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Child mortality rate ranks highest of largest cities in U.S., 68% above national average DETROIT — Detroit’s kids are less likely to survive childhood than youngsters in any of the nation’s other major cities. Between 1999 and 2001, hundreds perished naturally in hospitals or in their cribs. Hundreds more were shot, stabbed, beaten, run over or suffocated by smoke. While some of those deaths would have been unavoidable in even the best of circumstances, many others are a lethal reflection of the crush of poverty, drug use and rampant violence that have hobbled Detroit. The city’s death rate among children...

LONDON (AP) - Scientists again failed Saturday to pick up a signal that would confirm Europe's first Mars lander arrived safely on the Red Planet. A third attempt by NASA's orbiting Mars Odyssey - at about 1:15 a.m. EST - made no contact with the Beagle 2, which was supposed to have landed at 9:45 p.m. EST Wednesday. The tiny craft should have started emitting its signal within a few hours. Britain's Jodrell Bank Observatory, which has twice scanned the Martian surface with its huge radio telescope, also could not detect a signal from the tiny lander, which was sent...

Everything else is moving along nicely. Anybody else having issues? BTW: I am logged in. I have already showered...but keep me posted. I never had moose but I like cheese. I know this is a hugh issue, could be series. Is anybody else staring at the sun right now?

BALDWIN PARK, Calif. (AP) - An elderly patient at a Southern California hospital shot and wounded a doctor, prompting a partial evacuation and law enforcement takeover of the facility, police said. Eugene Guevara of El Monte, believed to be in his late 70s, was being sought for investigation of attempted murder in the Friday afternoon shooting at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, said Lt. Michael Taylor. It wasn't immediately determined whether Guevara knew and targeted the victim, whose name was withheld. Authorities released a still photo of the suspect. Taken by a surveillance camera, it showed a man with dark hair...

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel dismissed a U.N. resolution demanding it retract threats to remove Yasser Arafat while the Palestinian leader hailed the vote Saturday, calling it an important sign of support for the Palestinians. The overwhelming vote in the U.N. General Assembly on Friday - 133 nations endorsed the measure - came as the incoming Palestinian prime minister stridently defended Arafat, saying he is key to peace efforts and the United States should treat him as a real partner. Prime Minister-designate Ahmed Qureia's criticism of U.S. policy was the strongest sign yet he does not plan to challenge Arafat, whom...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Aquila al-Hashimi, a member of Iraq's Governing Council, was shot and critically wounded Saturday in an assassination attempt outside her home in western Baghdad, police and doctors said. Al-Hashimi was in critical condition with abdominal wounds, a doctor at al-Yarmouk hospital said on condition of anonymity. After surgery she was moved to an unspecified location in a convoy of American armored vehicles and military ambulances. Three of her bodyguards also were injured, said Mohammed Abdul Ghany, a security official at the al-Yarmouk hospital. Members of al-Hashimi's security detail said the attack was carried out by men...

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) - U.S. helicopters attacked a tent in southern Afghanistan, killing two Taliban militants and 10 nomadic tribesmen after the Taliban sought shelter there, a deputy governor in Zabul province said Saturday. A spokesman for the U.S. military at Bagram air base said he could not immediately confirm the report. The deputy governor, Mullah Mohammed Umer, told The Associated Press by satellite phone that the incident took place Thursday night in the district of Naubahar, 120 miles northeast of Kandahar. The Taliban militants had taken refuge in the tent after seeing the American helicopters, he said. A local...

BERLIN (AP) - The leaders of Germany, France and Britain held a hastily arranged summit Saturday in attempt to find common ground on stabilizing Iraq and avoid the kind of diplomatic snarl that divided Europe over the war. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac, who ardently opposed military intervention and are seeking a greater U.N. role in Iraq, were joined by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who fell out with the other two during the buildup to the U.S.-led invasion. The leaders, who made no comment on arrival, planned two hours of talks at the chancellory before...

BEVERLY HILLS, Mich. (AP) - Prosecutors filed juvenile charges against a 12-year-old boy accused of putting cleaning fluid in his math teacher's tea. The boy allegedly squirted the clear liquid into the teacher's cup while she was distracted in class May 15. She drank a few sips of the tainted tea before other students alerted her. The fluid used to clean dry-erase boards contained a warning that it could be harmful if swallowed, school officials said. The teacher was treated and was unharmed. Neither the teacher nor student, who turns 13 on Aug. 11, were identified. If found guilty, the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Saudi Arabia's foreign minister says FBI and CIA agents in his country may question an employee of the Saudi civil aviation authority who befriended two of the Saudis involved in the 9-11 hijackings. That concession made, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal expressed disappointment that President Bush would not declassify parts of a congressional report on the 9-11 hijackings. He said the refusal deprives the Arab kingdom of a chance to clear its name. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, but the Saudi government has asserted it had no involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks....

TIKRIT, Iraq (AP) - Skeptical Iraqis began to accept that Saddam Hussein's sons Odai and Qusai were dead after a new audiotape attributed to the fallen dictator acknowledged his sons had become martyrs in the fight against American occupation. During a patrol in Tikrit early Wednesday, U.S. forces came across a black flag strung up in front of a local government building. The writing mourned the passing of Odai and Qusai. After asking his translator to read the gold and white lettering to him, U.S. Lt. Col. Steve Russell, whose 4th Infantry Division, 1st Battalion is leading the raids in...

WASHINGTON (AP) - In the end, Saddam Hussein probably will be the one to decide whether he's taken dead or alive, Pentagon officials said Tuesday. They played down talk that his capture might be imminent. On Capitol Hill, Bush administration officials drew angry responses when they refused to give senators rough estimates on the amount of money and troops it will cost to continue to occupy Iraq. At the Pentagon, officials were asked about a flurry of comments this week from commanders on the ground in Iraq indicating that Saddam was running out of places to hide. Since Saddam's sons...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A bill to loosen federal restrictions for model rocket enthusiasts drew fire Tuesday from senators from New York and New Jersey, who said the proposal would give terrorists access to dangerous explosives. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., criticized the measure by Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., to change the Homeland Security Act to allow rocket enthusiasts to buy black powder and another form of high-powered rocket propellant without submitting to a background check. The act was passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Standing next to a seven-foot tall rocket, Schumer said the legislation effectively would allow would-be terrorists...

LILLE, France (AP) - Vandals knocked over 45 headstones at a military cemetery for British soldiers, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission said Tuesday. Two of the markers were destroyed at the Saint Aubert Cemetery, which is near the northern city of Cambrai and is the burial site of 435 soldiers killed in World War I, most of them British. The headstones were believed to have been toppled Sunday evening, but police were still investigating, Peter Francis, spokesman for the War Graves Commission, said. In April, graffiti denouncing the U.S.-led war in Iraq was scrawled on monuments at a World War...

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush refused on Tuesday to declassify 28 pages of a congressional report on possible links between Saudi government officials and the Sept. 11 hijackers, saying that "would help the enemy" by revealing intelligence sources and methods. Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal called suggestions of such links "an outrage to any sense of fairness" and said his country had been "wrongfully and morbidly accused of complicity in the attacks." "Twenty-eight blank pages are now considered substantial evidence to proclaim the guilt of a country that has been a true friend and partner of the United States...

BERLIN (Reuters) - A pair of flying underpants caused a crash on a German highway when they landed on a driver's face and blocked his view, police said Tuesday. A police spokesman in the central town of Gotha said one of a group of naked men in a van threw the underwear into a Volkswagen Passat as they passed it on a busy stretch of one of Germany's notoriously speedy autobahns. "The underpants landed on the driver's face, causing him to ram the truck ahead from behind," said the spokesman, adding that he did not know why the men were...

Homemade Bomb Explodes at Pakistani Hospital, Injuring Seven: PoliceHYDERABAD, Pakistan (AP) - A homemade bomb exploded Wednesday at a hospital in southern Pakistan, injuring at least seven people, city police chief Iqbal Sarhandi said. Sarhandi said the victims were relatives of patients who were sitting on a veranda outside a ward when the bomb exploded at the hospital in Hyderabad, 60 miles north of the port city of Karachi. No arrests were made. "It was a homemade device," Sarhandi said after an initial check by investigators and bomb disposal experts. In recent years, southern Sindh province has been rocked by...

FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) -- A soldier charged in the grenade attack that killed two officers from the 101st Airborne Division in Kuwait will face a court-martial, the military announced Wednesday. Sgt. Hasan Akbar, 32, is charged with two counts of premeditated murder and three counts of attempted murder and could face the death penalty if convicted. Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, followed the recommendation made by an investigating officer on June 20 at the completion of an Article 32 hearing, which is akin to a civilian grand jury session....

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel and the Palestinians agreed a disengagement deal in the Gaza Strip on Friday and Hamas said it decided to suspend attacks on Israelis -- dramatic moves driven by U.S. pressure to shore up a Middle East peace plan. The announcements came on the eve of a visit to the region by U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice as Israel and the Palestinians jockeyed for pride of place in promoting the "road map" personally backed by President Bush. "An agreement has been reached on the issue of the (Israeli) withdrawal from Gaza and Bethlehem in the meeting...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Shares of Nike Inc. NKE.N , the world's largest maker of sports shoes, fell nearly 6 percent on Friday after it reported weak U.S. orders and a major Wall Street brokerage downgraded the stock. The stock was down $3.25 at $53.68 in morning New York Stock Exchange trading. Merrill Lynch analyst Virginia Genereux downgraded the shares to "neutral" from "buy." In a research note, she said the stock was no longer undervalued and Nike's excess levels of inventory are hindering its growth prospects. Genereux also said Nike's relationship with top U.S. athletic shoe retailer Foot Locker...