Friday.March 12,1993
NATION UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
5
Reno receives nod from Senate
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON—The Senate unanimously joined Janet Reno yesterday as the nation's first female attorney general. She completes the Clinton Cabinet, and she will bring fresh leadership to a Justice Department still led by a Bush holdover.
Applause broke out in the normally decorous Senate chamber when the 98-0 vote was announced.
A host of problems, ranging from a terrorist bombing in New York to questions about the FBI director in her own department, await the 54-
year-old South Florida prosecutor. She is expected to be sworn in next week.
Reno's cake walk through the constitutional advise and-consent process closed the book a Clinton Cabinet selection process that got under way after his election. Clinton's difficulties filling the job
Janet Reno
of attorney general — the failed nomination of Zoe Baird and the withdrawal of federal judge Kimba Wood from consideration — have delayed any major policy reviews at the Justice Department.
The Senate confirmed Reno just a day after the Judiciary Committee approved her nomination. Normally, there must be a three-day waiting period before the full Senate can act, but that was waived.
The agency has continued to be run by Bush administration appointee Stuart Gerson since Clinton's Jan. 20 inauguration.
Reno, who will be the first Democrat to head the Justice Department in 12 years, is expected to make many policy changes.
But the standoff between federal agents and an armed religious cult in Texas and the FBI's investigation of the World Trade Center bombing will force her to focus her immediate attention on day-to-day enforcement of the nation's criminal laws.
Reno also will review an internal Justice Department report that raised questions about whether FBI Director William Sessions should remain in office.
King waffles on stand; both sides claim victory
LOS ANGELES — A federal judge yesterday rejected an angry defense request to strike all of Rodney King's references to racial epithets from the trial of four police officers and to tell jurors to forget about them.
The Associated Press
King testified this week that at some point during his beating he heard a chant from the policemen using the words 'killer' and "nigger". But on further questioning he said he wasn't sure that the racial epithet was used.
U. S. District Judge John Davies said the defense should have objected when King was still on the stand. He indicated the government had no obligation to inform the defense of "a sight change" in testimony the defense already knew about.
Officers Theodore Briseno, Laurence Powell and Tintothy Wind and Sgt. Stacey Koon, who are white, are charged with violating King's civil rights during the beating, in which the African American motorist was clubbed and kicked.
In testimony Tuesday and Wednesday, King admitted to having lied in the past and to memory lapses but continued to insist he didn't deserve the beating, even though he had been
speeding and drunk.
"I forget a lot of things that happened that night," he said.
Defense attorneys said outside court that King's testimony helped their case, even though
Rodney King
proved to be a sympathetic witness
“It’s better for us,” said Ira Salzman, who represents Know. “Now he’s not this mythic looming presence in the skv. He’s just a guy.”
King left court without comment. He never testified in the officers' state trial, which ended in acquittals and touched off riots last spring that killed more than 50 people.
Much of the cross-examination focused on King's assertion Tuesday that officers had taunted him with the word "nigger" as they clubbed him. Asked repeatedly Wednesday whether he was sure that officers used the slur, King said again and again: "I'm not sure."
"Iheard either 'nigger or 'killer," he said.
NATION BRIEFS
Suspect has chemical engineering background
The Associated Press
NEWARK, N.J. — The second person arrested on charges of helping to carry out the World Trade Center bombing was identified as a Palestinian-American chemical engineer believed to have the know-how to mix explosives.
Nidal Aayad, 25, was arrested Wednesday by the FBI at his home in Maplewood. Like Mohanmud Salameh, he was charged with aiding and abetting in the Feb. 26 bombing that killed at least five people and injured about 1,000.
Investigators believe the bombing was financed with $8,000 wired from a European country to joint U.S. bank account held by the two, a source with knowledge of the investigation said yesterday. Authorities would not specify what role Avvad was alleged to have played in the bombing.
"By his educational background he has expertise that lends itself to this kind of crime," FBI agent James Esposito said.
Gene responsible for brain cancer discovered
The Associated Press
The genetic error causes neurofibromatosis type 2 — or NF2 — a disease that is passed through families. However, researchers believe that defects in the same gene also frequently cause brain tumors that occur sporadically rather than being inherited.
BOSTON — Scientists have tracked down a defective gene that may cause nearly a third of all human brain tumors, opening the way for new strategies to stop these cancers.
About 15,600 U.S. citizens are diagnosed with brain tumors each year, and 11,500 die from them. Doctors from Massachusetts General Hospital, who discovered the gene, said yesterday that it may be implicated in nearly one-third of these cases.
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