Copyright 1999 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Inc.
St.
Louis Post-Dispatch
December 16, 1999, Thursday, FIVE STAR LIFT
EDITION
SECTION: NEWS, Pg. A12
LENGTH: 610 words
HEADLINE:
NATION
BYLINE: From News Services
BODY:
WASHINGTON
FBI
asks Congress not to hold espionage hearings
FBI Director Louis Freeh
has asked Congress to avoid hearings that could divulge internal disputes in the
government's espionage investigation of a scientist at the Los Alamos nuclear
laboratory.
Freeh is concerned that airing such information could harm
the prosecution of the suspect, Wen Ho Lee.
Senate investigators
recently gathered a memo showing that FBI agents had doubted more than a year
ago that Lee had leaked nuclear secrets to China. The investigators also found a
more recent memo in which Energy Secretary Bill Richardson rebuked the FBI for
accusing Energy Department officials of focusing too narrowly on Lee.
Freeh wrote to senators on Friday, asking them to drop their plans for
hearings on the espionage case.
MARYLAND
Juvenile
Justice officials are ousted over abuse
The secretary of the state
Department of Juvenile Justice was forced out along with four other officials
Wednesday amid allegations that juvenile delinquents at Maryland's
military-style boot camps were abused by guards.
"Every indication we've
had is that there were abuses," the governor said.
Last week, juveniles
summoned before a judge in Baltimore testified that guards had thrown them
through windows, stuck thumbs in their eyes and beat them routinely.
WASHINGTON
Safety board recommends changes to MD-11 planes
The National Transportation Safety Board on Wednesday recommended
mandatory changes in MD-11 aircraft - the model of the SwissAir plane that
crashed last year amid reports of smoke in the cockpit - after determining that
an electrical unit could cause a fire.
The safety board said the units,
which are installed in the plane's forward cargo hold, should be modified,
insulated and upgraded with better circuit breakers to guard against electrical
fires.
Board Chairman Jim Hall said he was recommending the mandatory
action after investigating three recent incidents in which the unit in question
caused a fire or showed signs of melting.
Both Boeing, which bought
McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the MD-11, and Lucas Aerospace Cargo Systems,
which manufactures the control unit, have recommended or are preparing to
recommended similar repairs.
NEW YORK
Tentative
contract deal averts transit strike
To the delight of 3.5 million
commuters and the disgust of many transit workers, subways and buses kept on
rolling Wednesday after a tentative contract settlement averted a transit
strike.
Commuters, who went to bed Tuesday night unsure if they would
awake to a rush-hour horror show, were thrilled with the deal, which was
announced more than two hours after the union's contract expired at 12:01 a.m.
But about 300 angry unionists demonstrated Wednesday afternoon outside
the Transit Authority offices in Brooklyn, then marched across the Brooklyn
Bridge to City Hall.
WEST
CALIFORNIA
Commission delays ruling on Net and phone taxes
A federal commission
declined Wednesday to take a stand on prohibiting Internet access taxes and
repealing a century-old telephone tax, despite broad support
for both measures.
On a 10-5 vote at a meeting in San Francisco, the
Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce decided to put off both questions
until its final March meeting in Dallas - where it also must decide what
recommendations to make on the more controversial issue of sales taxes on
e-commerce.
Joseph Guttentag, a senior Treasury Department tax adviser,
said repeal of the telephone tax would cost $ 52 billion over
10 years and force difficult government spending decisions.
LANGUAGE: English
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December 16, 1999 
