Across the Nation

BRUSSELS, Belgium — U.S. authorities will be able to keep trawling through personal data on passengers flying from Europe, even though the European Union’s highest court found problems Tuesday with the accord that made airlines share the information.

The court ruling requires EU and U.S. officials to change the legal foundation of the deal before the end of September, but it has no immediate effect on a program that lets U.S. officials see dozens of pieces of information about each passenger — including name, address and credit card details.

The judges’ ruling did not address whether the 2004 data agreement violated privacy laws, a complaint that spurred strong opposition from many European lawmakers and citizens’ rights groups.

House committee chairman says he’ll call attorney general, FBI chief to testify

WASHINGTON — Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner said Tuesday he will summon Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert Mueller before his House panel to testify about their decision to search a lawmaker’s office.

"I want to have Attorney General Gonzales and FBI Director Mueller up here to tell us how they reached the conclusion they did,” said Sensenbrenner, a Wisconsin Republican and one of President Bush’s most loyal House allies.

Gonzales has said that the search of Rep. William Jefferson’s offices was legal and necessary because the Louisiana Democrat had not cooperated with investigators’ efforts to gain access to evidence in a bribery probe.

An affidavit on which the search warrant was based said investigators had found $90,000 stashed in the freezer of Jefferson’s house.

"We would certainly consider a request for a hearing if one were to be made,” said Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse, "We also hope that Congress recognizes it would inappropriate for a federal official to discuss the specific details of an ongoing criminal investigation in a public hearing.”

Mount St. Helens shoots steam, ash plume into air

VANCOUVER, Wash. — Mount St. Helens shot a steam and ash plume at least 16,000 feet into the air Monday after a large rockfall from the lava dome in the volcano’s crater, scientists said.

Pilots reported the plume rose between 16,000 and 20,000 feet in the air, scientists at the Cascades Volcano Observatory said.

The rockfall coincided with a magnitude 3.1 earthquake shortly after 9 a.m. Monday at the mountain, scientists said.

Such events are expected during growth of the lava dome, they said.

"There is no evidence of an explosion associated with this event,” the observatory said in a statement.

Clouds obscured the crater at the time.

"We don’t know how much steam and how much ash,” Cynthia Gardner, scientist in charge at the observatory, told The Columbian. "These are very short-lived events.”

Lava has continued to push into the crater — most recently forming a sheer rock fin — since the 8,364-foot mountain reawakened with a drumfire of low-level seismic activity in September 2004.

The crater was formed by the volcano’s deadly May 18, 1980, eruption that killed 57 people and blasted about 1,300 feet off the then-9,677-foot peak.

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On the Net:

Mount St. Helens: http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/

Crater images: http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/Images/MSH04/framework.html

VolcanoCam: http://www.fs.fed.us/gpnf/volcanocams/msh/<