Padilla Appeals to High Court
Lawyers for "dirty bomb" suspect Jose Padilla want the Supreme Court to step in and rule on the U.S. citizen's indefinite military detention, arguing that the judiciary needs to rein in the Bush administration's conduct in the war on terrorism.
"Delay increases the chance that Padilla could be faced with an unconstitutionally coerced choice -- for example, whether to plead guilty to a crime or to give up other rights in order to avoid further months of detention as an enemy combatant," Padilla's lawyers wrote in papers filed Thursday.
 
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Padilla has spent most of his time in custody in a Navy brig in South Carolina. Padilla's case is at a federal appeals court; the prisoner's lawyers say the Supreme Court should step in now.
A federal judge ruled in favor of Padilla, rejecting the government's request to continue his indefinite detention.
Padilla was arrested at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport in 2002 after returning from Pakistan. The government has said he received weapons and explosives training from members of al Qaeda and planned attacks on the United States, including an assault with a radiological "dirty bomb."
The Supreme Court declined to rule in the case last year, saying Padilla's lawsuit had been filed in the wrong jurisdiction.
EPA Cancels Pesticide Study
The Environmental Protection Agency yesterday canceled a controversial study using children to measure the effect of pesticides after Democrats said they would block Senate confirmation of the agency's new head.
Acting EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson ordered an end to the study, reversing the agency's position of just a day earlier when it said it would await the advice of outside scientific experts.
The aim of the study, Johnson said, was to fill data gaps on children's exposure to household pesticides and chemicals. He suspended it last November after ethical questions were raised.
Over the study's two years, EPA had planned to give $970 plus a camcorder and children's clothes to each of the families of 60 children in Duval County, Fla.
EPA also had agreed to accept $2 million for the $9 million study from the American Chemistry Council, a trade group.
Engineered Corn Settlement
The Swiss biotechnology company Syngenta AG said it had reached a settlement with the U.S. government over the inadvertent sale to farmers of a genetically engineered corn seed that had not been approved by U.S. regulators.
The company said in a statement that under the settlement reached with the Agriculture Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, it would pay a fine of $375,000 and sponsor a compliance training conference.
It said the agencies "have reviewed scientific information and concluded that there are no human or animal health or environmental concerns with Bt10 corn."
Bt10 corn is an experimental corn modified to resist bugs. Between 2001 and 2004 it was mistakenly supplied in small amounts as Bt11 corn, a field corn approved for food and feed use and for cultivation in the United States, Canada, Japan and other countries.
-- From News Services
