Washington, D.C.

Report: U.S. struggles to track resident aliens

The government could not locate nearly half the 4,112 resident aliens whom authorities wanted to talk with after the Sept. 11 attacks, congressional investigators said Thursday.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service did not have the current addresses of 1,851 people, according to the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress.

The INS either failed to tell those people that they had to alert the agency when they moved or did not enforce the law requiring that the government be told when they move.

The report is the latest in a string of post-Sept. 11 criticism aimed at the INS, whose functions will be transferred to the new Homeland Security Department and the agency abolished.

Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft proposed rules in July to help the INS begin enforcing the law. The subsequent deluge of change-of-address forms overwhelmed the INS’s ability to update its records, agency officials said.

Florida

‘Sick’ cruise ship docked for thorough cleaning

The cruise ship Amsterdam returned to port Thursday for a stem-to-stern scouring after more than 500 people on its last four voyages got sick with a stomach virus.

The ship had been scheduled to leave Port Everglades on a 10-day Caribbean cruise Thursday, but the voyage was canceled so the vessel could be cleaned.

After the latest passengers disembarked, 573 crew members began cleaning the ship.

The Holland America cruise line said that during the ship’s just-completed 10-day voyage, 58 passengers and 18 crew members developed symptoms associated with the Norwalk virus. Eighty-seven of the 1,305 passengers left the ship at various ports in the Caribbean and were flown home.

Washington, D.C.

Indian affairs official announces retirement

A Bush administration official held in contempt of court over management of a trust fund for American Indian royalties said Thursday he would retire at the end of the year.

During his 17 months as the Interior Department’s assistant secretary for Indian affairs, Neal A. McCaleb focused on untangling a fund that has been mismanaged for more than a century. It oversees $500 million a year in oil, gas, mining and timber royalties from Indian lands.

In September, McCaleb and Interior Secretary Gale Norton were held in contempt of court by U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth for failing to comply with his order fix the trust fund and concealing their failure to do so. The government plans to appeal the ruling.

McCaleb, 67, sought to change to fund management but met resistance from Indian leaders. Negotiations bogged down and then broke off.

Washington, D.C.

FCC commissioner questions ‘indecency’

Federal Communications Commissioner Michael J. Copps criticized television broadcasters and his own agency Thursday, saying far too much indecent programming is allowed on the airwaves.

The statement followed CBS’ airing of the much-hyped “Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show” Wednesday night. Two women’s groups and a media watchdog organization had asked the network not to run it, calling it a “soft-core porn infomercial.” ABC broadcast the show last November, prompting an investigation by the FCC, which ruled it did not violate decency standards.

Copps said of the nearly 500 indecency complaints received by the FCC’s enforcement bureau in the last year, only a tiny number had resulted in any action.

Indecent programming can’t be banned because of First Amendment protections. It may, however, be restricted to avoid its broadcast when children may be in the audience.