USA
Secretary of State Powell will go to the Middle East next week as part of an effort to stem intense violence between Israel and the Palestinians, President Bush said. Meanwhile, US envoy Anthony Zinni, who's been there for three weeks, was expected to gain permission from Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to visit Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat at his surrounded West Bank headquarters. Earlier, a European Union delegation was denied that authorization. (Story, page 1; related editorial, page 10; opinion, page 11.)
The Middle East is expected to dominate the agenda when British Prime Minister Tony Blair meets Bush today. Their weekend summit at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, had been set to focus on possible action against Iraq in the counterterrorism war.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation missed multiple warnings about spy Robert Hanssen, sources familiar with a soon-to-be released study on FBI security said. Russia complained that a "disaffected agent," later identified as Hanssen, tried to sell US secrets in 1993, eight years before his arrest. FBI officials also found hacking software on his computer. And in 1990, Hanssen's brother-in-law, also an FBI agent, warned that he had suspiciously large sums of money at home. Hanssen pleaded guilty in July to selling US secrets for 20 years, earning $1.4 million.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York said it had given a list of priests accused of sexual misconduct with minors to the Manhattan district attorney's office. It also announced guidelines for addressing new allegations. Church officials in several US cities have made similar moves as claims of priestly misconduct, often decades past, surface. In the latest cases, Rick Gomez (above) of St. Petersburg, Fla., and a Portland, Ore., man filed separate lawsuits that accuse three US dioceses and the Vatican of conspiring to harbor priests whom they allege abused them. (Related story, page 1.)
A birth certificate appears to confirm that one of 300 detainees from Afghanistan at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval base was born in Baton Rouge, La. That means he's a US citizen, and the Defense and Justice Departments are considering what to do with him. The only other American caught in Afghanistan, John Walker Lindh, is awaiting trial on conspiracy and other charges in Alexandria, Va.
Vermont teenager Robert Tulloch pleaded guilty to the first degree murders of Dartmouth College professors Half and Suzanne Zantop, avoiding trial. Tulloch, who acted against his lawyer's advice, was sentenced to life in prison. Codefendant James Parker, who had agreed to testify against Tulloch, was to receive 25 years to life. The crime was committed last year.
