Washington, D.C.

Court nominee vows fairness; GOP again loses Estrada vote

Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen, hoping for confirmation to a federal appeals court, complained Thursday that Democrats misrepresented her positions last year when they rejected her nomination.

Owen was turned away by the Democrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee last year but is being given a second chance by Republicans now that they control the Senate. Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said he planned to use his one-vote majority to push her nomination through to the Senate for confirmation, although a final committee vote has not been set.

Democrats on Thursday also withstood a second GOP attempt to break their filibuster on Hispanic lawyer Miguel Estrada, saying they will stall Estrada’s nomination until he turns over papers from his time at the Justice Department.

In a 55-42 vote, Senate Republicans failed to win the 60 votes needed to move to the confirmation of Estrada, who wants a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Washington, D.C.

North Korea steers clear of renewed U.S. flights

North Korea made no effort to interfere with a resumption of U.S. Air Force reconnaissance flights off its coast in international airspace, officials said Thursday.

Adm. Thomas Fargo, commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the reconnaissance missions had resumed Wednesday. But he declined to discuss details of the flights or actions taken to enhance their safety.

Other officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. plane encountered no interference.

The flight was the first since a March 2 incident in which four North Korean fighter jets intercepted an unarmed and unescorted Air Force RC-135S Cobra Ball reconnaissance aircraft over the Sea of Japan about 150 miles off North Korea’s coast. It was the first such incident since 1969 and was viewed by the U.S. military as an unjustified and dangerous provocation.

India

Explosion kills 10 on train

A bomb exploded Thursday on a passenger train at a station in Bombay, India’s financial hub, killing at least 10 people and wounding 65.

Eight of those killed were women, as the explosive went off between the women’s first-class compartment and the general compartment, senior government official Utal Mukhopadhyay said.

Bombay Police Commissioner Ranjit Sharma said 15 of those injured were in serious condition. “There seems to be the hand of a terrorist group,” Sharma said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The blast blew off part of the roof of the train car, causing panic in the station crowded with commuters heading home after work.

Islamic hard-line groups have carried out at least two crude bomb attacks in the past four months in Bombay, on India’s western coast.