Nation in brief

Nearly two dozen testify in Va. sniper case

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. - The first survivor of the Washington-area sniper shootings recounted in harrowing detail Tuesday how she was shot while loading packages into her minivan in Spotsylvania during a simple errand to buy a scarecrow and a wreath.

Caroline Seawell, 44, calmly spoke of the moment she was shot, pausing to give warm smiles to the jury and avoiding the glare of sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad. She talked about the searing pain, resting on the pavement of a mall parking lot as people surrounded her, and thinking about her husband and two boys.

Seawell's turn on the witness stand at Muhammad's murder trial Tuesday capped a day of testimony from nearly two dozen people who somehow found themselves drawn into the first two harrowing days of last October's sniper shootings. In what so far was the most voluminous day of testimony, prosecutors presented evidence from four shootings - two slayings in Montgomery County, one in Washington, D.C., and Seawell's.

Muhammad, 42, is charged with capital murder in the Oct. 9, 2002, sniper slaying of Dean Meyers, 53, who was shot once in the head at a Sunoco gas station north of Manassas, Va. Prosecutors presented the Meyers case first, and they subsequently have been working to link Muhammad to 15 other shootings.

WASHINGTON - Efforts to craft compromise Medicare legislation gained significant ground in Congress on Tuesday as lawmakers neared agreements to ease access to lower-cost generic drugs, jettison copayments for home health care visits and shelter hospitals from $12-billion in cuts.

At the same time, lawmakers worked toward a compromise that would result in savings of as much as $10-billion over a decade from a program that reimburses doctors who provide certain drugs to battle cancer and other diseases.

"I think we're going to get it done," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, one of a small group of key lawmakers who has spent hours around a table inside a Capitol office negotiating over details of the complex bill.

Despite the progress reported by several participants in the discussions, officials said a new concern had surfaced - that the emerging compromise would cost far in excess of the $400-billion limit established by President Bush. While no formal cost estimates have been prepared by congressional budget experts, legislation exceeding the limit could send congressional negotiators back to the bargaining table before they could seek passage in the House and Senate.

WASHINGTON - The Air Force disclosed Tuesday that components in its refueling tankers have only occasionally been replaced because of age-related corrosion, an issue at the heart of congressional debate about the urgency of replacing the tanker fleet with aircraft built by Boeing Co.

The Air Force made the disclosure to the Senate Armed Services Committee, after deleting the information from data given to the committee last week. The information was revealed after Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., a critic of the Air Force's tanker plans, raised the possibility of issuing a subpoena for it.

The backdrop for the debate is a deal, authorized by Congress two years ago but not yet funded, to replace at least 100 Air Force KC-135 tankers with modified Boeing 767s at a cost of more than $20-billion, using the largest lease ever signed by the government. The Bush administration has justified the deal partly by citing the danger of age-related corrosion in the tanker fleet.

MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa is expected to get some of the planes.

The Air Force has not performed a comprehensive study of the incidence of corrosion, but Air Force Secretary James Roche told Congress last month that he believes "corrosion is significant, pervasive and presents an unacceptable risk." That is why, he said, the Air Force backed a lease that would get new tankers into service sooner than a purchase that would cost about $6-billion less.

McCain said: "The data is very revealing. It clearly indicates (corrosion) is a negligible concern here."

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - An Ohio truck driver who admitted scoping out the Brooklyn Bridge as part of an alleged al-Qaida plot to launch a second wave of terrorist attacks after Sept. 11 was sentenced Tuesday to 20 years in prison after a federal judge rejected his attempt to withdraw a guilty plea.

The government's case against Iyman Faris threatened to unravel last month when the 34-year-old native of Pakistan announced that he wanted to call off a deal with prosecutors he made last May to plead guilty to federal terrorism charges.

Under that agreement, Faris had admitted to meeting with a top al-Qaida leader in Pakistan in early 2002 and discussing ways he might aid in a new round of attacks on the United States, including a plan to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge by severing its suspension cables.

Appearing in U.S. District Court on Tuesday in a green prison jump suit, Faris told a different story. In brief remarks to U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, he acknowledged having a friend who worked with al-Qaida but denied having any direct connection.

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