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A court has ordered Japan's newest nuclear reactor to be shut down over fears about its safety in the event of an earthquake. ... The plant, which only began operating nine days ago, will stay open until an appeal filed by the company is heard. ... The protest group, which has 135 members and is based near the Shika plant in Ishikawa, first filed the lawsuit six and a half years ago, when construction first started on the country's second largest reactor. The local residents said the Number 2 reactor was constructed using outdated government safety guidelines. ... Japan relies...

Friday's show Exclusive: In a rare one-on-one from the White House, Laura Bush shares her urgent message to America's women. Tune in at 9 p.m. ET.

Today's big debate over Iraq seems to be: Is there or is there not a civil war? ... This whole debate about civil war is surreal. What is the insurgency if not a war supported by one (minority) part of Iraqi society fighting to prevent the birth of the new Iraqi state supported by another (majority) part of Iraqi society? By definition that is civil war, and there's nothing new about it. ... This is doable. That is not to say it will be done. It is to say that those who have decided that because of "civil war" it...

WASHINGTON (AP) Michigan Appeals Court Judge Henry Saad has withdrawn his nomination to the federal appeals court, ending a long quest to be seated on the bench amid a partisan fight over judicial appointments. Saad, of Bloomfield Hills, was nominated to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals four times, most recently in 2005, but a Senate agreement reached last May made no commitment to ending the filibuster blocking his nomination. He had been opposed by Democratic Sens. Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow. Saad, 57, informed the White House on Wednesday that he was withdrawing his nomination, said Michigan Republican...

Nicholas Lemann has a very interesting piece on Bill O'Reilly. Fans, like Derb, may not enjoy as much as I did. But one thing I think everybody would find interesting is that O'Reilly wrote a revenge-fantasy novel in which a serial killer (and the cop who pursued him) was based on O'Reilly himself. ... ... In 1998, after the launch of "The O'Reilly Factor," but before superstardom, he published a thriller called "Those Who Trespass," which is his most ambitious and deeply felt piece of writing. "Those Who Trespass" is a revenge fantasy, and it displays extraordinarily violent impulses. A...

The American Catholic bishops are waging an intense, sophisticated campaign to promote their version of immigration reform, which happens also to be big business's version of immigration reform. The campaign comes complete with brochures, a well-designed website, prayer cards, bracelets, and phony arguments. In Wednesday's New York Times, Roger Cardinal Mahony of Los Angeles made his case. He not only opposes the House Republicans' immigration bill, which emphasizes enforcing the laws against illegal immigration, but has directed the priests of his archdiocese to disobey it if it becomes law. The bill, he writes, "would subject [priests], as well as other...

Case 1:05-cr-00394-RBW Document 68-1 Filed 03/17/2006 Page 1 of 39 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ) ) v. ) CR. NO. 05-394 (RBW) ) I. LEWIS LIBBY, ) Oral Argument Requested also known as "Scooter Libby," ) Defendant. ) THIRD MOTION OF I. LEWIS LIBBY TO COMPEL DISCOVERY UNDER RULE 16 AND BRADY Theodore V. Wells, Jr. William H. Jeffress, Jr. James L. Brochin Alex J. Bourelly Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton Baker Botts LLP & Garrison LLP 1299 Pennsylvania Ave., NW 1285 Avenue of the Americas Washington, DC 20004 New York, NY...

Lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the indicted former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, want access to many Bush administration documents they say will demonstrate that an undercover CIA officer played a "peripheral role" in the government's debate over prewar intelligence and that Libby had no motive to lie about her, according to new court filings. In documents filed late Friday, Libby's attorneys cast a wide net for information that they said would help demonstrate that Libby did not discuss the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame as part of a supposed administration effort to besmirch her husband,...

SAN FRANCISCO -- When Charlie Bott got an offer in the mail recently for earthquake insurance, he stared long and hard at the bottom line. Then he threw it away. ''It was way beyond anything you pay for house insurance. Not even in the same league," said Bott, a nuclear engineer with a baby on the way. Now, like millions of others, he is hoping that the Big One doesn't strike, and if it does, that the government will come to the rescue. ... Some Californians called their insurance agents and signed up for quake coverage. But for many others,...

Case 1:05-cr-00394-RBW - Document 69-1 - Filed 03/21/2006 - Page 1 of 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. I. LEWIS LIBBY, also known as "Scooter Libby" CR. NO 05-394 (RBW) GOVERNMENT'S MOTION FOR CLARIFICATION AND TO ADJUST SCHEDULE FOR ASSERTING PRIVILEGE The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, by PATRICK J. FITZGERALD, SPECIAL COUNSEL, hereby moves this Court for an Order clarifying its Order of March 10, 2006, and adjusting the schedule for any assertion of privilege with respect to materials to be produced pursuant to that Order. In support of the motion,...

We should have no illusions that Afghanistan -- in many ways the backwater of the Islamic world -- will soon embrace Western-style religious pluralism. But the trial of Abdul Rahman, who faces a potential death sentence for converting to Christianity some 15 years ago, is an affront to civilization. If there is always a balancing act between accommodating the religious beliefs of a traditional society like Afghanistan and coaxing it toward reform, the Rahman case is not a close call -- killing or jailing someone for his religious beliefs is always wrong, and is especially galling in a country so...

ABDUL RAHMAN, a 41-year-old Afghan, was a Muslim for 25 years before he began working for an international Christian group helping his fellow countrymen in Pakistan. Within a couple of years he had converted to Christianity. Fourteen years later, the decision may cost him his life. After four years in Peshawar Mr Rahman spent the next nine in Germany. His problems began when he returned to Afghanistan in 2002 and tried to recover his two daughters, now aged 13 and 14, who were living with his parents in Kabul. His parents refused to return them. The matter went to the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff called for government regulation of chemical plant security on Tuesday but said the industry should come up with its own protective measures, to be verified by private auditors. ... Congress is considering legislation for federal regulation of the nation's 15,000 privately operated chemical facilities, which counterterror experts have warned are at the top of the list of likely terror targets. ... The leading bill, by Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Joseph Lieberman, D-Connecticut, would give Homeland Security authority to shut down plants that fail to submit acceptable security plans. Large chemical corporations...

IN A SPEECH last month at the Constitutional Court of South Africa, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made some unfair insinuations about critics of the use of foreign law in American courts. Justice Ginsburg was defending what is, in our view, a perfectly defensible proposition: that American courts should "learn from legal systems with values and a commitment to democracy similar to our own." Yet in doing so, she managed to link those who take an opposing view to the legacies of slavery and apartheid and to paint them as "fuel[ing] the irrational fringe" in its threats against judges. ... ......

It's sometimes difficult to remember, given the legal twists and turns it has taken, that the CIA leak investigation was begun to find out who exposed the identity of CIA employee Valerie Wilson to columnist Robert Novak and whether that person violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act in doing so. After more than two years of investigating, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has not charged anyone with that crime -- if indeed it was a crime -- nor has he publicly answered either question. Fitzgerald has even refused to provide lawyers for the only person indicted in the case, former Cheney chief...

Since the Republican majority has decided to allow President Bush to usurp Congress's role in matters of national security, the battle to save the constitutional balance of powers moves to the judiciary. A critical test of judicial independence will come this month, when the Supreme Court hears arguments in a case that has become a focus of Mr. Bush's imperial vision of the presidency. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a Yemeni national accused of having been a bodyguard and driver for Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, has been detained since 2002 in Guantánamo Bay. He filed suit to challenge the legitimacy of...

Four Republican Senators on Thursday [March 16, 2006] proposed new legislation that would give the President clear authority to authorize electronic surveillance that could reach Americans as part of investigations of suspected terrorists, and to do so without a court order "for periods of up to 45 days" and perhaps longer. The bill, titled the "Terrorist Surveillance Act of 2006," apparently is an effort to fill any gap in authority that may now exist for the President to continue the existing secret program of National Security Agency monitoring of telephone calls and e-mails potentially involving terrorist communications, when the contact...

WASHINGTON -- Lawyers for Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide are signaling they may delve deeply at his criminal trial into infighting among the White House, the CIA and the State Department over pre-Iraq war intelligence failures. In a prelude to a possible defense, lawyers for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby also are suggesting that the State Department -- not Libby -- may be to blame for leaking the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame to the media. ... "If the jury learns this background information" about finger-pointing "and also understands Mr. Libby's additional focus on urgent national security...

Case 1:05-cr-00394-RBW : Document 67-1 : Filed 03/17/2006 : Page 1 of 34 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. I. LEWIS LIBBY, also known as "Scooter Libby" CR. NO. 05-394 (RBW) GOVERNMENT'S RESPONSE TO DEFENDANT'SMOTION TO DISMISS THE INDICTMENT The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, by PATRICK J. FITZGERALD, SPECIAL COUNSEL, respectfully submits the following response to the Motion of I. Lewis Libby to Dismiss the Indictment. INTRODUCTION On October 28, 2005, a federal grand jury returned a five-count indictment charging defendant I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby with obstruction of justice, perjury, and making...

Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald yesterday disputed the claim of Vice President Cheney's former top aide that the prosecutor lacks legal authority to indict him in the CIA leak investigation. Fitzgerald opposed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's request that a judge dismiss the five-count indictment against him in the Valerie Plame affair. In court papers, the prosecutor argued that being allowed to operate outside any control of the Justice Department is constitutional and in accordance with federal law. ... Yesterday, Fitzgerald replied that the attorney general has been granted broad legal authority by Congress "to delegate any of his functions to...