McVeigh Defense to Begin

The defense gets its turn to present its case starting Thursday at the trial of Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh. Now that the prosecution has rested, McVeigh's lawyers are expected to launch an assault on prosecution claims that McVeigh is the one who carried out the bombing just over two years ago. His attorneys will argue that authorities arrested the wrong man. They're expected to zero in on allegedly shoddy practices at the FBI laboratory -- whose procedures were recently criticized in a Justice Department report. Lead attorney Stephen Jones is also expected to try casting doubt on witnesses who have identified McVeigh, such as the owner of the rental agency who said McVeigh was the man who rented the Ryder truck allegedly used in the bombing.

India Quake Kills Dozens

A major earthquake that struck central India Thursday is being blamed for killing at least 27 people. Officials say more than 150 others have been injured. "Twenty-seven people have died in the quake which hit Jabalpur town and nearby areas," Ajay Singh, a senior local official, told Reuters. Singh said he expects the death toll to rise, but "not substantially." The tremor lasted about 50 seconds and measured 6.0 on the Richter scale, according to a state government spokeswoman in New Delhi.

Atlantis Says So Long to Mir

The space shuttle Atlantis and the Russian space station Mir are on their own again. After five days of orbiting the Earth as one, the two craft separated last night. The two crews marked the occasion by singing a traditional Russian cosmonaut song as Atlantis departed. The performance prompted shuttle skipper Charles Precourt to joke, "we apologize if we were a little out of tune." He also said the song showed "we ought to keep our day jobs." Staying behind on Mir was British-born astronaut Michael Foale, who will serve a four-month tour of duty aboard the Russian orbital outpost. Foale replaces NASA's Jerry Linenger, who will return to the Earth aboard the shuttle after living on the space station since January.

Pressure for Pilot Discharge

U.S. lawmakers are pressuring the Air Force to grant the first woman B-52 bomber pilot an honorable discharge rather than court-martial her on charges including adultery. Several congresswomen at a Washington news conference called on the Air Force to drop the charges against Flinn. The Air Force is weighing Lt. Kelly Flinn's demand that she receive an honorable discharge upon her resignation. The Air Force has delayed Flinn's court-martial while Air Force Secretary Sheila Widnall considers her resignation.

Fund-Raisers to Plead Guilty

A husband-and-wife team of Democratic Party fund-raisers has agreed to plead guilty to making illegal campaign contributions to Sen. Edward Kennedy and another candidate. The Justice Department says Nora Lum, 54, and her husband, Gene Lum, 57, agreed to admit their guilt to conspiring to funnel $50,000 in illegal contributions to the candidates. The money went to the 1994 re-election campaign for Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, and to W. Stuart Price, the unsuccessful 1994 Democratic candidate for a House seat from Oklahoma. As part of a plea bargain, the Lums have agreed to cooperate with a continuing investigation.

Report: Grand Jury Clears Hillary

First lady Hillary Rodham Clinton reportedly has been cleared by the grand jury that questioned her for more than four hours last year on Whitewater-related matters. CBS News quotes an unidentified source as saying there will be no indictment of Mrs. Clinton from Washington. The Washington grand jury met for 18 months and dealt with questions of possible Whitewater-related wrongdoing, along with other issues, by the Clintons after they moved into the White House. A grand jury in Little Rock is still examining the original 1978 Whitewater land deal and subsequent events.

Clinton Links Fashion, Drugs

President Clinton criticized the fashion industry Wednesday for allegedly projecting a positive image of heroin use. At a White House conference on drug abuse, the president said those who make and market clothes should not try to "glamorize addiction." The president said heroin is fast becoming "the drug of choice" and "part of this has to do with the images that are finding their way to our young people." Some call it the "heroin chic" approach to marketing in which models strike poses that make them appear stylishly strung out on drugs.

Tobacco Tax Rejected

The Senate has rejected a plan to finance children's health insurance with a 43-cents-per-pack tax on cigarettes. The legislation was offered by Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah and Democrat Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts as an amendment to a bill aimed at balancing the federal budget in five years. The Senate voted 55-45 against the amendment after the White House and congressional Republicans warned it would break apart the deficit reduction bill. The defeat allows the Senate to continue debate in an effort to hold a final vote Thursday. The House passed the balanced budget plan early Wednesday morning.

Cellphones Can Disrupt Pacemakers

A new medical study says digital cellular telephones carried in a shirt or jacket pocket can disrupt heart pacemakers. A team led by a researcher from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., explored the pacemaker interference problem by monitoring the hearts of 980 volunteers. The study says the telephones caused detectable interference in 20 percent of the cases and produced symptoms seven percent of the time. The symptoms included heart palpitations, light-headedness and dizziness. Researchers say the problems surfaced only when the phone was next to the pacemaker's pulse generator.

Heart Treatment Questioned

The especially aggressive treatment heart attack victims in the United States receive may be a waste of money. A new study in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine compared the death rates of heart attacks victims in the United States and Canada and found little difference, even though U.S. patients were eight times more likely to have angioplasty or heart bypass surgery. The study, by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences in Ontario, is expected to add fuel to the ongoing debate over whether expensive, high-tech treatments for heart attacks are as necessary as U.S. doctors seem to think.

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