News

AP - Tiki Barber put the ultimate exclamation point on the New York Giants’ season of turmoil with a franchise-rushing record, a dominating performance that virtually assures his career will last at least one more week.

AP - Comedian Jay Mohr exchanged wedding vows with “Las Vegas” actress Nikki Cox in a ceremony here, People magazine reported.

AP - The nation honored Gerald R. Ford in funeral ceremonies Saturday that recalled the touchstones of his life, from combat in the Pacific to a career he cherished in Congress to a presidency he did not seek. He was remembered as the man called to heal the country from the trauma of Watergate.

AP - Iraqis awoke Saturday to television images of a noose being slipped over Saddam Hussein’s neck and his white-shrouded body, the pre-dawn work of black-hooded hangmen. They went to bed as new video emerged showing Saddam exchanging taunts with onlookers before the gallows floor dropped away and the former dictator swung from the rope.

Reuters - U.S. troops began the New Year with
news their 3,000th comrade had died since a 2003 invasion that
toppled Saddam Hussein in weeks but pitched them into a war
that has riven Iraq and raised increasing alarm at home.

AP - More than 8,500 James Brown fans filled an arena bearing his name Saturday in a final, joyful farewell to the singer that seemed as fitting for a civil rights leader as for “The Godfather of Soul.”

AP - A statement attributed to Fidel Castro on the eve of the revolution’s 48th anniversary assured Cubans Saturday that the ailing leader could still recover from his prolonged illness.

AP - At least 80 Iraqis died in bombings and other attacks Saturday as they prepared to celebrate Islam’s biggest holiday, their first without Saddam Hussein.

Reuters - December became the deadliest month for
U.S. troops in Iraq in two years after the U.S. military
reported six more combat deaths, leaving the tally just two
short of the emotive 3,000 mark.

AP - Within days of taking power, Saddam Hussein summoned about 400 top officials and announced he had uncovered a plot against the ruling party.

AP - A ferry carrying around 850 passengers sank in a storm off Indonesia’s main island of Java, a military commander said Saturday, adding that he feared many people had died.

AP - Saddam Hussein, the shotgun-waving dictator who ruled Iraq with a remorseless brutality for a quarter-century and was driven from power by a U.S.-led war that left his country in shambles, was taken to the gallows clutching a Quran and hanged Saturday.