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Border fence will avoid environmental laws

WASHINGTON, April 1 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says it will waive environmental laws to complete its fence along the U.S. southern border by year's end.

The two waivers that permit the department to cut through federal environmental and cultural laws are part of the department's aggressive move to finish building 670 miles of the security fence, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Environmentalists and residents of border communities said they thought invoking the waivers would damage the land and disrupts wildlife, the Times said.

"It's dangerous, it's arrogant, it's going to have pronounced environmental impacts and it won't do a thing to address the problems of undocumented immigrants or address border security problems," said Brian Segee, an attorney with Defenders of Wildlife. "It's an incredibly simplistic and ineffective approach to complex problems."

However, they were praised by conservatives who supported the 2006 Secure Fence Act.

"The quicker we can get the physical fence up, the sooner we'll avoid situations like the deaths of agents," California Rep. Brian P. Bilbray, R-Solana Beach, chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus. "And it's still a national security issue. You just have to stop this kind of open traffic along the border."

Mugabe, opposition reportedly in talks

HARARE, Zimbabwe, April 1 (UPI) -- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's advisers informally met with opposition leaders about the country's elections, two people familiar with the situation said.

Polling by independent organizations indicate Mugabe came in second behind opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai in last weekend's presidential and parliamentary elections. Members of the president's camp reportedly raised trial balloons, looking for a deal that would allow him to step down gracefully and avoid prosecution for any crimes he committed in office, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

However, a Tsvangirai spokesman said, "I don't know anything about such meetings."

The government's electoral commission hadn't released official results from the presidential vote, although parliamentary partial results showed opposition forces were slightly ahead of the ruling party.

A diplomat and an analyst said the negotiations about a possible transfer of power away from Mugabe began after he apparently concluded that a runoff election would be demeaning, The New York Times reported.

"The chiefs of staff are talking to Morgan and are trying to put into place transitional structures," said John Makumbe, a political analyst.

The diplomat, speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the discussions, said Mugabe's advisers entered the negotiations after receiving feelers from Tsvangirai.

FBI seeks 1,000 new employees

WASHINGTON, April 1 (UPI) -- FBI Director Robert Mueller told a U.S. House panel the agency needs another 1,000 employees as he explained his $7.1 billion budget request.

In his opening statement before a House Appropriations Committee subcommittee hearing, Mueller outlined the bureau's three priorities as counterterrorism, counterintelligence and cyber-security.

"These priorities are critical to our national security and the FBI's vital work as a committed member of the intelligence community," he said.

Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Alan Mollohan, D-W.Va., said he was concerned about a Justice Department report on the FBI's use of national security letters to gain information that indicated, among other things "unauthorized collections ... under-counted violations, inconsistent with compliance."

"This cavalier approach toward legal protections may have temporarily gained the agency some useful investigative information, but it had a long-term cost to our rights and to our trust and to government's credibility," Mollohan said.

Mueller said he was aware of the report, as well as a similar report the Justice Department's inspector general issued last year. The report also indicated improvements were being made.

Mueller said some of the funding would help to provide foreign intelligence translations more quickly and "address growth in the number of terrorism and counterintelligence-related computer intrusion cases."

Two-headed baby hailed as divine

SAINI, India, April 1 (UPI) -- An Indian baby with four eyes and two faces is being hailed as a reincarnation of the Indian God Ganesh, locals say.

ABC News reported Tuesday that hundreds of people have gone to the village of Saini to touch the girl's feet, dance at her bedside and offer the family money, believing she might be a reincarnation of the Hindu God who is half person and half elephant.

"People from corner to corner from all India and all abroad come here to take the knowledge about this child," said Harsharan Singh, the village math teacher. "It's a gift of God and some people say she is like a goddess. They call the baby a face of a goddess."

Medical experts in the United States who have performed surgeries on children with similar conditions say it's difficult to know the baby's prognosis without brain scans.

"A brain MRI would be illuminating to say the least. Without it we only can presume about what could be possible or what her quality of life would be with or without reconstructive surgery," said Jorge Lazareff, director of pediatric neurosurgery at UCLA Hospital in Los Angeles.