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http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/1999/12/16/timfgnusa01001.html?999

Illness forces Reno to cede powers

FROM BEN MACINTYRE IN WASHINGTON

JANET RENO, the US Attorney-General, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, is gradually handing over power to her deputy at the Justice Department as her illness worsens, according to US news reports. Ms Reno, 60, was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1995, and in recent months the tremors in her left arm have become more acute. Although she still begins work at 6.30am every day, sources told The New York Post that she was "out of the decision-making loop" and increasingly content to allow her number two, Eric Holder, to manage the Justice Department.

Mr Holder, 48, played a key role in the investigation of questionable Democratic fundraising in 1996 and the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He has been tipped as the successor to Ms Reno if Al Gore is elected President in 2000.

Justice Department officials say that Mr Holder was instrumental in the decision on granting clemency to Puerto Rican terrorists, while Ms Reno is said to have taken a back seat. The Deputy Attorney-General, who was appointed by President Clinton in March 1997, is "in the lead on the big issues and setting policy", sources were quoted as saying.

The son of a Barbados immigrant who grew up in New York, Mr Holder is the highest-ranking black employee in the Justice Department.

In September Ms Reno was briefly hospitalised after a fainting spell, her second in less than a year, but doctors said later that she was "100 per cent fit to return to work".

Next page: LA police scandal may free prisoners

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-- Bill P (porterwn@one.net), December 16, 1999

Answers

"Gore in 2000"????? God forbid! Our country couldn't stand another 4 years of that!

-- Deb M. (vmcclell@columbus.rr.com), December 16, 1999.

How very sad. I can't say I'm a big supporter of hers, but that is a terrible disease for anyone to go thru.

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 16, 1999.