Novello admits guilt in N.Y. case

ALBANY, N.Y. - Former U.S. Surgeon General Antonia Novello pleaded guilty yesterday to a felony in a deal with prosecutors to avoid prison time for forcing New York state employees to handle personal chores when she was state health commissioner. The plea deal calls for 250 hours of community service at a health clinic, $22,500 in restitution, and a $5,000 fine. Novello, who pleaded guilty to filing a false document involving a worker's duties, had faced up to 12 years in prison if convicted on all charges.

Investigators said Novello used the workers to chauffeur her on shopping trips and rearrange heavy furniture at her apartment. She now lives in Florida.

Novello was paid $256,000 a year as Republican Gov. George Pataki's health commissioner from 1999 to 2006. She was surgeon general under President George H.W. Bush from 1990 to 1993. As part of the plea deal, she will keep her physician's license. - AP


Train operator is praised as hero

WASHINGTON - The train operator killed this week in a Washington rail crash was a hero, the Metro transit agency's general manager said at her memorial service. John Catoe told hundreds of mourners gathered yesterday at Temple of Praise church that Jeanice McMillan, 42, of Springfield, Va., was "not just doing her job." He predicted that investigators would ultimately determine her actions "saved lives."

Federal investigators have said there is evidence McMillan applied an emergency brake before her train plowed into another Monday, killing her and eight passengers.

Test results indicate that McMillan's train, which was in automatic mode, may have lacked information that another train was stopped on the tracks ahead. - AP


Injury still limits Clinton's schedule

WASHINGTON - A week after surgery to repair her broken right elbow, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton had not resumed a full work schedule yesterday at the State Department, officials said. Spokesman P.J. Crowley said Clinton, who broke her arm in a fall at the State Department on June 17, was keeping an "aggressive schedule," including meetings Thursday and yesterday at the White House. He also said she was doing "a significant amount" of her work from home, including making official phone calls.

No timetable for a full recovery has been disclosed. - AP

Elsewhere:

A Duke University official has been charged with offering a 5-year-old boy for sex. Frank Lombard, associate director of the school's Center for Health Policy, was arrested after an Internet sting, said police and the FBI's Washington field office. If convicted, he could face up to 20 years in prison.

NASA and the European Space Agency are about to pull the plug on the robotic Ulysses solar probe, launched in 1990 and still going long after its projected five-year life. It kept operating even after the agencies said 16 months ago that Ulysses was freezing up and about to die. But on Tuesday, they will turn off its transmitter. Officials say issues with power, location and antennas make it no longer useful.


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