WASHINGTON

Time reporter to testify in leak case

A second Time magazine reporter has agreed to cooperate in the CIA leak case and will testify about her discussions with Karl Rove's attorney, a sign that prosecutors are still exploring charges against the White House aide.

Viveca Novak, a reporter in Time's Washington bureau, is cooperating with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity in 2003, the magazine reported in its Dec. 5 issue.

Novak specifically has been asked to testify under oath about conversations she had with Rove attorney Robert Luskin starting in May 2004, the magazine reported.

Novak, part of a team tracking the CIA case for Time, has written or contribute to articles in which Luskin characterized the nature of what was said between Rove and Mathew Cooper, the first Time reporter who testified in the case.

SANTA MARIA, Calif.

Two killed in bus accident, dozens injured

A Greyhound bus ran off a freeway, overturned and slid at least 100 yards on its side before hitting a tree Sunday, killing a pregnant woman and a man who were aboard, authorities said.

Authorities said driver fatigue may have contributed to the crash. The previous night, the driver had traveled from Fresno to Los Angeles, then left Los Angeles shortly after 3 a.m. yesterday. He had been on the road for about four hours when the bus overturned.

Dozens of passengers among the 44 people aboard the San Francisco-bound bus were hurt, at least seven of them with major injuries.

Four survivors were trapped in the wreckage and had to be rescued with hydraulic equipment, while some of the most seriously injured were airlifted to hospitals, authorities said.

Faro Jahani, 50, of San Francisco, and Martha Contreras, a 23-year-old Santa Maria resident who was seven months pregnant, were killed, said Lt. Dan Minor of the California Highway Patrol.

Seven other people suffered major injuries, four had moderate injuries and 31 had minor injuries after the bus went down an embankment along Highway 101 in Santa Maria shortly after 7 a.m., said Santa Barbara County Fire Capt. Keith Cullom.

TEHRAN, Iran

Villages flattened after earthquake in Iran

An earthquake with a magnitude of at least 5.9 shook a sparsely populated area of southern Iran yesterday, flattening seven villages, killing 10 people and injuring 70, officials and state-run television said. The tremble was felt as far away as Oman and the United Arab Emirates.

Heidar Alishvandi, the governor of Qeshm, was quoted by state television as saying rescue teams were deployed to the affected area, and people in the wrecked villages moved quickly to safely.

Another provincial official, Ghasem Karami, told The Associated Press that high casualties were not expected because the area was not heavily developed.

Tehran's seismologic center said the quake was of magnitude 5.9, but the U.S. Geological Survey in Golden, Colo., said it had a magnitude of 6.1.