Washington, D.C.
Pelosi on the defensive: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew as far back as 2002 that the CIA was waterboarding al Qaida suspects, according to a newly released CIA memo. The memo apparently contradicts Pelosi’s assertion that the CIA never informed her that suspects were being subjected to the harsh interrogation technique. In her defense, Pelosi said CIA briefers merely told her the agency was “considering” waterboarding. But this week, press accounts quoted sources as saying that the CIA briefed Pelosi aide Michael Sheehy about waterboarding in February 2003, and that Sheehy, in turn, informed Pelosi. The Obama administration has released several documents indicating that high-level Bush administration officials approved torture, prompting Republican charges that Democrats knew about the practices and didn’t object.
Houston
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Shuttle catches telescope: Ending a two-day chase, the space shuttle Atlantis has snagged the Hubble Space Telescope with its robot arm and lifted it into the shuttle’s cargo bay for five days of repairs. The mission represents the space program’s fifth and last chance to repair the telescope before the shuttle is phased out. Two-person teams of astronauts will conduct five spacewalks to replace a camera and other parts on the school bus–size telescope. Astronauts aboard Atlantis this week noticed a 21-inch line of dents in their craft’s heat-shielding tiles, but Mission Control in Houston said they did not appear to pose a problem. “I’m not the tile expert, but they looked very minor,” said flight director Tony Ceccacci.
Buffalo, N.Y.
Crash report details: The captain of a Continental Air flight that crashed in a Buffalo suburb in February was flirting and bantering with his 24-year-old female co-pilot minutes before the plane smashed into a house, killing all 49 people aboard and one on the ground, officials reported this week. The conversation violated Federal Aviation Administration rules barring unnecessary cockpit chatter during landing procedures. The FAA’s preliminary report on the crash also indicated that pilot Marvin Renslow, 47, had previously failed five flight-safety tests, and reacted in the worst possible way when the plane stalled as it neared Buffalo Niagara International Airport. As the plane descended, Renslow and co-pilot Rebecca Shaw marveled about the ice build-up on the plane’s wings. When the plane stalled, Renslow said, “Jesus Christ,’’ then, “We’re down!’’
Miami
Terror convictions: After two mis-trials, federal prosecutors have won a conviction against five of the six men charged with plotting to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago. A federal jury this week convicted the men, residents of Miami’s impoverished Liberty City neighborhood, of seeking an alliance with al Qaida and expressing an interest in carrying out terror attacks, including the Chicago plot. They face up to 70 years in prison. The defense argued that the men had been entrapped by informants who baited them with promises of money. “This is a manufactured case,” said Ana Jhones, lawyer for alleged ringleader Narseal Batiste. Defendant Naudimar Herrera, 25, was cleared of all charges. The previous two trials of the so-called Liberty City Six ended in hung juries.
Middletown, Conn.
Campus murder: About 3,000 students at an elite Connecticut college were ordered to stay indoors for nearly two days last week after a man thought to be targeting students and Jews killed a student at a college bookstore. The alleged gunman, Stephen Morgan, 29, eventually surrendered, but not before Wesleyan University and area synagogues were placed on high alert because Morgan’s diary, found at the murder site, contained the passage, “It’s okay to kill Jews and go on a killing spree.” He was charged in the murder of Johanna Justin-Jinich, 21, of Timnath, Colo. Morgan and Justin-Jinich were summer-school classmates two years earlier at New York University. She had once filed a harassment complaint against him, after he repeatedly sent her insulting e-mails.
Washington, D.C.
Cheney’s offensive: Former Vice President Dick Cheney this week continued his one-man defense of Bush administration policies while plunging into the debate over the future of the Republican Party. Asked on CBS’ Face the Nation whether he thought radio host Rush Limbaugh or former Secretary of State Colin Powell was the better representative of the GOP, Cheney said, “I’d go with Limbaugh.” Noting that Powell supported Barack Obama for president, Cheney said, “I didn’t know he was still a Republican.” Cheney also demanded that the Obama administration release more memos relating to CIA interrogations, saying they would prove that harsh questioning techniques saved “perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives.”
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