WASHINGTON – Conservative opponents of Sen. Arlen Specter’s bid to become Senate Judiciary Committee chairman are flooding Republican committee members with calls demanding he be passed over.
But Specter also has been making calls in an effort to cement his chairmanship, one official told the Associated Press. Without any change in the support of the leaders who backed his re-election last week, Specter is likely to take over as chairman of the committee that will consider President Bush’s judicial nominees.
Specter, R-Pa., embarked on a media blitz Monday to help repair the damage from his comment last week that anti-abortion judges would be unlikely to be confirmed by the Senate. He told CNN, “I think I can help the president, and I think I can help the country.”
Tasers allowed aboard Korean Air
Korean Air is the first airline granted permission by the federal government to carry electric stun guns aboard jetliners that fly within U.S. airspace. The Transportation Security Administration last week approved Korean Air’s request to carry “Tasers,” agency spokesman Mark Hatfield said Monday.
Company offers drug discounts
St. Louis-based Express Scripts Inc., facing scrutiny of its generic drug prices, is offering discounts on dozens of generic medicines to low-income Americans. The program is open to people who earn no more than $23,000 a year, or $47,000 for a family of four, regardless of age or insurance coverage. Participants pay $18 for a three-month supply or $30 for a six-month supply of any of more than 50 drugs, which are available only by mail.
N.J.: Governor says goodbye
A contrite Gov. James McGreevey delivered a farewell address Monday in which he said he does not apologize “for being a gay American but rather for having let personal feelings impact my decision-making.” McGreevey, who is to step down Nov. 15, announced his resignation on Aug. 12 during a speech in which he stood in front of the cameras with his wife and parents by his side and declared, “My truth is that I am a gay American.”
Michigan: Kevorkian seeks pardon
An attorney for Jack Kevorkian, 76, asked the state parole board in Lansing on Monday to recommend that the assisted-suicide advocate be released from prison for health reasons. Attorney Mayer Morganroth said Kevorkian has health problems including high blood pressure, a hernia and arthritis, and the board should urge Gov. Jennifer Granholm to either pardon him or commute his sentence.
Connecticut: Child sex charges
A Bridgeport woman faces charges of having sex with an 8-year-old boy whom investigators said she considered her boyfriend. Tammy Imre, 29, was arrested Friday and charged with sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor. A judge set bond at $250,000 Monday. The boy was a playmate of Imre’s 7-year-old daughter. Police began investigating in September after the third-grader’s mother discovered a letter Imre had written him, in which she tells the boy she doesn’t “want anyone but you.”
Georgia: Evolution in textbooks
A trial opened in Atlanta on Monday over whether a warning sticker in suburban Atlanta biology textbooks that says evolution is “a theory, not a fact” violates the separation of church and state by promoting religion. Cobb County schools put the disclaimers in biology texts two years ago. A group of parents and the American Civil Liberties Union then filed a lawsuit over the stickers.
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