Top Republican vows probe of destroyed tapes
WASHINGTON — The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee defied the Bush administration Sunday and pledged to investigate the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes.
“We want to hold the community accountable for what’s happened with these tapes. I think we will issue subpoenas,” said Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R- Mich., on “Fox News Sunday.”
The Justice Department has urged Congress not to investigate and advised intelligence officials not to cooperate with a legislative inquiry.
Earlier this month, the CIA acknowledged destroying videos showing the harsh interrogation of top al-Qaeda suspects.
More Googling going on
NEW YORK — More Americans are Googling themselves — and many are checking out their friends, co-workers and romantic interests, too.
In a report Sunday, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said 47 percent of U.S. adult Internet users have looked for information about themselves through Google or another search engine. That is more than twice the 22 percent of users who did in 2002.
About 60 percent of Internet users said they aren’t worried about the extent of information about themselves online.
Meanwhile, Pew found that 53 percent of adult Internet users admit to looking up information about someone else, celebrities excluded. Often, it’s to find someone they’ve lost touch with. But looking up friends, relatives, colleagues and neighbors also was common.
Although men and women equally searched for online information about themselves, women were slightly more likely to look up information about someone they are dating.
Families of troops in 1944 crash urge faster recovery
BURLINGTON, Vt. — The families of eight U.S. military men who died in a 1944 plane crash in the Himalayas want the Pentagon to step up efforts to recover remains from the crash site discovered last year.
Exactly what happened to the B-24 bomber dubbed “Hot as Hell” was a mystery for more than 60 years. It disappeared while on a flight from Kunming, China, to Chabua, India, to pick up weapons and other supplies.
Clayton Kuhles of Prescott, Ariz., a mountaineer who has made it his mission to search out crash sites along a route so deadly that pilots called it the “Aluminum Trail,” found the wreck last December near Damrah, a village of 200 in northeastern India.
“I was so elated,” Larry Zaetz said about hearing that the plane that carried his older brother had been found. But now, Zaetz and other relatives say they’ve been frustrated by what they see as the Defense Department’s slowness to send a team to India to retrieve the crew’s remains.
Maj. Brian DeSantis, a spokesman for Joint POW/ MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii, blamed political instability in the region and said the needed approvals from Indian government ministries, requested nearly a year ago, have not been granted.
“Once the area is deemed safe and we have the permissions, we’ll follow up on this pretty quickly,” DeSantis said.
Couple takes two plunges
HAZLETON, Pa. — Talk about taking the plunge.
Jeanie Dulski and Jamy Knittle took two plunges Friday: First, they got married at Hazleton Municipal Airport; then, they went skydiving.
As Dulski explained it: “Getting married is scarier than jumping out of a plane.”
Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta performed the ceremony on the ground for Dulski and Knittle, both 30. Then the bride and groom took a plane up to 10,000 feet and leaped out.
