Briefly . . . NATION/WORLD

Retired justice's hubby finds

love at assisted-care facility

PHOENIX - Sandra Day O'Connor's husband struck up a romance with a fellow Alzheimer's patient after moving into an assisted living center, and the retired Supreme Court justice is just glad that he is comfortable.

The retired justice isn't jealous about his relationship with the woman, son Scott O'Connor told KPNX television in Phoenix. He said it has dramatically changed the outlook of his father, John, toward being in the Huger Mercy Living Center.

Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the Supreme Court, cited her husband's illness and her need to take care of him when she retired in 2005. He was diagnosed with the neurological disease 17 years ago.

Lisa O'Toole, manager at the assisted-living facility, said there are three romances among the center's 48 residents. She described the relationships as almost childlike, with the couples holding hands, hugging or simply having dinner together.

Boy who played with matches

won't be charged in Calif. fires

LOS ANGELES - A 10-year-old boy who admitted starting a 38,000-acre fire last month that destroyed 21 homes in northern Los Angeles County will not be charged, prosecutors said yesterday.

There was no evidence of intent by the boy who accidentally ignited brush outside his home by playing with matches, the Los Angeles County D.A.'s Office said in a statement.

Authorities are referring the case to the Department of Children and Family Services to determine if further steps are necessary.

The blaze was among more than a dozen major wildfires that blackened over 800 square miles from Los Angeles to the Mexican border. In all, 10 people were killed directly by the wildfires.

Tenn. man accused of using

dog collars in rape of daughters

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - An eastern Tennessee father is accused of raping two teenage daughters and using electric dog collars to establish dominance over them, authorities said yesterday.

The charges against the 37-year-old man and his 35-year-old wife were referred to a grand jury yesterday in Tazewell, which is in rural Claiborne County near the Kentucky border.

The two girls are from their father's previous marriage. The 18-year-old girl told authorities her father had raped her and her sister for a period of about five years, from when they were in their early teens.

She had been too scared before to tell authorities, but was now "scared for her younger sister, who was 11. She was afraid that her father was going to do the same thing to her," Nelson said.

Intel chief says he'd quit if

White House 'cherry-picked'

WASHINGTON - National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell said yesterday he would resign if administration officials mischaracterized intelligence to support their own political agenda.

"If it were cherry-picked in an inappropriate way, then for me, that's a professional obligation to object, and I would submit my resignation," McConnell told reporters.

Bush administration officials have been accused of selectively releasing intelligence that supported the case for invasion of Iraq prior to the war.

McConnell said the intelligence community learned from its flawed 2002 national intelligence estimate (NIE) about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, and is applying new discipline in its creation of the Iran NIE.

Some rich Medicaid docs

aren't paying their taxes

WASHINGTON - Government auditors found that more than 30,000 Medicaid providers - about 5 percent - owed federal taxes totaling more than $1 billion last year.

A report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, said it found examples of providers who owed taxes living in million-dollar homes, withdrawing $100,000 in cash from casinos and owning several luxury vehicles and a pleasure boat. The GAO looked at doctors, hospitals and other Medicaid providers in seven states - California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Medicaid is the federal-state partnership that provides health coverage to about 55 million poor people. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will take up the findings at a hearing today. "Those people who are deadbeats have to pay their taxes," said Minnesota Sen. Norm Coleman, the panel's top Republican.

Colo. question: Is egg a person?

DENVER - The Colorado Supreme Court cleared the way yesterday for an anti-abortion group to collect signatures for a ballot measure that would define a fertilized egg as a person. If approved by voters, the measure would give fertilized eggs the state constitutional protections of inalienable rights, justice and due process. *

- Daily News wire services