Washington, D.C.

Deficit at record high

With one month to go in the 2004 federal budget year, the government recorded a deficit of $436.9 billion thus far, the Treasury Department reported Monday.

That’s 9 percent larger than the $400.5 billion shortfall for the corresponding period last year.

The Congressional Budget Office is forecasting a $422 billion budget deficit for this budget year, surpassing the record $374 billion deficit last year.

Washington, D.C.

Appeals court reinstates death penalty for Moussaoui

An appeals court ruled Monday for a second time that the government can seek to execute Zacarias Moussaoui, the only U.S. defendant charged with a role in the al-Qaida conspiracy that led to the Sept. 11 attacks.

In a ruling that allows trial preparations to proceed, the court also said Moussaoui must be given access to statements from three al-Qaida witnesses who made statements that may help his defense.

Moussaoui contends he had no role in planning the hijackings. The three high al-Qaida officials in custody could reinforce that claim.

But the panel said a lower court’s remedy of removing the death penalty was not the proper way to penalize the government for refusing to grant Moussaoui adequate access to the witness statements, and reinstated the death penalty option.

North Korea

Huge explosion called demolition of mountain

An explosion that shot a 2-mile-wide mushroom cloud into the sky was the planned demolition of a mountain for a hydroelectric project, North Korea said Monday, and it invited a British diplomat to visit the site.

Experts from the United States and elsewhere say they don’t believe Thursday’s blast near the Chinese border was a nuclear test.

North Korea denounced the speculation over a nuclear test as part of a “preposterous smear campaign” aimed at diverting world attention away from revelations about past South Korean nuclear activities, Pyongyang’s official KCNA news agency said.

A U.S. defense official said officials have seen none of the telltale signs of a nuclear detonation — radiation, seismic disturbances and human casualties — an indication that the blast was likely conventional.