News

AP - More must be done to go after al-Qaida, which is trying to establish training camps and other operations in some of Pakistan’s most ungoverned territory, the new U.S. spy chief said Tuesday.

AP - U.S.-led strike forces seized suspected Shiite death squad bosses Tuesday in raids that tested the fragile bonds between the government and a powerful militia faction allowing the Baghdad security crackdown to move ahead.

AP - Antioxidant vitamins taken by tens of millions of people around the world won’t lead to a longer life, according to an analysis of dozens of studies that adds to evidence questioning the value of the popular supplements. The large review of separate studies on thousands of people found no long-life benefit from vitamins A, E and C and beta carotene and selenium.

AP - Michael Jackson is “reviewing and evaluating” proposals for his future including several offers to perform in Las Vegas, his spokeswoman said Tuesday, but he doesn’t feel any pressure to make a quick decision. Raymone K. Bain confirmed that, after a period of globe-trotting, Jackson is currently living in Las Vegas.

Reuters - The United States is somewhat less
confident that North Korea has a production-scale covert
nuclear enrichment program than it used to be, a top U.S.
intelligence official said on Tuesday.

AP - Strained by the demands of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a significant risk that the U.S. military won’t be able to quickly and fully respond to yet another crisis, according to a new report to Congress.

AP - Underscoring growing alarm in the West at how militants have regained ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Vice President Dick Cheney on Monday sought Pakistani aid to help counter al-Qaida’s efforts to regroup, officials said.

AP - Iraq’s Shiite vice president narrowly escaped assassination Monday as a blast ripped through a government meeting hall just hours after it was searched by U.S. teams with bomb-sniffing dogs. At least 10 people were killed.

AP - Gunmen stormed a Guatemalan prison and shot to death four jailed police officers in a mafia hit aimed at stopping investigators from finding out who ordered the slayings of three politicians from neighboring El Salvador, Guatemala’s leader said Monday.

AP - A Bolivian-born jaguar that killed a Denver zookeeper was well-behaved as a young cat but his twin was so mean that his handlers named him Osama, a Bolivian zoo official said Monday. Ashlee Pfaff, 27, died from a broken neck and other injuries after the big cat named Jorge attacked her while she was inside an employee hallway that opened into his outdoor enclosure on Saturday, the coroner said.

AP - Archeologists said Monday that porcelain plates and other artifacts found along the Baja California coast could be from the wreckage of a Spanish galleon that sailed between the Philippines and Mexico hundreds of years ago.

AP - Filmmakers and researchers on Monday unveiled two ancient stone boxes they said may have once contained the remains of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, but several scholars derided the claims made in a new documentary as unfounded and contradictory to basic Christian beliefs.