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CAMP VICTORY, Iraq, Feb. 20, 2006 – It was a day for some troops serving in Iraq to remember. Some were re-enlisting, some received Purple Heart Medals and other troops were being awarded combat infantryman, medical and action badges. The day meant even more to the soldiers because the presenter was Gen. Richard A. Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff. Gen. Richard A. Cody, vice chief of staff for the U.S. Army, recites the oath of enlistment to soldiers of 1st Battalion, 327th Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, during a reenlistment ceremony last week. Cody visited troops at various...

Posted on Mon, Feb. 06, 2006Researcher seeks secrets of Kennewick ManBY SUSANNE RUSTMilwaukee Journal Sentinel MILWAUKEE - Ground to the bone, the teeth of the famous fossil skeleton, Kennewick Man, look as if they've spent a lifetime gnashing rocks. But it's from these worn choppers that Thomas Stafford Jr., a research fellow in the department of geology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and president of Stafford Research Laboratories in Boulder, Colo., plans to learn about the origins, movement and lifestyle of this highly controversial, 9,000-year-old North American. In 1996, Kennewick Man was discovered on the banks of the Columbia River...

WASHINGTON - The investigation into leaks about a domestic spying program should determine whether the motivation was damaging security or revealing a potentially illegal activity, a Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee said Sunday. "There are differences between felons and whistleblowers, and we ought to wait 'til the investigation occurs to decide what happened," said Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y. On Friday, the Justice Department opened an investigation into who divulged the existence of President Bush's secret domestic spying program. The New York Times reported last month about warrantless surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency since...

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, returning to work Sunday a week after suffering a mild stroke, ordered the military to stop Palestinians from firing rockets at Israel from Gaza, officials said. Sharon's order, which included a no-go zone in northern Gaza, came after a weekly Cabinet meeting and high-level security consultations, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details. Since Israel pulled out of Gaza and removed its settlements this summer, militants have been moving closer to the Gaza-Israel fence to launch homemade rockets, bringing more Israeli towns and the city...

WASHINGTON - Congressional Republican leaders will press for passage next week of a new Patriot Act to combat terrorism, but a Senate filibuster looms on a measure that liberal and conservative critics alike say is a threat to individual liberties. "Just as the Senate did four years ago, we should unite in a bipartisan way to support the Patriot Act, to stand up for freedom and against terror," Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Thursday as GOP negotiators from the House and Senate sealed their White House-backed compromise. Rep. James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, issued a...

UNITED NATIONS - The United States urged the U.N. Wednesday to prevent any destruction of documents collected during the investigation that found massive corruption in its Iraq oil-for-food program. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton asked Secretary-General Kofi Annan to direct the Independent Inquiry Committee, which just completed its yearlong probe of the $64 billion program, "to preserve the integrity of the files" so law enforcement officials can pursue criminal cases against companies and individuals named in the report. The United States is very concerned that if documents are returned to the countries that provided them, they could disappear, complicating prosecutions, he...

PHILADELPHIA - A city councilman who is the target of a federal investigation sought psychiatric care Thursday after being escorted down from City Hall's observation deck by the police commissioner. Commissioner Sylvester Johnson and Mayor John Street, who was the first to speak with Councilman Rick Mariano near the top of the towering building, would not characterize Mariano as suicidal. "I don't think he had an idea that all of this would result from it," Street said at a news conference following the incident that lasted about two hours. Johnson said Mariano checked himself into Pennsylvania Hospital. A dramatic emergency...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - One of the nation's largest money management firms, with assets totaling more than $1 trillion, is attempting to limit access to a divorce case involving one of its executives because it doesn't want its financial records made public. Capital Group Cos. filed a motion Friday in Superior Court in the divorce trial of Timothy Armour, 45, and his wife, Nina Ritter. The company wants a judge to seal exhibits, transcripts and other materials so they won't become public during the trial, which is expected to begin Monday. The request is unusual in divorce cases because third...

WASHINGTON - Attempting to loosen decades-old restrictions, the Pentagon is asking Congress to allow its intelligence agents to go undercover when they approach Americans who may have useful national-security information, rather than identifying themselves as intelligence operatives. The provision found in a wide-ranging intelligence bill would give the Defense Intelligence Agency new latitude to meet U.S. citizens without pulling out their DIA badges and later sending a formal notice of their rights under the landmark 1974 Privacy Act. The regulations were imposed to prevent recurrence of the intelligence scandals of the 1960s and 1970s, when the Defense Department was caught...

New Orleans criminal justice system facing severe money woes 10/7/2005, 5:34 p.m. CT By MELINDA DESLATTE The Associated Press ST. GABRIEL, La. (AP) — Struggling to restart New Orleans' crippled criminal justice system, the parish district attorney and chief criminal judge said money problems from Hurricane Katrina have forced layoffs and threaten to stymie court proceedings. The cash shortage compounds problems for a system that already was troubled with prosecutors trying to track down witnesses who scattered as evacuees, a clerk of court's office assessing whether flooding and mold damaged evidence and a criminal court temporarily holding limited proceedings at...

PLAINFIELD, Ind. - A leading U.S. Muslim group called on President Bush Wednesday to show his support for mainstream Islam in this country and worldwide by meeting with the group next week in Chicago. Bush could make a powerful statement to the world's 1.2 billion Muslims by appearing at the annual meeting of the Islamic Society of North America, just as he showed his support for adherents of the religion when he visited a Washington mosque a few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said Sayyid Syeed, the group's secretary general. ISNA, an umbrella organization of largely immigrant...

State seeks control of Muslim schools By Melissa Kite and Patrick Hennessy (Filed: 07/08/2005) Up to 150 new Muslim state schools will be created by ministers in a radical shake-up designed to bring the Islamic education of British children under government control in the wake of last month's London bombings. Tony Blair is to face down critics who claim he should close the five existing state-funded Muslim schools in the UK by announcing plans, instead, to expand their number dramatically, The Sunday Telegraph has learned. The controversial plan would bring thousands of Muslim children now taught in independent Islamic schools...

Los Angeles Unified board members today will consider putting both a $3.85 billion construction bond and a $150-a-year parcel tax on the Nov. 8 special election ballot to pay for programs to boost the quality of instruction. While most board members said they support both measures, some question going to voters with two tax-hike requests at the same time. "I'm really torn," board member Jon Lauritzen said. "Most of the board members have serious reservations not so much about the need for the bond, but about the timing. It's going to be an interesting discussion." The construction bond -- which...

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea on Monday said it won't give up nuclear weapons without receiving anything in exchange and called on the United States to agree at revived arms talks to peacefully coexist with the communist state. Meanwhile, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun told visiting former Secretary of State Colin Powell that Washington's moves will be the deciding factor in resolving the latest nuclear standoff with North Korea that began in 2002. "The United States still has the final key to the six-party talks," Roh said Monday, according to a pool report. The North said last week it...

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations, acting after deadly suicide bombings apparently driven by Muslim extremism hit London, launched an initiative on Thursday to build new bridges between the West and Islam. The campaign's aim was to "bridge divides and overcome prejudice, misconceptions, misperceptions, and polarization which potentially threaten world peace," U.N. chief spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. Recent events had "heightened the sense of a widening gap and lack of mutual understanding between Islamic and Western societies -- an environment that has been exploited and exacerbated by extremists in all societies," he said. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was pursuing the...

WASHINGTON - Upset by the millions of dollars that outside groups spent in the 2004 election, a House panel on Wednesday took a step toward limiting such organizations. The House Administration Committee, on a 5-3 vote, sent a bill to the full House that would place tax-exempt partisan groups under the same fundraising and spending limits that apply to political action committees. The House is expected to act on the legislation sponsored by Reps. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Martin Meehan, D-Mass., next month. In the last election, the groups, commonly known as 527s for the section of the tax law...

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - U.N. human rights experts have begun an investigation into U.S. detention facilities for terrorist suspects and allegations that there are secret prisons, one of the project leaders said Wednesday. Manfred Nowak, the U.N.'s special expert on torture, said some undeclared holding areas could include U.S. Navy ships in international waters. He said there were "serious" allegations to that effect from Amnesty International and other non-governmental human rights groups. "I have heard these rumors and we have to follow them up," he told The Associated Press, urging Washington to cooperate with the investigation. Officials at the U.S....

WASHINGTON - Facing growing pressure to bring troops home from Iraq, President Bush is launching a public relations campaign to try to calm anxieties about the war. Bush scheduled a major address for June 28, the one-year anniversary of the transfer of sovereignty from the U.S.-led coalition to Iraqis. Four days before that, he will meet at the White House with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who heads the transitional government chosen after January elections. The president also plans a series of radio addresses and appearances outside Washington. He will emphasize the importance of democracy in Iraq and elsewhere when...

FOLSOM, Calif. - A federal judge on Tuesday moved to place the state prison system's troubled health care operations into receivership, complicating a massive prison overhaul bill signed into law hours earlier by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson, ruling in a class-action lawsuit brought against the California Department of Corrections, said the state's 162,000 prisoners "are being subjected to an unconstitutional system fraught with medical neglect and malfeasance." Poor care has been blamed for the deaths of more than two dozen inmates. "Defendants themselves have conceded that a significant number of prisoners have died as a direct...

Federal investigators have initiated a broad Capitol inquiry into state Senate leader Don Perata, requesting copies of all e-mails sent by the Oakland Democrat and eight legislative staff members during his first six years in the upper house, according to a subpoena released Thursday. The federal request also seeks every e-mail sent from any Senate account to firms owned by Perata's children, Oakland lobbyist Lily Hu and political consultant Tim Staples. Perata apparently faces questions about whether he received outside income for legislative work he conducted in the Capitol, as well as whether it was appropriate for him to receive...