Nation digest 05/15/02

President signs law to protect borders

WASHINGTON -- President Bush signed legislation Tuesday to hire more investigators and invest in new technologies to keep tabs on foreign visitors.

The Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act provides for 200 new investigators and 200 inspectors for the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It requires foreign visitors to carry passports and visas that are tamper-resistant, and also gives border patrol agents a pay increase.

Under the legislation, the INS is required to establish a foreign-student tracking system that records where they've been accepted into school, when their student visas were issued and when they enrolled.

That provision addresses the avenue used by several Sept. 11 hijackers, who entered the United States on student visas.

Most of priest's records will be made public

CAMBRIDGE, Mass -- A judge on Tuesday ordered that all but three pages of records of the Rev. Paul Shanley be made public, saying public interest was a greater concern than privacy in the sex abuse case.

It wasn't clear why Middlesex Superior Court Judge Raymond Brassard prevented three pages from being released. An attorney for the retired priest, Frank Mondano, declined to describe what those pages contained.

The other documents will be filed with the court clerk, but it was not immediately known when they would be available.

The records had been sought by the family of Gregory Ford, 24, who claims in a lawsuit that Shanley repeatedly raped him when he was a boy. Ford has sued Cardinal Bernard Law, accusing the cardinal of negligence in failing to protect him from Shanley.

On Monday, a judge ordered the archdiocese to turn over the records. Tuesday's hearing concerned whether they would be made public.

Bay-area quake may have ruptured gas line

GILROY, Calif. -- There were no reports of injuries or significant damage from an earthquake that was felt for 200 miles in the San Francisco Bay area. The quake was centered 35 miles south of San Jose just outside Gilroy. However, authorities Tuesday were investigating whether the quake may have ruptured a gas line, sparking a fire that destroyed a home in San Jose. No one was injured.

The quake struck at 10 p.m. Monday with a preliminary magnitude of 5.2, according to the U.S. Geological Service.

Florida worker falls to death down trash chute

NAPLES, Fla. -- A worker cleaning the roof of a condominium fell to his death down a 200-foot trash chute, police said.

Daniel Alberto Hincapie, 29, had apparently stepped on a thin Plexiglas shell covering the chute's opening and it gave way Monday, police said.

Fellow workers found his body in a bend at the bottom of the chute, which empties into a bin in a trash room at the bottom of the building.

-- From wire reports