Saturday, April 29, 2006
Five House Members Are Arrested at Protest
Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) was among five members of Congress who were willingly arrested and led away from the Sudanese Embassy in plastic handcuffs during a protest yesterday.
Four other Democratic House members -- Tom Lantos (Calif.), Jim McGovern and John W. Olver of Massachusetts, and Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas) -- were among 11 protesters arrested on charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful assembly, a misdemeanor subject to a fine. The demonstrators said they were targeting the Sudanese government's role in atrocities in the Darfur region.
Dozens of demonstrators attended the protest, and they cheered as the House members and others were led to a white police van by U.S. Secret Service uniformed officers. The arrests were expected. Lantos's office even issued a news release about them in advance.
USDA Finds Handful Of Mad Cow CasesOnly four to seven cows in the United States are likely to have mad cow disease, according to Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns.
The estimate comes from data about testing for the disease, which is medically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE. Testing is likely to be scaled back after a panel of independent scientists' reviews the data, Johanns said.
"The data shows the prevalence of BSE in the United States is extraordinarily low," Johanns told reporters during a conference call.
"In other words, we have an extremely healthy herd of cattle in our country," he said.
The brain-wasting disorder infected more than 180,000 cows and was blamed for more than 150 human deaths during a European outbreak that peaked in 1993.
Judge Defends Jailing of Reporter in Leak CaseThe federal judge who jailed a former New York Times reporter for refusing to name her source during the CIA leak investigation defended his decision.
Thomas F. Hogan, chief judge of Washington's U.S. District Court, told a meeting of the Maryland-Delaware-D.C. Press Association in Annapolis that he made the right call when he ruled that there was no First Amendment protection for reporters to keep sources confidential, especially in criminal matters.
The case of reporter Judith Miller began as a typical Washington political story as the White House tried to push back against critics in a brewing scandal, Hogan told the group.
"It was the perfect storm," he said, of Washington politics, the media and the law.
In 2003, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV accused the Bush administration of twisting intelligence about Iraq's efforts to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger to justify going to war.
"Blood was spreading in the water," Hogan said. "The sharks were gathering. It's typical Washington politics, except that this involved the commission of a crime."
A Few Insurers Handling Bulk of Drug BenefitUnitedHealth Group and Humana are the biggest winners among insurers offering the new Medicare drug benefit, according to enrollment numbers.
Although about 90 companies are administering more than 3,000 private plans around the country, enrollment is heavily concentrated in just a handful of companies, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
UnitedHealth, which has a joint marketing relationship with AARP, was a clear No. 1. It obtained 27 percent of the enrollment in stand-alone drug plans, or 3.8 million enrollees.
-- From News Services
A Few Insurers Handling Bulk of Drug BenefitUnitedHealth Group and Humana are the biggest winners among insurers offering the new Medicare drug benefit, according to enrollment numbers.
Although about 90 companies are administering more than 3,000 private plans around the country, enrollment is heavily concentrated in just a handful of companies, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
UnitedHealth, which has a joint marketing relationship with AARP, was a clear No. 1. It obtained 27 percent of the enrollment in stand-alone drug plans, or 3.8 million enrollees.
-- From News Services
View all comments that have been posted about this article.