Rosenberg material is ordered released

NEW YORK - A judge ordered the release yesterday of key secret grand jury testimony in the atomic spy trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, citing its value to historians in the debate over national security versus freedom. The ruling from US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein pertained to witnesses whose sealed testimony was taken in 1950 and 1952. The witnesses are still alive but have not consented to the release and could not be located. The Rosenbergs were convicted of passing nuclear weapons secrets to the Soviet Union and were executed in 1953. The government has two months to appeal. (AP)

NEW YORK - The 11-year-old son of a Pakistani woman accused of trying to shoot a US Army captain is believed to be in custody, US authorities confirmed yesterday. US Attorney Michael Garcia notified a defense lawyer for Aafia Siddiqui in a letter dated Friday that the boy, believed to be US citizen Ahmed Siddiqui, was taken into custody in mid-July when authorities arrested his mother. Garcia said authorities can't say for sure because the boy asserted that his parents were killed in an October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan and that he had been traveling with Siddiqui since then. A preliminary DNA analysis demonstrated that the boy was Siddiqui's son but further tests were underway to ensure the finding was correct. (AP)

CLEVELAND - A man who wrote more than 200 threatening letters over 20 years to black and mixed-race men was sentenced yesterday to three years and 10 months in prison. David Tuason apologized in federal court, saying he never meant to hurt anybody. Tuason, 46, pleaded guilty in May to six counts of mailing threatening communications and two counts of threatening interstate communications. (AP)

LOUISVILLE - A federal judge has upheld civilian charges against a former 101st Airborne Division soldier accused in the sexual assault of an Iraqi teenager and the slayings of her and her family. Steven Dale Green's lawyers challenged a law that allowed him to be indicted on civilian charges for alleged crimes that happened in a war zone while he was serving in the Army. He was discharged before the military could bring its own charges. Green has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to face trial in April 2009. (AP)