Massachusetts governor says he’s taking control of Big Dig inspections

BOSTON – Gov. Mitt Romney announced Thursday he was filing emergency legislation to seize control of inspections and any decisions on reopening a highway tunnel where 12 tons of falling concrete killed a woman.

Romney also started legal proceedings to oust the chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which oversaw the troubled $14.6 billion Big Dig highway project through downtown Boston.

“There should no longer be any doubt that the Turnpike Authority has failed to do its job effectively,” Romney said.

Contractors knew as early as 1999 that there were problems with some of the bolts attaching the massive concrete panels to the ceiling of the Interstate 90 connector tunnel where the woman’s car was crushed Monday, Attorney General Tom Reilly said. Five bolts in the tunnel had failed testing that fall.

“It was not only identified, but there was a plan to address that problem,” Reilly said Wednesday. “What we’re trying to determine right now is was that plan implemented.”

Bush agrees to conditional review of his controversial eavesdropping plan

WASHINGTON – President Bush has agreed conditionally to let a court review his eavesdropping operations under a deal that, for the first time, would open an important part of his once-secret terrorism surveillance to a constitutional test.

The disclosure of the agreement on Thursday came as the White House sought to end an impasse about a six-month-old dispute with Congress on the National Security Agency’s program. It monitors the international calls and e-mails of Americans when terrorism is suspected.

Breaking with historic norms, the president had authorized the monitoring without a court warrant.

Under a deal with the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Bush has agreed to support a bill that could submit the program to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for a constitutional review.

“You have here a recognition by the president that he does not have a blank check,” said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. As a leading critic of the program, he had broken ranks with his party.

Terror suspect gets access to US secrets to prepare trial defense

MIAMI – Amid tight security, alleged al-Qaida operative Jose Padilla is being permitted to personally view U.S. government secrets in advance of his trial on charges of conspiring to wage and support international terrorism.

Under a federal judge’s order, Padilla is being allowed to examine classified documents and videotapes detailing his statements during 3 1/2 years in Defense Department custody as an unlawful “enemy combatant.”

That designation was dropped last fall when he was charged in a Miami terrorism case.

Defense lawyers in terrorism cases are regularly permitted to examine such classified material if they obtain government security clearances, but it is unusual for an actual terror suspect to be given direct access to secrets.

“There is not a long history of this. There have not been a lot of terrorist prosecutions in civilian courts,” said Aitan Goelman, a former Justice Department terrorism prosecutor now in private practice in Washington.

Padilla is a U.S. citizen once accused by the Bush administration of plotting to detonate a radioactive “dirty bomb.”

Galapagos finches evolve new beak helping to confirm Darwin’s theory

WASHINGTON – Finches on the Galapagos Islands that inspired Charles Darwin to develop the concept of evolution are now helping confirm it – by evolving.

A medium sized species of Darwin’s finch has evolved a smaller beak to take advantage of different seeds just two decades after the arrival of a larger rival for its original food source.

The altered beak size shows that species competing for food can undergo evolutionary change, said Peter Grant of Princeton University, author of the report appearing in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.

Compiled by The Associated Press