News

Reuters - For U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, April may have been one of the cruelest
months.

Reuters - Cubans prepared on Monday for massive
May Day workers' parades, unsure whether Fidel Castro would
resume governing the country with his first public appearance
since falling seriously ill nine months ago.

Reuters - The United States is less smoggy
than it used to be, but dangerous soot particles are rising in
the densely populated eastern part of the country, the American
Lung Association reported on Tuesday.

AP - Two fires ravaged historic sites in the nation’s capital Monday, one gutting part of the 134-year-old Eastern Market and the other destroying irreplaceable documents and art at the Georgetown public library branch.

Reuters - Several species of ducks have
evolved complicated genitals in what appears to be an "arms
race" between the sexes, researchers reported on Tuesday.

AP - President Hugo Chavez announced Monday he would pull Venezuela out of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, a largely symbolic move because the nation has already paid off its debts to the lending institutions.

AP - President Bush said Monday he wants to work with Democrats on compromise legislation to pay for the Iraq war but will carry through on his threat to veto any spending bill that sets a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal.

AP - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales gave two top aides authority to hire and fire political appointees other than U.S. attorneys, according to a Justice Department order obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

AP - Terrorist attacks worldwide shot up more than 25 percent last year, killing 40 percent more people than in 2005, particularly in Iraq where extremists used chemical weapons and suicide bombers to target crowds, the State Department said Monday.

AP - A year ago, winning a playoff series by any means was cause for major celebration by the Cleveland Cavaliers. This year’s sweep of the Washington Wizards? That’s simply what the Cavaliers were supposed to do.

AP - Reggie the alligator reappeared Monday after vanishing for 1 1/2 years in an urban lake where the reptile turned up in 2005 and repeatedly skunked would-be ‘gator wranglers.

AP - Paul McCartney says his upcoming album, “Memory Almost Full,” looks back to the past. “In places it’s a very personal record and a lot of it is retrospective, drawing from memory, like memories from being a kid, from Liverpool and from summers gone,” the 64-year-old ex-Beatle said Monday in a statement.