Nation IN BRIEF : MONTANA : FBI Getting Offers to Mediate Standoff

The FBI said it was considering several offers to mediate in a 9-day-old standoff with anti-government militants but said it had not talked to a famous defense lawyer about a role. Relatives of the so-called freemen holed up at a ranch near Jordan have asked Gerry Spence, a well-known lawyer who successfully defended survivalist Randy Weaver after a clash with the FBI, to intervene, CBS radio reported. “I have been asked by the people on the outside to do that. Nobody can talk to the people on the inside,” Spence told CBS. “I don’t plan on going up there unless I’m asked to. That means the FBI has to say that it’s OK for me to go up there and try to help those folks.”