NATION IN BRIEF
Friday, February 3, 2006; Page A20
Court Will Not Release Names Of Jurors in Moussaoui Case
A federal judge ordered yesterday that the jury for the upcoming death-penalty sentencing hearing of Zacarias Moussaoui will remain anonymous.
U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema in Alexandria attributed her decision to "the intense media and public interest in this case." The names of jurors are usually publicly released, although judges have ordered anonymous juries in cases involving potentially dangerous defendants.
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Moussaoui pleaded guilty last year to conspiring with al Qaeda in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A federal court jury will now decide whether he will be executed or face life in prison. Jury selection starts Monday.
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? NIKISKI, Alaska -- An oil tanker being loaded with fuel broke free of its dock in the Cook Inlet port of Nikiski and ran aground, U.S. Coast Guard said. Officials at the refinery where the 575-foot Seabulk Pride was being loaded said that the ship's cargo tanks were not breached but that an unknown amount of fuel spilled into Cook Inlet southwest of Anchorage. There were no reports of injuries.
? BOSTON -- Boston University won final federal approval to build a research laboratory in the city's South End that would handle some of the world's most dangerous and exotic germs. The decision by the National Institutes of Health secures $128 million in federal funding for the lab, which will be part of a national group of facilities that will study infectious diseases such as ebola and the West Nile virus.
? CHICAGO -- Prosecutors rested their corruption case against former governor George Ryan (R) after 18 weeks in which witnesses told how he got free vacations and other valuables while friends and lobbyists got rich on state contracts. Ryan's chief counsel, Dan K. Webb, immediately called his first witness, Alexander Lerner, chief executive of the Illinois State Medical Society. The defense is expected to last several weeks.
? ATLANTA -- The government is changing how it categorizes tornadoes after finding that it does not take 300-mph winds to disintegrate homes and turn cars into missiles -- a 200-mph twister can do just as much damage. The National Weather Service said it had changed the Fujita Scale, a decades-old system of ranking a tornado's strength, to align wind speeds more closely with actual damage. The change will not be fully implemented until February 2007.
? WEST WARWICK, R.I. -- The Secret Service is investigating a seventh-grader who wrote a school essay that authorities say advocated violence against President Bush, talk show host Oprah Winfrey and others. The investigation is ongoing, but the essay may have been a "cry for help," said Thomas M. Powers, resident agent in charge in Providence. Authorities would not identify the boy or his teacher or release a copy of the essay.
-- From News Services
