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HILL AIDE'S FUND TRIAL DEBUGGED By KENNETH LOVETT May 18, 2005 -- LOS ANGELES — In a courthouse shocker, Sen. Ted Kennedy's brother-in-law won't be asked about a conversation he secretly recorded for the FBI when he testifies today against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's former chief fund-raiser, a prosecutor revealed yesterday. "The government does not intend to introduce the tape or elicit any testimony about that conversation," federal prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg told a judge before the trial of ex-Clinton fund-raiser David Rosen resumed yesterday after a four-day break. While Zeidenberg did not mention Kennedy's brother-in-law, Ray Reggie, by name, he...

Sen. Clinton's former aide could be used against her By Kenneth R. Bazinet New York Daily News WASHINGTON - Hillary Clinton isn't on trial in Los Angeles on Tuesday - but as far as her political adversaries are concerned, she may as well be. Her former finance director David Rosen has been charged with concealing the real cost of a star-studded Hollywood fund-raiser for Clinton in August 2000 - and if he's convicted, her enemies plan to exploit it to the maximum. ''If it was any other senator, it might not be an issue, but with her past it will...

SOUTH BEND — A former aide at Greene Intermediate Center is in jail after her arrest Tuesday on nine felony charges related to inappropriate sexual activities with special education students she supervised. Schmeca White, 27, of the 800 block of Huey Street, was taken into custody at her home shortly before noon Tuesday. Chief Deputy Prosecutor Ken Cotter said White is accused of performing various sexual acts or causing students to perform sex acts in a classroom during their lunch period. The reported incidents occurred during November and December while the teacher with whom White worked was away from the...

SACRAMENTO - The chief architect of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's unfulfilled plan to ``blow up'' bureaucratic boxes is leaving the administration as Team Arnold gears up for a critical battle. Paul Miner, one of the Republican governor's earliest political advisers, will leave next week to launch a new West Coast government affairs operation for General Electric. His departure comes at a decisive point for the governor, whose popularity is in decline as he prepares for a special election showdown that could define Schwarzenegger's historic impact on California. ``Now is the time,'' Miner said Monday. ``Arnold is an intellectual, energetic machine and...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Beleaguered U.N. chief Kofi Annan (news - web sites) will serve out his final two years in office, and his early departure would be widely viewed as a "political assassination," his new chief of staff said on Thursday. Mark Malloch Brown, himself under fire from staff for a wave of top personnel changes and some botched early moves, also defended his own performance since moving into Annan's office from the U.N. Development Program in early January. "Inevitably we are just in the phase where people have seen trees coming down. But they haven't seen new trees...

U.S. Defends Sealing Charges Against Former Clinton Aide By IAN URBINA Published: March 2, 2005 Correction Appended Federal prosecutors are battling attempts to dismiss their criminal case against Hillary Rodham Clinton's former fund-raising director, claiming in a court motion that they kept the indictment of him secret for more than a year to protect the identity of a witness cooperating in a separate investigation. The defendant, David Rosen, is charged with failing to report in-kind contributions and producing a false invoice in connection with an Aug. 12, 2000, fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton, according to an indictment unsealed in January. He...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante's former fiscal officer was sentenced to three months in jail for embezzling more than $65,000 in state money he spent partly for trips to Hawaii and a down payment on a Nissan 350Z sports car. Michael Keolanui, 34, also will make restitution and serve an additional three months of home confinement. He had faced up to a year in prison under a plea bargain with federal prosecutors. He pleaded guilty in September to forging two checks totaling $53,700, felonies that could have carried a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. He...

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites)'s new chief of staff heads to Washington on Wednesday to meet with critics and supporters of the United Nations (news - web sites) following a critical report of U.N. actions in the oil-for-food program in Iraq (news - web sites). Mark Malloch Brown's high-profile trip is aimed at informing U.S. lawmakers about ongoing U.N. management and administrative reforms and appears to be the opening salvo in a new offensive by Annan to present the world body in a more positive light. One of the U.S. lawmakers Malloch Brown is scheduled...

There are over six billion people living on our planet. Of that six billion, almost two billion are Muslims. That's roughly a third of the total population of the earth. The earthquake that triggered the killer tsunami was centered just off the coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. Indonesia is the world's most populous Muslim country. It was also the most severely devastated by the wave. Nearly 100,000 of the victims of the December 26 catastrophe were Indonesian Muslims. The vast majority of the victims were either Muslims, Buddhists or Hindu. Got all that? Good. Now, to the United...

SACRAMENTO - A series of e-mails and telephone calls related to two high-profile environmental decisions in California has prompted criticism that business interests may be gaining too much influence over the U.S. Interior Department. According to court records, Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Julie MacDonald tried to change scientific recommendations related to protecting wetland species and endangered fish. In the first instance, the correspondence was between MacDonald, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service managers and the California Farm Bureau Federation in April. A month later, the federation used the information to back a federal lawsuit in Washington, D.C., seeking to overturn the...

Mayor Bill White spoke Wednesday about city integrity following the bribery indictment of a one-time aide to former Mayor Lee Brown. Oliver Spellman, who until last Friday also worked as a top aide to County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia, has been charged with criminal conspiracy to obtain bribes as a public official. It stems from allegations he helped a consultant in Cleveland, Ohio win City of Houston contracts. Mayor White says all contracts handled by Spellman are under review, and corruption will not be tolerated. "I've said in public microphones for two years, public contracting should be clean and transparent, no...

Oliver Spellman, the Cleveland parks director under former Mayor Michael R. White, was charged Tuesday with accepting bribes from Beachwood consultant Nate Gray in exchange for political favors in Houston, where Spellman was the mayor's chief of staff. The charges, along with interviews and court documents, show that a sweeping public corruption investigation focusing on Gray has spread beyond the borders of Cuyahoga County to Texas and Louisiana. In Houston, Gray paid Spellman $2,000 and gave him a free hotel stay in Las Vegas and other gifts to land a contract for Gray's business, Etna Parking, to provide shuttle-bus service...

Ex-Brown aide faces Ohio bribery charge Oliver Spellman is accused of aiding a consultant trying to get city contracts ----- A chief of staff to former Mayor Lee Brown was charged Tuesday in Ohio with accepting bribes in exchange for helping a Cleveland consultant who was trying to win city of Houston contracts. The charge against Oliver Spellman, who more recently worked as a top aide to County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia, is part of a continuing investigation that already has resulted in the bribery indictment of a Cleveland city councilman. Garcia said Spellman resigned suddenly Friday as her chief of...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A top aide to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger described the administration's plans to reduce California's oil dependence, calling Thursday for more conservation, fuel-efficient vehicles, and hydrogen power. Terry Tamminen, the governor's newly appointed Cabinet secretary, delivered the speech by videotape at a conference on transportation. It was sponsored by Calstart, a consortium of government agencies and private companies, including automakers. Tamminen said drivers should try to conserve fuel in the near-term, with the midterm goal of buying more fuel-efficient cars and the long-term goal of finding cleaner fuels than petroleum, including hydrogen. "Proper tire inflation, using your...

SACRAMENTO - Frustrated by the slow pace of a legislative investigation, an aide to Assemblywoman Rebecca Cohn has filed a harassment complaint against her with state and federal officials. Cohn's press secretary, Erika Weaver-Taylor, alleges that the Campbell Democrat created a ``hostile working environment'' and that Cohn subjected her to ``verbal, physical and visual'' harassment. After Weaver-Taylor reported her concerns to a key Assembly committee last December, ``privileges and job duties were taken away,'' according to the complaint, filed Friday with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing in San Jose and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The...

Kerry aide accused over 'Superman' stem cell claim 13/10/2004 - 15:02:05 Vice-presidential hopeful John Edwards has sparked a row by claiming that under a John Kerry administration “people like Christopher Reeve will get up out of that wheelchair and walk again”. Mr Edwards raised eyebrows with the pledge at an election campaign rally, a day after the death of the paralysed Superman actor was announced. The Kerry team has repeatedly promised that it would allow stem cell research if in power, opening the way for potential cures for diseases. By contrast President George Bush has placed strict limitations on the...

At the suggestion of a CBS News producer, a top adviser to John Kerry talked to the man at the center of the National Guard "memogate" imbroglio before the disputed documents were revealed, FOX News has confirmed. Joe Lockhart (search) said he got a call from CBS the Saturday before the Sept. 8 broadcast which launched the network into a firestorm of controversy. The CBS representative alerted Lockhart that a man in Texas, Bill Burkett (search), was interested in helping the Kerry-Edwards campaign. Lockhart then called Burkett, a former Texas Army National Guard official who CBS says provided the doubtful...

Kerry vet aide's extremist history Joe Bangert lived in Hanoi, revered Ho Chi Minh -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: September 7, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern WASHINGTON – A John Kerry veterans' organizer lived in Hanoi for five years in the 1990s, testified that American troops skinned and crucified Vietnamese in the 1960s and joined the presidential candidate at an infamous 1971 meeting of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War executive committee in which the assassination of U.S. senators was debated, Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin reports. Joe Bangert, a Massachusetts English teacher and longtime friend of the junior senator, has campaigned with Kerry in...

70 killed during capture of 'Saddam's aide' September 05 2004 at 04:02PM By Waleed Ibrahim and Tom Perry Baghdad - Iraqi and US forces arrested a man believed to be the most-wanted Saddam Hussein aide still on the run in a bloody raid on Sunday in which 70 of his supporters were killed and 80 captured, the government said. The defence ministry said Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri - who was sixth on the US list of the 55 most-wanted members of Saddam's regime and had a $10-million price on his head - was captured in Tikrit, Saddam's hometown and powerbase north...

Johnny, Johnny, Johnny . . . what great fun you are to watch. Sincerely, I thank you for all the great belly-laughs these past weeks. Y'know, Johnny, I've been watching political campaigns for well over 40 years and I've seen some really stupid ones. Yours is quickly rising right up there with the top four or five silliest, too. Of course, you don't realize that yet, do you Johnny. But, Johnny, it's really your own fault. It's a leadership thing and leadership is something you know very, very little about. That will become rather obvious if you just look around...