Gao

WASHINGTON - The General Accounting Office, an arm of Congress, sued Vice President Dick Cheney yesterday to try to force the White House to reveal the identities of energy industry executives who helped the administration develop a national energy policy last year. It was the first time in the GAO's 80-year history that the agency had filed suit against a member of the executive branch for failing to turn over records to Congress. The lawsuit sets up a legal showdown between the accounting office, which is the investigative agency of Congress, and the White House over access to records of the national energy task force, of which Cheney was chairman.

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department for nearly 20 years ignored warnings about security risks at nuclear weapons laboratories as dangers "languished for years without resolution or repercussions" against responsible officials, congressional investigators conclude in a scathing report.With the laboratories under heightened scrutiny because of allegations that China stole nuclear weapons secrets, the General Accounting Office documented its warnings in 32 reports over the past 19 years, listing nearly 50 recommendations it claimed were mostly neglected.

WASHINGTON - Although the nation's oldest airlines have slashed operating costs by 14.5 percent in less than three years, they are sinking into deeper financial trouble, the General Accounting Office told Congress yesterday. Unless the big carriers squeeze costs much more, "they are unlikely to be able to improve their financial condition" and avoid bankruptcy, GAO official JayEtta Hecker said in the report she presented to the House Aviation Subcommittee. Senior airline executives said Congress should help carriers by cutting taxes and fees.

WASHINGTON - The General Accounting Office said yesterday that it would take the White House to court to try to force it to disclose information about meetings that Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force held with industry executives. It would mark the first time in the 80-year history of the GAO - the nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress - that it has sued the executive branch. The squabble will test the right of a White House to hold closed policy meetings. And it will likely further spotlight the scandal over the collapse of Enron Corp.

The federal General Accounting Office recommended yesterday re-evaluating Sierra Military Health Services' contract to coordinate health care for military dependents -- jeopardizing a Baltimore-based operation that plans to have 300 employees by spring.John Melody, assistant general counsel in the procurement law division of the GAO, said the GAO had found "evaluation errors" in reviewing the proposals after a protest by the losing bidder.The Defense Department agency that administers the health plan can, within 10 days, ask the GAO to reconsider or, within 60 days, submit a plan to comply with the GAO's recommendations, Melody said.

HANOI, Vietnam - The Chinese government said today that two Chinese citizens with U.S. residency who were sentenced in Beijing to 10 years' imprisonment for espionage have been granted medical parole. A senior State Department official here said that one of them, Gao Zhan, a researcher at American University in Washington, was on a plane headed for the United States. The quick resolution of the cases of Gao and Qin Guangguang, who were tried and convicted Tuesday of spying for Taiwan, suggested that the Chinese government wanted to remove a source of contention with the United States before the arrival in Beijing on Saturday of Secretary of State Colin Powell.

WASHINGTON - A Chinese woman once hailed as a human rights hero pleaded guilty yesterday to illegally selling advanced technology to China's military. Zhan Gao, a permanent U.S. resident, became a cause celebre two years ago when she was arrested while visiting China and jailed on charges of spying for Taiwan. Gao was allowed to return to the United States after five months, but only after intense pressure from human rights activists and the U.S. government, including a phone call to Chinese President Jiang Zemin from President Bush.

Cheung Laboratories Inc. says it has received $2 million of a promised $10 million cash infusion from a Chinese investor, providing the Columbia company with capital for the development of new products.The investment by Gao Yu Wan, deputy director of the economic committee of the city of Zhongshan, in southern China, will purchase 4 million shares of Cheung's common stock. Mr. Gao has pledged to buy an additional 16 million shares for $8 million. ++ That purchase is expected to close within 60 days.

WASHINGTON -- You may not be able to take it with you, but that doesn't stop the federal government from sending millions of dollars a month to dead Americans, according to recent federal audits.A computerized match-up of death records and benefit paymentsfound that 5,935 dead Americans were sent $4.3 million in one month by the Defense Department, the Labor Department, the Railroad Retirement Board and the Office of Personnel Management.And it's not just the federal government's problem.

BEIJING - A U.S.-based Chinese scholar who has been in police detention for 51 days was formally charged yesterday of being a spy for an overseas organization, a serious crime that potentially carries a long prison term if convicted. State Security officers faxed a copy of the charges to relatives of the scholar, Gao Zhan, who live in the central Chinese city of Nanjing, said Jerome Cohen, a New York lawyer and expert on the Chinese legal system who is working on the case. The document did not include any evidence to support the charges, he said, adding, "there is no evidence to support that."