New York

Stroller may have saved baby during demolition

A 7-month-old girl who survived a building collapse when her deluxe stroller folded around her like a cocoon has been released from the hospital after two days.

Abby Lurensky blinked and wiggled inside her purple jumpsuit Saturday, showing no signs of her ordeal, as her parents made a brief appearance outside their Manhattan apartment. They declined to take questions from reporters.

Paramedics said Abby initially was unresponsive and turning blue when bystanders dug through a tangle of concrete and steel Thursday to free her crumpled carriage from the wreckage of a supermarket being demolished.

But she was largely unhurt, thanks to the cover from the shower of debris provided by her stroller and to her attentive nanny.

Three others were injured when the building suddenly fell, hurling debris onto a sidewalk.

Paramedics said Abby might have died if not for the protection of her stroller.

Alabama

Victims to confront bomber at sentencing

Emily Lyons, critically injured in a 1998 blast outside a Birmingham abortion clinic, has a message for confessed bomber Eric Rudolph: His crimes only made her stronger.

Lyons planned to testify today at Rudolph’s sentencing to the first of four life terms for deadly bombings in Birmingham and Atlanta.

Defense lawyers didn’t return calls on whether Rudolph planned to speak.

He also faces sentencing later in Atlanta.

Rudolph, 38, pleaded guilty in April to setting off a remote-controlled bomb that maimed Lyons, a nurse, and killed police officer Robert “Sande” Sanderson outside the New Woman All Women clinic on Jan. 29, 1998.

Sanderson’s wife and son also could make statements at the hearing.

Under a plea agreement, federal judges in Birmingham and Atlanta will sentence him to four life terms without parole.

Miami

Ruling: Military lawyer must represent detainee

With the Bush administration poised to reopen its war crimes court, the Pentagon has already made a key decision: An alleged al-Qaida filmmaker is forbidden from acting as his own lawyer from behind the razor wire at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp.

Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, 37, caused a stir at his Military Commissions hearing last Aug. 26 by admitting to al-Qaida affiliation, refusing his Pentagon-paid defense team and asking through an interpreter to act as his own attorney.

Bahlul, who was not a lawyer in his native Yemen, also tried to blurt out in the courtroom a comment about the Sept. 11 attacks before the presiding officer at his hearing, Army Col. Peter Brownback III, cut him off.

Since then, retired Army Maj. Gen. John Altenburg Jr., known as the Appointing Authority for Military Commissions, issued a single-page ruling saying that Bahlul must be represented by a U.S. military defense lawyer.

Washington

FBI says it has files on ACLU, other groups

The FBI has thousands of pages of records in its files relating to the monitoring of civil rights, environmental and similar advocacy groups, the Justice Department acknowledges.

The organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Greenpeace, are suing for the release of the documents. The organizations contend that the material will show that they have been subjected to scrutiny by FBI task forces set up to combat terrorism.

The FBI has identified 1,173 pages related to the ACLU and 2,383 pages about Greenpeace, but it needs at least until February to process the ACLU files and until June to review the Greenpeace documents, the government said in a filing in U.S. District Court in Washington.

The FBI has not said specifically what those pages contain. The ACLU’s executive director, Anthony Romero, said the disclosure indicates that the FBI is monitoring organizations that are engaging in lawful conduct.

Justice Department and FBI spokesmen declined to comment, citing the ongoing case. The FBI has denied singling out individuals or groups for surveillance based solely on activities protected by the Constitution.