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BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi Islamist group said it had moved an abducted U.S. marine to "safety" on Monday after he pledged to leave the military, raising hopes for the fate of a man who had previously been reported as beheaded. Dubai-based Al Jazeera television said the announcement came in a statement from the Islamic Response Movement, the same group it reported on June 27 as claiming to have abducted Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun and threatening to kill him. Hassoun's relatives in Lebanon said the same statement had been faxed to them. Battling militants blamed for kidnappings and bombings, the...

Mom, daughter serve together in Iraq Monday, July 5, 2004 Posted: 9:25 AM EDT (1325 GMT) U.S. Army National Guard Spc. Courtland Ball, left, and her mother, Sgt. Angela Carey, pose in family photos taken at Fort Lee, Virginia. LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (AP) -- In a pinch, Angela Carey could order her daughter back to her bunker. For instance, in case of a mortar attack. Both serve with the 39th Infantry Brigade in Iraq: Sgt. Angela Carey is a front-line medic. Her daughter, 19-year-old Spc. Courtland Ball, is in training. Carey had been in Camp Cooke, north of Baghdad, for...

<p>Informed Democratic sources tell the Grind that the previously unmentioned VP candidate Kerry is seriously considering -- as recently as Tuesday -- is Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. During a lengthy conversation that his boss had with Kerry this week, one source said, "Wesley Clark's name never came up once, but [Kerry] mentioned his interest in Dick Durbin several times. He made it clear that Durbin is very much on his list."</p>

<p>WASHINGTON — As many as 7,500 retired and discharged soldiers who are not members of the National Guard or Reserve will be involuntarily recalled to active duty for possible service in Iraq or Afghanistan, Army sources told FOX News Tuesday.</p>

<p>SACRAMENTO, California (AP) -- The mother of a soldier killed in Iraq invited news coverage of the arrival of her son's flag-draped casket at Sacramento International Airport.</p> <p>Nearly a dozen reporters, photographers and television crews were present when the coffin of Army Sgt. Patrick McCaffrey, 34, was transferred to a hearse outside a cargo terminal late Sunday.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON -- Angered by Bush administration policies they contend endanger national security, 26 retired U.S. diplomats and military officers are urging Americans to vote President Bush out of office in November.</p> <p>The group, which calls itself Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, does not explicitly endorse Democrat John Kerry for president in its campaign, which will start officially Wednesday at a Washington news conference.</p>

<p>The commission investigating the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has a critical dual mission to fulfill -- to help our nation understand how the worst assault on our homeland since Pearl Harbor could have occurred and to outline reforms to prevent new acts of terrorism. Under the leadership of former governor Tom Kean and former congressman Lee Hamilton, the commission has acted with professionalism and skill. Its hearings and the reports it has released have been highly informative, if often disturbing.</p>

With apologies to comedian Jeff Foxworthy, if your company has the word "redneck" in its Web site address, you might be a well, you know. The Web site redneckjunk.com, which features classified advertising for racing equipment, hunting and fishing gear, boats and recreational vehicles, is changing its address to rjunk.com so it can continue sponsoring a NASCAR race car.NASCAR officials have strict guidelines for what may or may not be advertised on the track "beer, for example, is OK, but hard liquor is not" and apparently didn't like seeing the word "redneck" on Derrike Cope's car."We had developed a business...

<p>Arnold Schwarzenegger for the first time in his gubernatorial race commented publicly Wednesday on abortion, gun control and gay rights as his campaign continued a weeklong effort to woo conservative voters.</p> <p>Speaking on the Sean Hannity talk radio program, which has a wide following among conservatives, Schwarzenegger stuck to generally liberal positions on social issues but sought to stress the areas in which his views and those of conservatives coincide.</p>

<p>"The Jews, I find are very, very selfish," President Harry S. Truman wrote in a 1947 diary that was recently discovered on the shelves of the Truman Library in Independence, Mo., and released by the National Archives yesterday.</p> <p>Written sporadically during a turbulent year of Truman's presidency, the diary contains about 5,500 words on topics ranging from the death of his mother to comic banter with a British aristocrat. But the most surprising comments were Truman's remarks on Jews, written on July 21, 1947, after the president had a conversation with Henry Morgenthau, the Jewish former treasury secretary. Morgenthau called to talk about a Jewish ship in Palestine -- possibly the Exodus, the legendary ship carrying 4,500 Jewish refugees who were refused entry into Palestine by the British, then rulers of that land.</p>

Gay choir leader's firing turns into a test of faith Dismissal of popular director has brought disharmony to the flock at Rockford parish By Colleen Mastony Tribune staff reporter Published July 9, 2003 ROCKFORD -- The new choir director was one of the best things that ever happened to Holy Family Catholic Church. Everyone said so. He brought together businessmen and blue-collar workers, students and senior citizens to make music that lifted the whole parish--until last month, when church officials learned he is gay. A lawyer and two priests confronted Bill Stein on June 17 and asked him to renounce...

<p>UN Arms Inspector Blix Criticizes U.S. Over Iraq By Grant McCool NEW YORK (Reuters) - The longer the United States and Britain occupy Iraq without finding weapons of mass destruction, the more conceivable it is that Baghdad destroyed them after the first Gulf War in 1991, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said on Monday. Blix, to retire next week after heading inspections before the U.S.-led war on Iraq began in March, also spoke critically at a think tank meeting of one of Washington's key arguments for overthrowing Iraq President Saddam Hussein. "It is sort of fascinating that you can have 100 percent certainty about weapons of mass destruction and zero certainty of about where they are," Blix said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.</p>

<p>Shuttle Launch Likely in Early 2004, NASA Says Reuters Wednesday, June 18, 2003; 3:51 PM By Broward Liston CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA is likely to launch its first space shuttle since the Columbia tragedy in the first three months of next year and expects to announce a launch date in about six weeks, a top space agency official said on Wednesday. That scenario would mean a one-year stand down after the Feb. 1 Columbia crash, compared to a nearly three-year wait following the 1986 Challenger accident. "You ask for a gut feeling? We can put this together in the first quarter of '04," Michael Kostelnik, NASA's deputy associate administrator for the shuttle and space station programs, told reporters. The agency had previously targeted December for the launch of Atlantis on a flight to the International Space Station. But a recent decision to launch the mission during daylight limited the number of available days in that month to just two. "Right now, almost all the technical fixes can be done in the December time frame," Kostelnik said at the Kennedy Space Center...</p>

<p>Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles suggested yesterday that former Oklahoma governor Frank Keating should resign as chairman of a panel on child sex abuse by priests after Keating compared the nation's Roman Catholic bishops to the Mafia.</p> <p>Some panel members also condemned Keating's choice of words. But they said they shared his frustration over "foot-dragging" by a minority of bishops, including Mahony, in providing information for a study of sex abuse in the church.</p>

<p>After three decades as one of Saddam Hussein's chief chemical warriors, Iraqi Brig. Gen. Alaa Saeed picks nervously at the kebabs on his plate as he talks about the deadly nerve gases and blister agents he once produced.</p> <p>His hands shake visibly as he describes his last terrifying meeting with Hussein, even though it was more than five years ago. He worries about his culpability for the sweeping documents he wrote declaring to the United Nations that Iraq was free of banned weapons. And thoughts of the price he may pay for his deeds haunt him.</p>

<p>THE SUPREME COURT stemmed its deeply troubling line of states' rights cases yesterday by handing down a decision that reaffirms Congress's broad power to prevent discrimination by states. The 6 to 3 ruling, written by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, upheld the legislature's power to authorize suits against state governments under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, which guarantees unpaid leave to workers who have babies or need to care for relatives. The decision tacks against the court's recent jurisprudence, which has reined in Congress's ability to authorize suits for money against states that violate federal strictures. The change is welcome -- yet it underlines the absence of recognizable principles in the court's decisions governing the balance of power between states and the federal government. The result is a muddle.</p>

<p>The Bush administration, alarmed by intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda operatives in Iran had a role in the May 12 suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, has suspended once-promising contacts with Iran and appears ready to embrace an aggressive policy of trying to destabilize the Iranian government, administration officials said.</p> <p>Senior Bush administration officials will meet Tuesday at the White House to discuss the evolving strategy toward the Islamic republic, with Pentagon officials pressing hard for public and private actions that they believe could lead to the toppling of the government through a popular uprising, officials said.</p>

<p>CLEVELAND, May 23 -- A federal jury ruled today that the New York Times and one of its reporters libeled an Ohio Supreme Court justice in an article about a lawsuit filed by the son of Sam Sheppard. But the jury said it was done without malicious intent and refused to award damages.</p>