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ABC producer arrested outside Brown PalaceSue Lindsay 2 hours, 18 minutes ago A producer for ABC News was arrested today as he and a camera crew set up on the sidewalk outside the Brown Palace Hotel. Asa Eslocker was arrested for trespass, interference and failure to obey an lawful order. He was being processed from the Denver City Jail and is expected to be released on $300 bail, said his attorney Tom Kelley. Eslocker is investigating the role of corporate lobbyists and wealthy donors at the convention for a series of Money Trail reports on ABC World News. "The Brown's...

WAYNESBURG, Ky. - Miss America 1944 has a talent that likely has never appeared on a beauty pageant stage: She fired a handgun to shoot out a vehicle's tires and stop an intruder. Venus Ramey, 82, confronted a man on her farm in south-central Kentucky last week after she saw her dog run into a storage building where thieves had previously made off with old farm equipment. Ramey said the man told her he would leave. "I said, 'Oh, no you won't,' and I shot their tires so they couldn't leave," Ramey said. She had to balance on her walker...

Texas school district bans grillz 2 hours, 56 minutes ago ARLINGTON, Texas - The school district here has expanded its dress codes to include mouths — and earlobes. Students may no longer wear mouth jewelry known as "grillz" — shiny teeth caps — or the earlobe-stretching practice known as "gauging." "The district is having to respond to fads because they've become distracters or a safety hazard for those around them," said Malcolm Turner, the district's executive director of student services. The nearby Irving, Grand Prairie and DeSoto districts also ban grillz, and some also address gauging — the process of...

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist leader killed in an airstrike on Wednesday, initially survived the bombing and died of his wounds while in custody, American officials said today.

While promoters of "The Da Vinci Code" have tried to downplay the film's challenge to Christianity, actor Ian McKellen took a shot at the Bible in an interview with the "Today" show, saying Scripture should carry a disclaimer that it is "fiction." McKellen, who played Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" triology, was responding to a question from host Matt Lauer about the requests by some Christian groups to insert a "fiction" disclaimer at the beginning of the controversial film, which suggests Jesus and Mary Magdalene were man and wife and that the divinity of Jesus was an invention...

DENVER -- Passengers aboard a United Airlines flight had some help when they had to take matters into their own hands to prevent Jose Manuel Pelayo-Ortega from bringing their plane down. Three Secret Service agents headed west to join President Bush's entourage joined with passengers to subdue Pelayo-Ortega when he tried to open one of the doors on the Airbus A-320. "Had he opened the door, we'd all be dead," passenger Donna Bell of Visalia, Calif., told the Sacramento Bee after the plane was searched and allowed to continue westward. Secret Service spokesman Eric Zahensaid three agents between assignments help...

WASHINGTON – Black-owned businesses are among the fastest-growing segments of the American economy, the government said yesterday. The number of black-owned businesses grew by 45 percent from 1997 to 2002, more than four times the national rate for all businesses, according to a report by Census Bureau. Revenues from black-owned businesses increased by 25 percent during the period, to about $89 billion. However, nearly all black-owned businesses are small – 92 percent had no employees other than the owners. By comparison, about three-fourths of all U.S. businesses had no employees. “We do have challenges, we are making progress,” said Ronald...

A leading Republican senator and prospective presidential candidate said Sunday that the war in Iraq has destabilized the Middle East and is looking more like the Vietnam conflict from a generation ago. Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel, who received two Purple Hearts and other military honors for his service in Vietnam, reiterated his position that the United States needs to develop a strategy to leave Iraq. Hagel scoffed at the idea that U.S. troops could be in Iraq four years from now at levels above 100,000, a contingency for which the Pentagon is preparing. "We should start figuring out how we...