happened in San Francisco, where the unions were invalidated by the courts. He noted that he wants the issue to be settled in the state's highest court or in the legislature.
• CHICAGO -- A couple whose frozen embryo was accidentally destroyed at a fertility clinic has the right in Illinois to file a wrongful-death lawsuit, a judge has ruled in a case that some legal experts say could have implications in the debate over embryonic stem cell research.
-- From News Services
