News Leaks

Los Angeles Police Department officials on Friday were interviewing officers and scouring electronic records amid growing suspicion that someone inside the department leaked or sold to a celebrity website a photo of the singer Rihanna that depicted injuries to her face she suffered during an alleged assault by her boyfriend.

Media law experts and journalism groups expressed outrage Thursday that Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies obtained phone records from a notable Hollywood gossip journalist during a leak investigation, calling the action a serious violation of the reporter's rights. Several said they believed that sheriff's investigators violated state and federal law when they obtained a search warrant for the records of TMZ founder Harvey Levin as they tried to identify who gave him details about Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic tirade during a 2006 drunk-driving arrest.

The identity of the first puppy -- the one that the Washington press corps has been yelping about for months, the one President Obama has seemed to delight in dropping hints about -- leaked out Saturday. The little guy is a six-month-old Portuguese water dog given to the Obama girls as a gift by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts. Malia and Sasha named it Bo. Bo's a handsome little guy.

House investigators pressed their case Tuesday for access to interviews that a special counsel conducted with President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in the CIA leak case. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills) said in a letter to the Justice Department that the transcripts were needed to address what he described as troubling new questions about the role of the White House in divulging the identity of then-CIA operative Valerie Plame in 2003.

Former IndyMac Bank workers who blame Sen. Charles E. Schumer for the collapse of the large Pasadena thrift have found an ally in their quest to hold the New York Democrat to account: a public relations firm with a Republican-heavy client list.

Seven critics of the Bush administration and the Iraq war were approved as potential jurors in the perjury trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby after they said they could set those feelings aside. But two members of the jury pool were dismissed when they said their strong opposition to the administration might color their deliberations in the CIA leak trial.

The prosecutor took a more aggressive stance and jury selection slowed so much Thursday in the perjury trial of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby that the judge postponed opening statements until Tuesday. Libby, a former aide to President Bush and chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is charged with perjury and obstruction of the investigation into the disclosure in 2003 of the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Her husband, ex-ambassador Joseph C.

A federal judge Monday said she would personally review the government's investigation into the disclosure of confidential documents in the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping case, amid claims that the latest leak was triggered by a previously unreported FBI interview of billionaire Kirk Kerkorian. U.S. District Judge Dale S.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby feared that White House officials were conspiring to make him the fall guy in the CIA leak scandal to protect political strategist Karl Rove, Libby's lawyer argued Tuesday. In his opening remarks at Libby's perjury and obstruction trial, defense attorney Theodore Wells Jr. portrayed the former vice presidential aide as a sympathetic figure who was following his boss' orders to rebut an administration critic.

A lawyer for suspected Al Qaeda operative Jose Padilla violated a court order by leaking his wiretapped phone conversations, a judge found in Miami. U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke ordered all defense lawyers in the case to sign papers indicating they understood and would follow rules barring disclosure of certain evidence. Cooke also said she might hold in contempt anyone who receives such prohibited material. "The lash is about to fall on all," Cooke said.