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Nation briefs: Cheney, Gonzales indicted in prison case

Compiled from news dispatches

November 20, 2008

A Texas judge has set a Friday arraignment for Vice President Dick Cheney, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and others named in indictments accusing them of responsibility for prisoner abuse in a federal detention center. Cheney, Gonzales and the others will not be arrested, and do not need to appear in person, Presiding Judge Manuel Banales said. In a bizarre development, the lame-duck prosecutor who won the indictments was a no-show in court yesterday. The judge ordered Texas Rangers to go to Willacy County District Attorney Juan Guerra's house, check on his well-being and order him to court Friday. Half of the eight indictments returned Monday by a grand jury are tied to privately run federal detention centers in the sparsely populated South Texas county. The other half target judges and special prosecutors who played a role in an earlier investigation of Guerra. One indictment charges Cheney and Gonzales with engaging in organized criminal activity. It alleges that the men neglected federal prisoners and are responsible for assaults in the facilities. The grand jury accused Cheney of a conflict of interest because of his influence over the county's federal immigrant detention center and his substantial holdings in the Vanguard Group, which invests in private prison companies.

Animals and plants in danger of becoming extinct could lose the protection of government experts who make sure that dams, highways and other projects don't pose a threat, under regulations the Bush administration is set to put in place before President-elect Barack Obama can reverse them. The rules must be published tomorrow to take effect before Obama is sworn in Jan. 20. Otherwise, he could undo them with the stroke of a pen. The Interior Department rushed to complete the rules over the objections of lawmakers and environmentalists who argued that they would weaken how a landmark conservation law is applied.

An FBI agent trying to arrest a cocaine-dealing suspect at a home near Pittsburgh was killed yesterday by the man's wife, who might have thought she was shooting an intruder, authorities said. Agent Samuel Hicks, 33, was shot in the middle-class community of Indiana Township. He was taking part in a drug-ring roundup at the home of Robert Korbe, who was arrested on the drug charge. Christina Korbe, 40, was charged with homicide. She "ultimately called 911 to get local police to her house based on what she thought was happening," her lawyer said.

An 8-year-old boy accused in the shooting deaths of his father and another man said in a police interview released Tuesday that he did not fire the first shots but shot the men later so they wouldn't suffer. The boy gives conflicting accounts during an hourlong video of his interview with authorities in St. Johns, Ariz., but it ends with his admitting to pulling the trigger. At one point, the boy said he had been angry with his father. He said he was supposed to bring home some papers from school and got spanked five times because he didn't.