News

AP - Sidney Sheldon, who won awards in three careers, Broadway theater, movies and television, then at age 50 turned to writing best-selling novels about stalwart women who triumph in a hostile world of ruthless men, has died. He was 89.

AP - The Pentagon said Tuesday it had stopped selling surplus F-14 parts, announcing the step after congressional criticism of security weaknesses that had given buyers for countries including Iran access to the aircraft parts and other valuable gear.

AP - Cuban state television Tuesday showed a video of a healthier looking Fidel Castro meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and saying his recovery was “far from a lost battle,” in the first images of the ailing leader in three months.

AP - Republican and Democratic senators warned Tuesday against a drift toward war with an emboldened Iran and suggested the Bush administration was missing a chance to engage its longtime adversary in potentially helpful talks over next-door Iraq.

AP - Utah’s world-class mountain peaks have been barely visible at times from the floor of the Salt Lake valley. A winter storm that won’t quit? No, it’s nasty pollution that just won’t blow away.

AP - Federal scientists have been pressured by the White House to play down global warming, advocacy groups testified Tuesday at the Democrats’ first investigative hearing since taking control of Congress.

Reuters - South Korea on Wednesday cautioned
against hopes for a breakthrough in six-way talks next week
with North Korea but said they would aim for a deal committing
Pyongyang to real steps to end its atomic weapons program.

AP - Acrobatics, blaring music and plenty of hype accompanied Microsoft Corp.’s long-delayed debut of its new Windows Vista operating system.

AP - President Bush said Monday the United States “will respond firmly” if Iran escalates military action in Iraq and endangers American forces. But Bush emphasized he has no intention of invading Iran.

AP - Lauren Nelson, an aspiring Broadway star, was crowned Miss America on Monday night, the second year in a row that a Miss Oklahoma has won the crown.

AP - Iraq’s army announced Monday it killed the leader of a heavily armed cult of messianic Shiites called “the Soldiers of Heaven” in a fierce gunbattle aimed at foiling a plot to attack leading Shiite clerics and pilgrims in the southern city of Najaf on the holiest day of the Shiite calendar.

AP - Palestinian infighting raged in the Gaza Strip Tuesday morning despite a cease-fire declaration by warring Hamas and Fatah factions aimed at ending factional clashes that have left more than 60 dead in the past two months.