WASHINGTON — President Obama has selected a senior researcher from Georgetown University to direct his Office of National AIDS Policy, the White House announced yesterday.

Jeffrey S. Crowley will lead an office tasked with coordinating government efforts to reduce HIV infection in the U.S. and leading treatment of Americans with HIV/AIDS.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last summer that it had been underestimating new HIV cases in the U.S. and that new methods showed 56,300 new HIV infections in 2006 — about a 40 percent increase from the estimate used for the past dozen years.

MAN ADMITS PLOT TO KILL U.S. TROOPS

WASHINGTON — A Dutch national pleaded guilty yesterday morning to conspiring to kill American troops in Iraq, ending the first prosecution of an Iraqi insurgent in a U.S. courtroom.

Under the plea deal submitted in U.S. District Court in Washington, Wasem al-Delaema faces a mandatory sentence of 25 years in prison. He will be officially sentenced April 15.

Al-Delaema, 36, who was born in Iraq, will serve his prison time in the Netherlands, where a judge may amend the length of his sentence. He was arrested by Dutch authorities in May 2005 and extradited in early 2007.

GANG MURDERS TARGET OF NEW LAW

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced a new law yesterday to crack down on an unprecedented wave of gang-related murders in Vancouver, which is preparing to host the 2010 Winter Olympic Games.

Six people have died in 18 shootings in the area in the past month, and police say the majority of the shootings were gang-related.

The new law labels a gang killing as first-degree murder, carrying a sentence of at least 25 years without parole.

OCTOPUS FLOODS CALIF. AQUARIUM

SANTA MONICA, Calif. — Staff at the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium in California say the trickster who flooded their offices with seawater was armed. Eight-armed, to be exact.

They blame the soaking they discovered Tuesday morning on the aquarium's resident two-spotted octopus, a tiny female known for being curious and gregarious with visitors. The octopus apparently tugged on a valve and that allowed hundreds of gallons of water to overflow its tank.