AN INVESTIGATION IN ALL BUT NAME

Because the five Republicans on the 10-member House ethics committee would not authorize a formal probe, Democrats have had to find another way to investigate Speaker Newt Gingrich's book deal. The committee now plans to ask the principals to testify under oath about the deal. Scheduled to appear in the next few weeks: a Gingrich congressional aide, two lobbyists for Rupert Murdoch, owner of HarperCollins, which publishedGingrich's book "To Renew America," and two executives from publishers whose bids on the book were rejected. Democrats hope the testimony will convince committee Republicans to break the deadlock and authorize a formal probe.

Quotes of the Day »

RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
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