The agreement, worked out in two days of negotiations, brought praise from Democrats seeking bipartisanship in a politically sensitive investigation designed to probe "illegal and improper" conduct during the 1996 campaign.
Governmental Affairs Committee spokesperson Paul Clark said the new subpoenas would be issued by today. Chair Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.) also confirmed the panel would have "other opportunities" to reconsider Democratic subpoena requests that were set aside. In all, the committee has prepared 73 subpoenas in the investigation.
Thompson and committee ranking minority member John Glenn (D-Ohio), released a short statement listing the new subpoenas and announcing the panel had reached agreement with the Clinton administration on how to maintain the confidentiality of materials voluntarily submitted by the White House.
The agreement marked a harmonious moment in an investigation often marked by acrimonious exchanges among Thompson, Glenn and other senators over the nature of the probe, prompted by news reports of questionable practices by the Clinton re-election campaign.
Liquid water is an essential ingredient for life. So the pictures taken by the unmanned Galileo spacecraft during a Feb. 20 flyby have scientists more eager than ever to delve beneath the moon's icy shell.
"It looks as though we found the smoking gun that points at this sub-surface ocean," proclaimed Michael Carr, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park.
The pictures, released yesterday at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, are the most detailed images Galileo has ever made of Europa.
"These are really mind-blowing pictures," said Richard Terrile, an astronomer at the JPL. "How often is an ocean discovered? ... There is very strong evidence that there is an ocean here."
The pictures of icy chunks scattered like pottery shards provide "the clearest evidence to date there is liquid water and melting close to the surface of Europa," said Torrence Johnson, the Galileo project scientist at JPL.
The State Court of Criminal Appeals said a judge has the authority to order new tests on the bullet and the .30-06 hunting rifle found with Ray's fingerprints on it near the Memphis hotel where King was slain in 1968.
Ray, who is 69 and suffering from liver disease, wants the tests to further his attempt to reverse his guilty plea.