Pentagon
makes changes for National defense
WASHINGTON
(AP) — To better manage homeland defense, the Pentagon is changing
the way it assigns war-fighting responsibilities at home and around
the world, defense officials announced Wednesday.
“Today,
our country faces an era of the unexpected,” Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld said in announcing a realignment of the military’s
command structure. “We must be ready to win today’s global
war on terror, but, at the same time, prepare for other surprises
and uncertainties that we must will most certainly face in the 21st
century.”
The
change sets up a new command — called Northern Command, or
NorthCom — that will begin operating on Oct. 1. It is expected
to be headquartered at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, Rumsfeld
said in a press conference with Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
It
will be responsible for defense of U.S. territory, including the
waters off the East and West coasts. Under the existing command
arrangement set up after World War II, responsibility for U.S. territory
was shared to by numerous commands.
U.S.
experts investigate Korean plane crash
KIMHAE,
South Korea (AP) — U.S. experts interviewed the pilot and inspected
the crash site Wednesday where a Chinese airliner carrying 166 people
slammed into a mountain in rain and fog, killing 126 people.
Thirty-eight people survived Monday’s crash and two are listed
as missing.
The
U.S. mission, part of a three-nation probe of Monday’s crash
of the Air China flight near Busan, was requested because the crash
involved an American-built Boeing 767-200. China has joined South
Korean officials in the investigation of the crash at South Korea’s
second largest city on the southeast coast.
The
U.S. investigators interviewed 31-year-old Wu Xinlu, the hospitalized
pilot, before visiting the crash site. Wu suffered severe facial
bruises and a minor brain hemorrhage.
Details
of that interview were not released, but South Korean officials
who spoke with Wu on Tuesday said he told them the plane was functioning
normally before it hit the mountain.
Five
Pakistanis arrested, tied to shoe bomber
PARIS
(AP) — Police and security agents on Wednesday were questioning
five Pakistanis arrested in Paris and its suburbs in connection
with the investigation into shoe bomber Richard C. Reid, judicial
officials said.
The
suspects were arrested Wednesday morning, the officials said on
condition of anonymity. They are suspected of providing various
kinds of logistical assistance to Reid, 28, a British citizen, during
his stay in Paris.
Reid has been in U.S. custody since Dec. 22, when he allegedly attempted
to ignite the explosives in his shoes during a trans-Atlantic flight
from Paris to Miami. He was thwarted by flight crew and passengers
and the jet was diverted to Boston.
He
has pleaded innocent to nine charges that include attempting to
murder the 197 passengers and crew.
The
indictment against Reid said he’d received training from the
al Qaeda terrorist network in Afghanistan.
Former
guerrilla wins first presidential election
DILI,
East Timor (AP) — The United Nations on Wednesday named independence
leader and former guerrilla commander Xanana Gusmao the winner of
East Timor’s first presidential election.
Gusmao’s
landslide victory was formalized when the U.N. electoral commission
announced he had won 82.7 percent of the 378,538 votes cast in Sunday’s
ballot. His sole challenger, Francisco Xavier do Amaral, took 17.3
percent. The remaining ballots were ruled invalid.
Carlos
Valenzuela, the U.N. electoral chief, announced the election result
live on a national radio broadcast.
“The
next five years will constitute a great challenge,” Gusmao
told reporters at a joint news conference with do Amaral after the
announcement. “The expectations are high, the anxieties and
necessities are enormous.”
Gusmao
will be inaugurated on May 20, when the U.N. transitional administration
ends and East Timor, a territory of 800,000, becomes the world’s
newest independent country. It shares an island with the Indonesian
province of West Timor.
One
of three winning lottery tickets redeemed
ATLANTA
(AP) — A young woman claimed a third of the $325 million Big
Game jackpot Wednesday and said it was the first time she had ever
played the multistate lottery. Two other winning tickets were sold
in Illinois and New Jersey but there were no immediate claimants.
Erika
Greene, 20, said she spent $10 on tickets. “That’s all
the money I had on me,” she told reporters.
About
two hours before Tuesday night’s drawing, Greene bought her
tickets at a convenience store in the small northern Georgia town
of Dacula, about two miles from her home.
She
said she selected numbers on one ticket and let the computer pick
the nine others. One of the computer-generated numbers had the winning
combination — 07, 10, 25, 26, 27 and bonus number 23.
Each
of the three winning tickets is worth $108,333,333 in the second-largest
jackpot in U.S. history. Big Game ticket buyers can choose payments
over 26 years or a smaller, one-time sum; because Greene opted for
the single payout, her winnings would be about $58 million, lottery
officials said.
Judge
rules voters have say in assisted suicide
PORTLAND,
Ore. (AP) — A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the U.S. Justice
Department lacks the authority to overturn an Oregon law that allows
physician-assisted suicides, the only law of its kind in the nation.
U.S.
District Judge Robert Jones scolded Attorney General John Ashcroft,
saying Ashcroft, “with no advance warning to Oregon ... fired
the first shot in the battle between the state of Oregon and the
federal government.”
Jones
said Ashcroft attempted to “stifle an ongoing, earnest and
profound debate in the various states concerning physician-assisted
suicide” with a Nov. 6 directive declaring that assisted suicide
was not a “legitimate medical practice.”
“The
citizens of Oregon, through their democratic initiative process,
have chosen to resolve the moral, legal and ethical debate on physician-assisted
suicide for themselves by voting — not once, but twice —
in favor of the Oregon act,” Jones wrote.
Bank
robbery suspects crash into police roadblock
FLEMINGSBURG,
Ky. (AP) — Three bank robbery suspects led police on a two-county
chase Wednesday that ended in a fiery crash when the suspects slammed
into a roadblock, authorities said.
Kentucky
State Police said Jeffrey Craig White, 45, of Fort Carson, Colo.,
died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the crash site, about
a half-mile north of Flemingsburg.
The
other two suspects — Roger Clayton White, 40, of Ironton, Ohio,
and Laurie Ann Fischer, 42, of El Paso, Texas — were transported
to the University of Kentucky Medical Center in Lexington with injuries
from the crash. Police could not say Wednesday night whether the
Whites were related.
White
was in guarded condition and Fischer was in serious condition on
Wednesday night, police said.
Jeffrey
White and Fischer, both armed with handguns, allegedly robbed the
Security Bank and Trust in Maysville shortly after 8 a.m. CDT, state
police said.
They
left with an undisclosed amount of money, police said.
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