Aide told to testify in torture inquiry

The House Judiciary Committee voted yesterday to compel a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney to testify about the Bush administration's interrogation practices. David Addington, Cheney's chief of staff, refused to testify without a subpoena. Addington is one of several lawyers believed to have played a key role in crafting the administration's interrogation policies shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, policies that some say amounted to torture. (AP)

MINNEAPOLIS - A daily dose of folic acid and B vitamins failed in the longest study to date to prevent heart disease or reduce deaths, putting to rest hopes that the supplements could quickly fight cardiac disease. The findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, confirm earlier research. The study of 5,442 women over more than seven years found no difference in heart attacks, strokes, artery-clearing procedures, or deaths. (Bloomberg News)

McLEAN - Convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad has asked prosecutors to help end his legal appeals from death row. Muhammad writes in a letter released yesterday that he is waiving all rights to appeal his 2003 conviction and death sentence for the sniper killings in 2002 that terrorized the Washington, D.C., region. He says that he has tried without success to stop efforts by defense lawyers and that he is counting on the state attorney general to assist him. His appellate lawyer, Jonathan Sheldon, declined to comment. (AP)

JACKSON - Georgia executed a convicted murderer yesterday, the first person to be put to death in the United States since the US Supreme Court ended a de facto moratorium on capital punishment last month. William Earl Lynd died by lethal injection in a prison in Jackson, in central Georgia, at 7:51 p.m. Lynd, 53, was convicted of shooting his girlfriend to death in December 1988. In the hours before he died, the Supreme Court rejected a final request for a stay of execution. On April 16, the high court rejected a challenge to the cocktail of three drugs used in most US executions, which opponents argue inflicts unnecessary pain. (Reuters)