NATION IN BRIEF

Vt. Town Seeks Bush's Impeachment

---

NEWFANE, Vt. -- In a white-clapboard town hall, voters gathered Tuesday to conduct their community's business and to call for the impeachment of President Bush.

"In the U.S. presently there are only a few places where citizens can act in this fashion and have a say in our nation," said select board member Dan DeWalt, who drafted the impeachment article that was placed on the warning -- or official agenda -- for the annual town meeting, a tradition in New England.

"It absolutely affects us locally," DeWalt said. "It's our sons and daughters, our mothers and fathers, who are dying" in the war in Iraq.

The article, approved 121 to 29 in balloting by paper, calls on Vermont's lone member of the House, t Rep. Bernard Sanders (I), to file articles of impeachment against the president, alleging that Bush misled the nation into the Iraq war and engaged in illegal domestic spying.

The impeachment item came at the end of a roughly four-hour meeting that was devoted mostly to the local affairs of the town of 1,600. Among the other items discussed was whether the town should fix some of its 100-year-old sidewalks.

The impeachment discussion took up almost half an hour, reflecting the intense interest in the topic and something of a division over whether the town meeting was the appropriate place to debate it.

Greg Record, a justice of the peace, criticized the amount of time and attention such advisory votes get. "We spend more time on these things than on a million-dollar budget item," he complained.

The president did have his supporters during the debate.

Lenore Salzbrun defended Bush, saying she had close friends who died in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "I am so grateful that our president didn't just put his head in the sand . . . and did go out and fight," she said.

* * *

· SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. -- A sheriff's deputy who was videotaped shooting an unarmed Iraq war veteran after a car chase will be charged with attempted voluntary manslaughter, authorities said. Sheriff Gary Penrod said Deputy Ivory J. Webb, 45, will remain on paid administrative leave during the investigation into the shooting of Air Force Senior Airman Elio Carrion, 21.

· RALEIGH, N.C. -- A University of North Carolina graduate rented a sport-utility vehicle to inflict the maximum amount of injury while driving through a popular campus gathering spot, according to an affidavit filed by investigators. Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, 22, of Iran, told authorities he drove a rented Jeep Grand Cherokee because it had four-wheel drive and could "run things over and keep going," according to the application for a warrant to search Taheri-azar's home and vehicle. He told police he hit people to "avenge the deaths of Muslims around the world."

· About 4,000 students who took the main SAT college entrance exam in October received incorrectly low scores because of problems scanning their answer sheets. Colleges have been told, and affected students will be notified by e-mail Thursday, the College Board said.

-- From News Services