Blair aide arrested as honors reportedly offered to donors
London – Lord Levy, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s chief fundraiser, as well as his tennis partner and Middle East emissary, was arrested Wednesday in connection with allegations that Labor Party supporters were offered peerages in return for loans and donations.
The development brought the long-simmering scandal closer to Blair.
The prime minister declined to comment on what some political commentators said might become his most severe political crisis.
“There is no doubt that the longer this goes on, the closer it gets to the prime minister’s door,” said Norman Baker, a legislator from the opposition Liberal Democrats.
While the crisis has been brewing for months, it came to a boil this week with a BBC report quoting Sir Gulam Noon, the wealthy owner of a company that processes and packages Asian food, as saying that Levy had told him he did not need to declare a $462,500 loan to the Labor Party in documents concerning a possible peerage.
The police did not identify Levy in a statement saying that a man had been arrested under laws dating from 1925 to prevent politicians from rewarding supporters with honors such as seats in the House of Lords.
Since 1997, anyone who has donated more than 1 million pounds to the Labor Party has been made either a knight or a member of the Lords, according to a report funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, a Quaker charity campaigning for social justice.
BELFAST, Northern Ireland
Protestants celebrate “Twelfth” holiday
Protestants will share power with Catholics of Sinn Fein “over our dead bodies,” Ian Paisley said Wednesday as tens of thousands of Protestant marchers celebrated the most divisive day on Northern Ireland’s calendar.
Police and politicians reported little violence and lower-than-usual tensions as Protestants from the uncompromising Orange Order brotherhood mounted more than 600 parades for “the Twelfth.”
Almost all shops, pubs and restaurants closed for the official holiday, which commemorates the July 12, 1690, victory of a Protestant king, William of Orange, over his dethroned Catholic rival, James II.
WAYNE, Neb.
He lays an egg but wins annual cluck-off
Del Hampton has no reason to be fowl. He was named champion Saturday of the National Cluck-Off competition – an event the Fort Smith, Ark., native has won for the past eight years.
“My dream when I was a kid was to do cartoon voices. It all kind of goes back to that,” Hampton said.
The 26th annual event featured all things related to chickens, including a barbecue chicken dinner, contests, vendors and the world’s largest chicken dance. The highlight was the cluck-off.
During his winning cluck, Hampton scratched, pecked and clucked before perching on what appeared to be a large wooden roost and laying a spring-loaded fake egg the size of a small watermelon.
MOSCOW
New law cuts length of military service
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday signed into law a bill cutting the length of military service but also canceling many deferments from the draft.
The legislation, passed by both houses of parliament in June, reduces the current two-year conscription term to 1 1/2 years beginning next year, then to one year in 2008.
The bill also abolishes five accepted reasons for military draft deferments and toughens the requirements for four others.
MILWAUKEE
Chaos, wrecks precede gasoline giveaway
Two vehicles crashed and four people were arrested in excitement over a gasoline giveaway Wednesday to reward the city for its safe-driving record.
For the most part, hundreds of drivers waited patiently for hours for about $30 worth of free gasoline each that Allstate Insurance provided at one station.
However, some motorists started lining up before midnight and the queue stretched far from the station into a residential area, trapping some residents in their driveways, said police spokeswoman Anne E. Schwartz.
That led to fights and arrests for disorderly conduct. In one case, three officers were sent to a hospital as a precaution because they were spattered with blood from someone’s bloodied nose, Schwartz said.
The two crashes apparently occurred when queued-up motorists tried to let friends into line, Schwartz said.
ALLENTOWN, Pa.
Ex-class president pleads guilty in heist
A former university class president accused of robbing a bank to pay his online poker debts pleaded guilty Wednesday to felony robbery.
Greg Hogan, 20, the son of a preacher and former president of Lehigh University’s class of 2008, was accused of holding up a Wachovia bank Dec. 9.
