The nation in brief

— QUOTE OF THE DAY “This ‘beat the clock’

is really overruling

legislative sanity.” Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, saying Democrats were rushing the vote on a health-care overhaul without allowing enough evaluation.

Article, 1A

U.S. transfers 12 from Guantanamo

WASHINGTON - The U.S. has transferred a dozen Guantanamo detainees to Afghanistan, Yemen and the Somaliland region as the Obama administration continues to move captives out of the facility in Cuba in preparation for its closure.

The Justice Department said Sunday that a government task force had reviewed each case. Officials considered the potential threat and the government’s likelihood of success in court challenges to the detentions.

Over the weekend, four Afghan detainees were transferred to their home country.

Two Somali detainees were transferred to authorities in Somaliland, the semiautonomous northern region of Somalia. Six Yemeni detainees also were sent home.

2 boats collide in San Diego; 6 hurt

SAN DIEGO - Authorities said a Coast Guard patrol boat collided with a recreational boat while a Christmas light parade was going on in San Diego Bay, leaving at least six people including a child with serious injuries.

San Diego Fire Department spokesman Maurice Luque said all 13 people from the two boats in the Sunday night crash were accounted for. He said the six people injured - all considered to have major traumas - were taken to the University of California, San Diego Hospital.

Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Josh Nelson said the crash occurred shortly before 6 p.m. as the 33-foot Coast Guard boat was on a routine patrol.

Hand over e-mail, 3 urge insurer AIG

WASHINGTON - American International Group Inc., should be forced to turn over e-mail messages that may reveal new information on how the insurer collapsed in 2008 and who benefited from a $182.3 billion U.S. bailout, former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and two law professors wrote.

Such questions should be answered before the government sells its stake in the company, Spitzer, Frank Partnoy from the San Diego University School of Law and William Black of the University of Missouri in Kansas City said in an op-ed piece published in Sunday’s New York Times.

Front Section, Pages 3 on 12/21/2009

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