News in brief

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti

U.S. Marines raided a house in search of weapons yesterday,
trying to shore up a fragile peace in Haiti as the ousted president
planned a return to the Caribbean from exile in Africa.

With morgues full and government offices closed, bodies were
piling up in the capital, littering the streets and serving as
bitter reminders of an armed rebellion that has divided the
country.

Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, who began choosing a cabinet
yesterday, has said ridding the population of weapons is a top
priority. Marines raided a home near the presidential palace before
dawn yesterday, hours after Latortue arrived in Haiti from
Florida.

U.S. Army Gen. James Hill said troops would work to collect
weapons, from “rusted M-1s to top-of-the-line
Uzis.”

“The message out of this is we are looking, and we will
continue to do so,” Col. Charles Gurganus said.

Ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his wife
will travel to Jamaica early next week, returning to within 130
miles of Haiti less than three weeks after fleeing into exile,
Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson said yesterday.

 

Bush makes first dig at new 9-11 memorial

EAST MEADOW, N.Y.

President Bush shoveled dirt yesterday at the somber
groundbreaking for a new memorial for victims of the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks, an event that has defined his presidency and is
the centerpiece of his re-election campaign.

Bush used images from the World Trade Center’s smoldering
wreckage in his first re-election TV commercials last week, and
refused to retreat when critics called them crass exploitation of
those killed in the attacks.

The president made no remarks at the ceremony attended by
several hundred people, uniformed Nassau County firefighters, a
color guard and bagpipers who played “Amazing Grace.”
But earlier, at a factory in another part of Long Island, Bush said
the lesson of Sept. 11 is that “we must deal with threats
before they fully materialize.”

Pat Kiefer, mother of a 25-year-old victim of the attack on the
World Trade Center, said the government should have done more to
prevent them.

“I will never vote again. I don’t believe any of the
politicians,” said Kiefer, who held an enlarged photo of her
son and talked to reporters after the event.

 

Former Congress aide arrested as Iraqi spy

NEW YORK

A former journalist and one-time press secretary for four
members of Congress was arrested yesterday on charges she served as
a paid agent for the Iraqi intelligence service before and after
the U.S. invasion.

Susan Lindauer, 41, was arrested in her hometown of Takoma Park,
Md., and was to appear in court later in the day in Baltimore,
authorities in New York said.

She was accused of conspiring to act as a spy for the Iraqi
Intelligence Service and engaging in prohibited financial
transactions involving the government of Iraq under dictator Saddam
Hussein. Prosecutors say she accepted $10,000 for her work.

“I’m an anti-war activist and I’m
innocent,” Lindauer told WBAL-TV as she was led to a car
outside the Baltimore FBI office.

 

Bill to raise fines for radio, TV vulgarity

WASHINGTON

The House overwhelmingly passed legislation yesterday
substantially increasing the maximum fine for radio and television
indecency. The vote was 391 to 22. Similar legislation is pending
in the Senate.

“I am tired of hearing parents tell me how they have to
cover their children’s ears,” Rep. Joseph Pitts (R-Pa.)
said during debate on the measure. “Today, we’re saying
enough is enough.”

The bill would raise the maximum fine for a broadcast-license
holder from $27,500 to $500,000. The fine for a performer would
jump from $11,000 to $500,000.

 

Stewart’s new home not so comfortable

HARTFORD, Conn.

The Danbury Federal Correctional Institution has next to nothing
in common with Martha Stewart’s world of porcelain pudding
bowls and Egyptian cotton bedding.

The millionaire who taught America how to make pillows and
decorate with doilies is expected to spend 10 to 16 months sharing
a toilet and working for about 12 cents an hour at the
minimum-security women’s prison, where the walls are drab
concrete and the 1,300 inmates wear starched khaki jumpsuits.

“There’s nothing soft or colorful or pleasant in the
whole environment,” said Caryl Hartjes, a Catholic nun who
served three months at Danbury for trespassing during a protest
against the U.S. military.

 

— Compiled from Daily wire reports