Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel attended an award ceremony today at his office in Jerusalem.

Israelis Batter Gaza and Seize Hamas Officials

GAZA, Thursday, June 29 — Israel stepped up its confrontation on Wednesday with Palestinian militants over the capture of an Israeli soldier, battering northern Gazan towns with artillery and sending warplanes over the house of the Syrian president, who is influential with the Palestinian leader believed to have ordered the kidnapping.

Livingston Manor, N.Y., in Sullivan County, has seen extensive flooding. Thousands of people have been evacuated around the Northeast today.

Mid-Atlantic States Reel Under a Deluge of Rain

A network of swollen rivers, heavy from days of steady rain, spilled across their banks yesterday, threatening to inundate towns and cities from Virginia to Vermont and causing thousands of evacuations along the banks of the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania

7 Men Charged in Alleged U.S. Terror Plot

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A group of young men seized in a Miami warehouse have been charged in a federal indictment with conspiring with al-Qaida to ''levy war against the United States'' by committing acts of violence including blowing up Chicago's Sears Tower.

The seven individuals indicted by a federal grand jury were taken into custody Thursday when authorities swarmed the warehouse in the Liberty City area, removing a metal door with a blow torch. The indictment also alleges plans to blow a federal building in Miami in conjunction with the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other top-level Bush administration officials scheduled a news conference for later Friday and a similar briefing was in Miami. The seven were expected to appear in court later Friday.

Man found dead in strip club torched it himself, police say

This would be a great story if the guy didn't kill himself.

June 21, 2006 (KENNEY, Ill.) - DeWitt County authorities say a man found dead last month in the rubble of a fire-gutted nightclub appears to have set the blaze himself in an attempt to prevent a young woman from pursuing the life of a stripper.

An autopsy showed William Hubble died of smoke inhalation in the fire that destroyed the Wildside Cabaret on May 12th.

DeWitt County Sheriff's Detective Rick Hawn says the man's blood-alcohol level was more than three times the state's legal limit for driving.

Authorities say Wildside patrons and employees said that Hubble had met a woman the evening before the fire and spent three hours talking to her.

They say she was stripping for the first time, and Hubble wanted to talk her out of that line of work.

Hawn says when the girl insisted on stripping, Hubble apparently decided to remove the situation from her.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

U.S. Activates Missile Defense

WASHINGTON (June 21) - The United States has activated its ground-based interceptor missile-defense system amid concerns over an expected North Korean missile launch, a U.S. defense official said Tuesday.

Pentagon officials declined to say whether they would try to shoot down any missile launched by the reclusive communist state, but other U.S. officials have said that is unlikely, assuming the launch is aimed at open water.

Many U.S. experts say Pyongyang has a legal right to test and there are questions about the accuracy of U.S. missile defenses.

Pyongyang had no immediate comment, but a North Korean official said earlier the country does not feel bound by pledges to halt test firings of long-range missiles.

A U.S. defense official confirmed a Washington Times report that the Pentagon had switched its multibillion-dollar missile-defense system from test mode to operational.

"It's good to be ready," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Pentagon spokesman Eric Ruff, asked whether the United States would try to shoot down a North Korean missile, said: "We have a limited missile-defense system ... We don't discuss the alert status or the specific capabilities."

On Iraq, Kerry Again Leaves Democrats Fuming

WASHINGTON, June 20 — When Senator John Kerry was their presidential nominee in 2004, Democrats fervently wished he would express himself firmly about the Iraq war.

Mr. Kerry has found his resolve. But it has not made his fellow Democrats any happier. They fear the latest evolution of Mr. Kerry's views on Iraq may now complicate their hopes of taking back a majority in Congress in 2006.

As the Senate prepared for what promises to be a sharp debate starting on Wednesday about whether to begin pulling troops from Iraq, the Democratic leadership wants its members to rally behind a proposal that calls for some troops to move out by the end of this year but does not set a fixed date for complete withdrawal. Mr. Kerry has insisted on setting a date, for American combat troops to pull out in 12 months, saying anything less is too cautious.

In drawing up a schedule for the Wednesday session, the Democratic leadership has arranged for its plan to be debated first, pushing Mr. Kerry and his proposal into the evening, too late for the nightly television news, to starve it of some attention.

Senate Democrats have been loath to express their opinions publicly, determined to emphasize a united front. But interviews suggest a frustration with Mr. Kerry, never popular among the caucus, and still unpopular among many Democrats for failing to defeat a president they considered vulnerable. Privately, some of his Democratic peers complain that he is too focused on the next presidential campaign.

And this guy was almost President.

Bush hails killing of al-Qaida leader in Iraq

June 8, 2006 (WASHINGTON) - President Bush said Thursday that killing terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi struck a severe blow to al-Qaida and opens a new opportunity for the fledging democracy in Iraq.

"Now Zarqawi has met his end, and this violent man will never murder again," Bush said in the Rose Garden as he announced the U.S. airstrike on the militant whom Osama bin Laden had dubbed the "emir," or prince, of al-Qaida in Iraq.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said a terrorist mastermind is gone.

"Over the past several years no single person on this planet has had the blood of more innocent men, women and children on his hands," Rumsfeld said at a meeting of NATO ministers in Brussels. But he cautioned al-Zarqawi's death "will not mean the end of all violence in that country."

6 World Powers Strike a Deal on Iran

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Six world powers meeting to discuss the crisis over Iran's nuclear program agreed Thursday on a package of incentives to convince Tehran to halt uranium enrichment, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Becket said.

"I am pleased to say we have agreed (on) a set of far-reaching proposals," she said. "We believe they offer Iran the chance to reach a negotiated agreement based on cooperation."

She added that "if Iran agrees not to engage in negotiations, further steps will have to be taken."