Washington – A Senate bill that sets funding levels for U.S. spy agencies suggests that the CIA’s secret network of overseas prisons should be shut down unless the Bush administration can demonstrate that they are “necessary, lawful and in the best interests of the United States.”
The measure amounts to a fresh attack by Congress on the 5-year-old detention program, which has been credited with providing valuable intelligence on terrorism but also has been condemned by other countries.
The provision is in a bill passed last week by the Senate Intelligence Committee and posted on the panel’s website Thursday.
Additional nation/world news briefs:
SAN FRANCISCO
Dog owner could face more prison time
A woman whose dogs killed a neighbor could get more prison time after the California Supreme Court on Thursday ordered a trial judge to consider convicting her of second-degree murder rather than involuntary manslaughter.
A jury had first found Marjorie Knoller guilty of second-degree murder in the 2001 death of Diane Whipple, 33.
However, the presiding judge ruled that Knoller wasn’t aware her two presa canario dogs would escape her control and kill Whipple. The judge lowered the conviction to involuntary manslaughter.
An appeals court later reinstated the murder conviction, saying Knoller should have known the dogs were at risk to cause “great bodily harm.”
ORLANDO, Fla.
NASA slates June 8 launch of shuttle
The next shuttle mission to the international space station is scheduled to launch June 8 at 7:38 p.m. EDT, NASA officials announced Thursday.
The decision follows two days of inspections and concerns about possible corrosion. NASA managers said they tested the equipment and determined there were no “show-stoppers” that could delay the launch.
Atlantis was slated for a March 15 launch, but the mission was delayed after a hailstorm damaged foam insulation on the external fuel tank.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
21-year moratorium on whaling upheld
The International Whaling Com mission passed a resolution Thursday upholding a 21-year moratorium on commercial whaling.
The move on the final day of the commission’s annual meeting essentially snubbed a symbolic resolution passed by a one- vote majority last year that said the ban was meant to be temporary and was no longer needed.
The ban, enacted in 1986, aims to protect several vulnerable species. Pro-whaling nations, including Japan, Norway and Iceland, say populations have rebounded and the ban is no longer necessary.
EDINBURGH, Scotland
Lab tech says he filmed Loch Ness monster
The Loch Ness monster is back – and there’s video. A man has captured what Nessie-watchers say is possible footage of the supposed mythical creature beneath Scotland’s most mysterious lake.
“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this jet-black thing, about 45 feet long, moving fairly fast in the water,” said Gordon Holmes, a lab technician from Shipley, Yorkshire, who took the video Saturday.
Nessie-watcher and marine biologist Adrian Shine viewed the video and hoped to properly analyze it in the coming months.
