Around the Nation

Cheney gets good news at checkup

Vice President Dick Cheney got good news yesterday during his annual heart checkup, with a pacemaker detecting no irregular heartbeat, his office said.

Mr. Cheney has had four heart attacks, and a pacemaker was placed in his chest in June 2001. The checkup determined that the pacemaker, called an implantable cardioverter defibrillator, was working fine and never had to be activated. The device is designed to activate automatically if needed to regulate the patient’s heartbeat.

Mr. Cheney underwent the routine exam at George Washington University Medical Center in Washington.

Johns Hopkins again named ’best hospital’

Johns Hopkins Hospital has been ranked the nation’s “best hospital” in 2005 in an annual survey conducted by U.S. News and World Report.

This is the 15th straight year the Baltimore-based Hopkins has scored No. 1 in the survey, a Hopkins spokeswoman said yesterday.

The U.S. News studies analyze factors such as reputation, death rates and patient care.

The survey results, announced yesterday, will be published in the next issue of U.S. News, which hits newsstands Monday.

California suspends medical pot IDs

SAN FRANCISCO — California health officials yesterday suspended a program that had begun providing patients who smoke marijuana for medicinal reasons with state-issued identification cards.

State Health Director Sandra Shewry has asked the state attorney general’s office to review a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling to determine whether the ID program would put patients and state employees at risk of federal prosecution.

“I am concerned about unintended potential consequences of issuing medical marijuana ID cards that could affect medical marijuana users, their families and staff of the California Department of Health Services,” she said.

Last month’s 6-3 ruling by the Supreme Court did not strike down laws in California and nine other states that permit medical cannabis use, but it said those state laws do not void federal drug laws.

Council ban draws protest from ACLU

YELM, Wash. — The town council barred residents from mentioning Wal-Mart at meetings, prompting a challenge by civil libertarians who said a “free and accountable” government depends on a citizen’s ability to voice concerns openly.

The retailing giant has an application pending to build a superstore, spurring controversy in the small town about 15 miles southeast of Olympia.

In a letter to the council, American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Aaron H. Caplan said his group believes it is unconstitutional to ban any mention of Wal-Mart at council meetings. The term “big-box stores” also is banned, as is “moratorium.”

Suspect mentioned missing girl on blog

MINNEAPOLIS — The convicted sex offender accused of kidnapping two children in Idaho wrote about a missing Minnesota girl on his Web log, and investigators now are looking into whether he might have had anything to do with her disappearance.

On his Internet diary, Joseph Edward Duncan III wrote in early 2004 that he was afraid he’d be blamed for the disappearance of 5-year-old Leanna “Beaner” Warner.

The girl was last seen June 14, 2003, after leaving her home in Chisholm, about 190 miles east of Fargo, N.D., where Duncan lived.

Duncan is charged with abducting 9-year-old Dylan Groene and 8-year-old Shasta Groene from their Idaho home, where their 13-year-old brother, their mother and her boyfriend were bludgeoned to death. Police say Duncan also is a suspect in the killings.

Parties agree on deal in Letterman case

HELENA, Mont. — Attorneys reached a tentative plea agreement yesterday in the case of a man charged with plotting to kidnap the young son of talk show host David Letterman, a prosecutor said.

Teton County Attorney Joe Coble said that Kelly Frank, who earlier pleaded not guilty in the case, was to appear Monday in state court in Conrad for a change-of-plea hearing.

“We have a verbal agreement,” said Mr. Coble, who did not reveal the substance of the deal. “We have presented a written agreement to the defendant, and he has it over the weekend to consider before he signs it.”

From staff reports and wire dispatches