Washington, D.C.: New testing sought in Chandra Levy case

Police are looking again at a man once ruled out as a suspect in Chandra Levy’s death, partly because a lie detector test he passed was administered through a Spanish-speaking interpreter, a person familiar with the investigation says.

Investigators want Ingmar Guandique, 21, a Salvadoran immigrant, to take a second polygraph test about the former government intern’s death. Her remains were found May 22 in Rock Creek Park, not far from the site of two attacks shortly after Levy disappeared that sent Guandique to prison for 10 years.

The source said that police want a bilingual or Spanish-speaking technician to administer the second test, to avoid the situation of the first test in which both the English-speaking technician’s questions and Guandique’s answers had to pass through an interpreter.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said investigators think the language barrier might have caused “some kind of discrepancy” in the first test.

San Diego: Smallpox vaccine stock can protect all citizens

By diluting long-stored doses, the United States now has more than enough smallpox vaccine to protect everyone in case of a bioterrorist attack, a top health official said Sunday.

Testing some of the 86 million doses of vaccine that came to light last March shows that they can be watered down and still offer potent protection against smallpox.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Sunday that the diluted vaccine has been tried on more than 100 volunteers to see if it still works. The results show this cache alone contains enough to vaccinate everyone in an emergency.

San Francisco: Labor truce collapses on dock workers

A frail labor peace between shipping lines and West Coast longshoreman collapsed Sunday when workers were ordered off their jobs indefinitely.

The Pacific Maritime Assn., which represents the shippers, said it would bar workers from the docks until the union agrees to extend a lapsed contract while talks toward a new agreement continue.

West Coast ports handled more than $300 billion in cargo over the past year. Continued labor unrest could cost the U.S. economy an estimated $1 billion a day.

The shutdown came less than 12 hours after longshoremen returned to the docks at the 29 major Pacific ports.

Shippers imposed a lockout Friday immediately after talks broke down. That lockout was lifted, then reimposed after the association accused the union of understaffing operations and dispatching unskilled workers.

Both sides agreed to meet this afternoon.

Illinois: Officials shoot, kill escaped Bengal tiger

A 400-pound Bengal tiger escaped from its owner’s trailer and hid in shrubbery just outside a residential neighborhood for about eight hours before police shot and killed it.

Residents of Bloomington had been warned to stay indoors Saturday morning while police and zoo experts tried to capture the tiger using tranquilizer darts.

They fired four darts but failed to hit the tiger and ended up shooting it when it tried to sneak away from the area where officers had it cornered, Bloomington Police spokesman Duane Moss said.

Police said the escaped tiger belonged to a Texas woman who was convicted in Illinois of endangering a child after the tiger bit a young girl. Mary Jeane Williams, 44, had been ordered by a judge on Thursday to remove the tiger from the state.

She has not been charged in connection with the tiger’s escape Saturday.