Nation briefs 12/12/03

Bush defends policy on Iraq rebuilding contracts

WASHINGTON -- President Bush, under fire from allies, said Thursday that countries which sent troops to Iraq should be entitled to share in the $18 billion in American-financed reconstruction projects while other nations are shut out. Bush's policy effectively excludes countries such as Russia, France, Germany and Canada. The president, at a Cabinet meeting, said he still hoped that Russia, France, Germany and others would agree to forgive Iraq's crushing debt burden.

Six Cubans convicted in March plane hijacking

KEY WEST, Fla. -- Six Cubans accused of hijacking a passenger plane to Florida were convicted Thursday after failing to convince a jury it was actually a "freedom flight" undertaken with the crew's cooperation. The federal hijacking charges carry a mandatory 20 years in prison, with a possible life sentence. The March 19 hijacking was the first in a string of air and boat hijackings that strained relations between Havana and Washington. The communist country accused the United States of encouraging the hijackings.

Child killer to pay $15 million to victim's mother

NEW YORK -- Convicted child killer Joel Steinberg has been found liable for pain and suffering inflicted on the girl who was killed in 1987 and was ordered to pay $15 million to the birth mother of his illegally adopted daughter. The judge said money paid to Michele Launders is "$5 million for Lisa's pain and suffering just before her death, $5 million for pain and suffering endured as a battered child, and $5 million in punitive damages for the heinous and outrageous crime committed against" the child. At the time of the murder, Launders was an unwed mother who gave Steinberg her days-old child in order to arrange an adoption.-- From wire reports

Researchers find 'intoxicating' gene in worms

SAN FRANCISCO -- Researchers found a gene responsible for drunkenness in worms after plying thousands of the tiny creatures with booze, a discovery that could boost the fight against alcoholism. The experiment was conducted by University of California, San Francisco researchers and was to be published today in the science journal Cell. Scientists say the findings are important because they highlight an important new target in the fight against alcoholism.

Juror dismissed in Virginia sniper case

CHESAPEAKE, Va. -- On Thursday the judge in Washington-area sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo's trial dismissed a 22-year-old juror because the man lives outside Chesapeake. City spokesman Mark Cox said the judge "acknowledged that this was an innocent mistake on the part of the juror. It will not impact the outcome of the trial." The jury now has 15 members, including three alternates. Malvo's lawyers claim Malvo, 19, is innocent by reason of insanity and was brainwashed by Muhammad. Malvo is on trial for one of the killings; another jury recommended the death penalty for Muhammad, who was convicted in another of the killings.

Marines plead innocent to killing Navy sailor

SAN DIEGO -- Two Marines who served in Iraq pleaded innocent to charges that they killed a Navy sailor and wounded three other people in a drive-by shooting last month. Lance Cpls. Myron Thomas, 21, and Kenneth Hall, 19, both stationed at Camp Pendleton, are accused of killing Roderick Little, 22, in a drive by shooting in front of a fast-food restaurant. Two other sailors and a civilian were wounded in the shooting near the 32nd Street Naval Station.

West, Midwest have highest graduation rates

WASHINGTON -- Mostly rural states in the West and Midwest have the highest percentage of residents with high school diplomas, according to Census Bureau figures released Thursday. Wyoming leads the nation with 90.2 percent of residents 25 and older having graduated from high school, followed by Utah at 90.1 percent, according to a 2002 survey. Minnesota, Alaska and Nebraska were next, each with rates of at least 89 percent. A key for rural areas of the Midwest is to reverse the "brain drain" phenomenon, in which younger, more educated people leave for jobs in cities, said Mark Drabenstott, director of the Center for the Study of Rural America, in Kansas City, Mo.

Pentagon: Overcharging, other problems found at Haliburton

WASHINGTON -- Pentagon auditors found that Vice President Dick Cheney's former company may have overcharged the Army by as much as $61 million for gasoline in Iraq, senior defense officials said Thursday. Halliburton apparently didn't profit from the possible overcharges, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The problem, the officials said, was that Halliburton may have paid a subcontractor too much for the gasoline in the first place. The Pentagon officials said the Halliburton subsidiary involved in Iraq reconstruction work, Kellogg, Brown & Root, also submitted a proposal for cafeteria services that was $67 million too high. The officials said the Pentagon rejected that proposal.

Government to seeking death penalty against Eric Rudolph

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Prosecutors said Thursday they would seek the death penalty against serial bombing suspect Eric Rudolph for a blast that killed a police officer at an abortion clinic. Attorney General John Ashcroft authorized prosecutors to seek the death penalty in the 1998 bombing that also seriously injured a nurse, U.S. Attorney Alice Martin said. Rudolph, 36, was captured May 31 in North Carolina after a five-year manhunt following the Birmingham bombing. He also is also accused in the 1996 Olympic bombing in Atlanta that killed one woman, and two bombings in Atlanta in 1997.

Woman asked mother to take children before they were drowned

CLINTON, Ill. -- A woman accused of drowning her three young children in a car submerged in a lake had asked her mother to take custody of two of them just months before their deaths, the mother said Thursday. Two hours after Amanda Hamm cried as a judge read the first-degree murder charges against her, her mother, Ann Danison, said she couldn't help but wonder if she could have averted the tragedy. Six-year-old Christopher Hamm, 3-year-old Austin Brown and 23-month-old Kyleigh Hamm drowned Sept. 2 when the car they were in plunged off a boat ramp into Clinton Lake. Hamm and her boyfriend, Maurice Lagrone Jr., were on the lakeshore when rescuers arrived.

-- From wire reports