Report finds big boost in secrecy by government

WASHINGTON – Government secrecy has increased sharply in the past few years – keeping Americans in the dark about information they should have access to, says a report released Thursday by watchdog groups. It found the federal government created 14 million new classified documents in fiscal year 2003 – a 26 percent increase over the number of documents stamped secret in 2002, and a 60 percent increase over 2001. Those numbers cover over 40 agencies, but exclude the CIA. “There are secrets that are necessary, but there are a heck of a lot of secrets that are being kept secret that the public would benefit from, with their disclosure,” said the coordinator for OpenTheGovernment.org, which released the report.

Air Force Two, the military plane carrying Vice President Dick Cheney, was forced to make an evasive maneuver to avoid another aircraft over Bridgeport, Conn., earlier this month, federal officials said Thursday. As Cheney headed to White Plains, N.Y., Aug. 7, a collision-avoidance system in the Gulfstream jet designated Air Force Two sounded an alarm and commanded the pilot to climb to avoid another plane, officials said. The two planes came within 0.44 miles horizontally and 700 feet vertically, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Massachusetts: New MIT chief

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Thursday named Yale provost Susan Hockfield as its new president – the first woman to hold the job at the prestigious university where men overwhelmingly dominate the faculty and student body. While the appointment of a female university president is no longer exceptional, it is significant at MIT, which in 1999 acknowledged past discrimination and has made significant efforts to improve prospects for women. Despite those efforts, women comprise just 42 percent of undergraduates, 29 percent of graduate students, and 17 percent of the faculty at MIT.

The nation’s supply of vaccine for the impending flu season took a big hit Thursday when Chiron Corp. announced it had found tainted doses in its factory. The company said it will hold up shipment of about 50 million shots – about half the supply U.S. health officials had hoped to have on hand this year – while it investigates what went wrong and determines whether the vaccine is safe to use. Vaccinations usually begin in September and continue through the flu season, with demand usually peaking in October and November.

Anti-missile weapon misses target

An anti-ballistic missile under development by Israel and the United States missed its target Thursday in its latest test off the California coast, a spokesman said. A test last month off California was a success. The Arrow missile failed to intercept an air-launched missile over the Pacific and both fell into the water, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency spokesman said. It was the 13th Arrow intercept test and the eighth test of the complete system. Officials have not said how many of the tests have been successful.

A swarm of bees that attacked a work crew in Tipton earlier this month may be of the Africanized variety, which would mark the furthest north the so-called “killer” bees have traveled in the United States, scientists said. Seven members of the work crew were treated at a hospital. DNA tests show the bees have Africanized traits, said the head of the Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology at Oklahoma State University. “They certainly are more Africanized than European,” he said.

A federal judge declared the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act unconstitutional Thursday in the second such ruling in three months – even though he called the procedure “gruesome, brutal, barbaric and uncivilized.” The U.S. District judge – one of three federal judges across the country to hear simultaneous challenges to the law earlier this year – faulted the ban for not containing an exception to protect a woman’s health, something the Supreme Court has made clear is required in laws prohibiting particular types of abortion.