Around the world
SPIES: Two Russian spies have left Canada without a single belonging - but all their secrets apparently intact. The Toronto Sun, citing unnamed intelligence sources, reported Tuesday that Ian and Laurie Lambert were flown to Montreal on Monday, handed over to Russian officials, then put aboard an Aeroflot jet bound for Moscow. The Lamberts, whose real names are Dmitry Olshevsky and Elena Olshev-skaya, left the Toronto jail where they had been held since their May 22 arrests in handcuffs and with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Olshev-sky, 32, and Olshev-skaya, 32, were trained for years in Russia before sneaking into Canada in 1988 or 1990.
CONDUCTOR: Police in Paris detained a Swiss orchestra conductor for questioning Tuesday in the pre-Christmas deaths of 16 cult members in the French Alps. Investigators were holding Michel Tabachnik at a Paris police precinct in connection with the apparent murder-suicide of members of the Order of the Solar Temple cult. Three young children were among the dead, found laid out in a star formation in a snowy forest clearing in the Alps of eastern France. Authorities think one of two French police officers among the dead shot the others and helped set them afire before killing himself. The charred bodies were found two days before Christmas.
Across the nation
BOMBING: Statements by Terry Nichols that place him and Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City three days before the federal building bombing should be admissible at trial, prosecutors argued. "Contrary to Nichols' claim that the FBI's actions are `reminiscent of Nazi Germany,' Nichols voluntarily made his incriminating statements only after being fully advised of his constitutional rights," the prosecutors wrote in a brief filed Monday in federal court in Denver. At issue are statements Nichols made after surrendering to police in Herington, Kan., two days after the bombing. He told the FBI he went to Oklahoma City on April 16, 1995, and picked up McVeigh near the Murrah building. He also told the agents that he lent McVeigh his pickup two days later and cleaned out a storage locker for him on April 20, 1995.