LA fire started by boy with matches

SANTA CLARITA, Calif. - A boy playing with matches started a fire in north Los Angeles County that consumed more than 38,000 acres and destroyed 21 homes last week, authorities said Tuesday.

The boy, whose name and age were not released, was interviewed a day after the Buckweed Fire was sparked Oct. 21, said sheriff's Sgt. Diane Hecht.

"He admitted to playing with matches and accidentally starting the fire," said Hecht said in a statement.

The boy was released to his parents, and the case will be be presented to the district attorney's office, Hecht said.

The 60-square-mile fire began in an area near Agua Dulce and quickly spread by fierce desert winds. It was among more than a dozen major wildfires that killed 14 people and blackened 809 square miles from Los Angeles to the Mexican border.

Authorities arrested five people for arson during that period, but none have been linked to any of the major blazes.

Wildfire pollution poses health threat

By NOAKI SCHWARTZ, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES - Even as many of the wildfires in flame-ravaged Southern California died down and residents returned home, lingering dust and soot-laden air made it difficult for many to breathe even a sigh of relief Saturday.

Air quality remained poor in the central San Bernardino Mountains and parts of the San Bernardino Valley, as well as swaths of Orange and Riverside Counties. In San Diego County, where only two of five major fires was more than 50 percent contained, the air was especially dismal Friday.

That worried Joe Flynn, 48, as he prepared to return home to Ramona, northeast of San Diego, after he and thousands of other evacuees sought shelter Qualcomm Stadium this week.

But the pull to get back to normal was even stronger.

"Sure I'm worried about breathing that stuff up there," he said. "It's not cool but everyone is dying to get back home."

Satellite pictures showed thick smoke continuing to hang over the entire region, affecting schools, events and the health of residents all over Southern California.

Residents staying in areas with bad air were advised to avoid exerting themselves. Children and people with heart and respiratory conditions were urged to stay indoors with the windows and doors closed and the air conditioner on.

"In the immediate aftermath of a fire, we're all at risk of the fine particulate matter we can inhale," said Julia Robinson Shimizu, a spokeswoman for Breathe L.A. "In general it's good to limit outdoor strenuous activity at least seven days after the fires have ended."

The University of California San Diego Medical Center saw an increase in patients coming in with breathing troubles they believe were related to air pollution, spokeswoman Jackie Carr said.

Mayor Jerry Sanders said the NFL's San Diego Chargers would play Sunday's game scheduled at Qualcomm. The stadium can seat more than 70,000 people.

But Ross Porter, a spokesman for the American Lung Association of California, urged fans to use caution when deciding whether to attend.

"Sometimes its better to sit quietly at home and watch it on TV," he said.

Meanwhile, about 23,000 homes were still threatened by five major blazes in three counties. Altogether, more than a dozen fires raced across more than 503,000 acres — the equivalent of 786 square miles — although many of the blazes have been contained.

At least three people — and possibly as many as seven — have been killed by flames. About 1,700 homes have been destroyed and damage estimates have surpassed $1 billion.

On Friday, tens of thousands of displaced families began returning to their fire-ravaged communities, but it will likely be months or even years before they recover what they left behind when they fled giant walls of flames.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office said he would appear Saturday at an Orange County fire command post to discuss efforts to find arsonists and to warn about charlatans peddling insurance scams to fire victims.

On Friday, the governor signed an executive order he said would cut red tape by directing state agencies to aid fire victims with such things as filing for tax extensions and unemployment insurance.

On the other side of the Cleveland National Forest, residents in the Riverside County town of Corona worried that flames they had watched on the news all week might reach them. They filled an elementary school Friday to hear that there was no imminent threat. Some packed valuables in their cars, just in case.

"Your feelings are real but we want to relieve some of that anxiety," John Hawkins, Riverside County fire chief, told residents.

Also Friday, Sen. Dianne Feinstein urged Congressional leaders to provide an additional $1 billion for firefighting and fire recovery efforts.

The National Weather Service had some good news for firefighters: Winds were forecast to be light on Saturday, with highs hovering around 80 in most of the active fire areas.

___
Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat and Allison Hoffman in San Diego contributed to this report.

___
On the Net:
http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_re_us/storytext/california_wildfires/24982293/SIG=10tgc8uhg/*http://www.lungusa.org/site

Evacuees return to ashes, uncertainty

By ALLISON HOFFMAN and SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writers

SAN DIEGO - As some wildfire evacuees returned to their neighborhoods to find only ashes where their homes once stood, others sought government help for dealing with the uncertainty of their upended lives.

Justin Miner was among hundreds of people who gathered Thursday at a disaster center in Rancho San Diego in San Diego County, where an array of federal, state and county agencies had clustered to offer assistance.

Miner was evacuated from his home in Deerhorn Valley and had just arrived with his family at Qualcomm Stadium when his wife — seven months pregnant — went into labor prematurely.

"Things could be a lot better," he said. "It's really bad timing. I'm out of my house, I'm out of my job, my wife's in the hospital. ... I got a 3-year-old with a broken arm and an 11-year old stepson. Would you be OK?"

Five hours later, Miner walked out of the disaster assistance center with food stamps, financial help from the Red Cross and a little bit of hope, though he still didn't know if his house was still standing.

"I walked out with a tremendous amount of help. It's more than I expected," he said.

Such facilities create a one-stop shop where disaster victims can more easily navigate the bewildering array of government and non-governmental assistance.

"What happens in a big disaster like this is that people are very confused, they don't know where to go for help," said Steven C. Preston, head of the Small Business Administration, which joined the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Internal Revenue Service, the state Office of Emergency Services and dozens more agencies at the center.

"Especially in a large disaster like this, our first job is to give people a clear understanding of what we do," Preston said.

The Small Business Administration provides low-interest loans to businesses and — despite the agency's name — homeowners and renters to help with property damage and other costs.

FEMA, among other assistance, gives grants for temporary housing.

In San Diego's fire-ravaged Rancho Bernardo neighborhood, some residents who stayed behind grabbed garden hoses, ensuring their neighbors would be less likely to need FEMA's help.

Gail Jones, 46, came home Thursday to find a little paper American flag planted in her front yard. Residents who watered burning roofs placed flags in front of each of the homes where they put out fires.

"We got back and saw this flag, and that's how we knew they saved our house," she said, weeping. "Our roof is a little scorched, but that's it. If they hadn't been here, our houses could all have been gone."

Across the street, another neighbor wasn't as fortunate.

Robert Sanders, 56, a photographer, rented a house that was incinerated after flying embers hit its wooden shake-shingle roof.

A fire-resistant box containing all his transparencies survived, but its contents melted from the heat, he said. Also destroyed was the only photograph he had of his father and a photo of his wife with her father.

A charred copy of "The Little Engine That Could" belonging to Sanders' daughter lay open in what had been the master bedroom. The book had been his wife's when she was a child.

"I've lost my history," he said. "All the work I've done for the past 30 years, it's all destroyed."
When the evacuation orders were lifted in Rancho Bernardo on Thursday, mile-long lines of cars formed at the freeway exit off Interstate 15 as tens of thousands of residents waited to return to their neighborhoods.

Some, like Frank Monticello, 40, saw no reason to rush back to a house that was burned to the ground.

"Truthfully, we don't feel any urgency to get in there," he said. "We know it's gone."

Calif. wildfire losses top $1 billion

By GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writer

SAN DIEGO - The devastating wildfires in Southern California have caused at least $1 billion in damage in San Diego County alone, officials said Wednesday, as easing wind gave firefighters hope that they could begin to gain ground against the flames.

The fires, in their fourth day, had destroyed 1,500 homes and caused at least a half-million people to flee — the largest evacuation in state history. At least 1,200 of the damaged homes were in San Diego County, and officials believe that number will rise.
"Clearly, this is going to be a $1 billion or more disaster," Ron Lane, San Diego County's director of emergency services, told reporters during a news conference.
The announcement of San Diego's staggering losses came as President Bush signed a major disaster declaration for California in the wake of the wildfires that have charred about 426,000 acres, or about 665 square miles.
The declaration puts in motion long-term federal recovery programs to help state and local governments, families, individuals and certain nonprofit organizations recover. Bush plans to visit the state on Thursday.
"Americans all across this land care deeply about them," the president said after a Cabinet meeting convened to coordinate federal relief efforts. "We're concerned about their safety. We're concerned about their property."
The fierce Santa Ana wind that has stoked the explosive blazes had started to moderate Wednesday although stiff gusts continued to blow through some canyon areas. Forecasters said the wind eventually would be followed by cooling sea breezes.
Wind was reported blowing at a sustained speed of 21 to 36 mph in some areas Wednesday, considerably less than the gusts of up to 100 mph earlier in the week.
The shift could allow for a greater aerial assault and help firefighters beat back the most destructive blazes, said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
An unmanned NASA aircraft outfitted with high-tech imaging equipment took off Wednesday from Edwards Air Force Base on Wednesday for a 10-hour flight to help firefighters locate hot spots. Pilots at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center were remotely controlling the aircraft, outfitted with a thermal-infrared imaging system capable of seeing through thick smoke.
Crews also were anticipating additional firefighters and equipment from other states, mostly throughout the West. Frustration over the firefighting effort began to emerge Tuesday when a fire official said not enough had been done to protect homes.
Orange County Fire Chief Chip Prather told reporters that firefighters' lives were threatened because too few crews were on the ground. He said a quick deployment of aircraft could have corralled a massive blaze near Irvine.
"It is an absolute fact: Had we had more air resources, we would have been able to control this fire," he said.
The state's top firefighter said Prather misstated the availability of firefighters and equipment. Eight of the state's nine water-dumping helicopters were in Southern California by Sunday, when the first fires began, along with 13 air tankers, said Ruben Grijalva, director of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Grijalva said the fires would have overwhelmed most efforts to fight them.
"Anyone that is complaining about the planes just wants to complain because there's a bunch of nonsense," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told ABC News. "The fact is that we could have all the planes in the world here — we have 90 aircraft here and six that we got especially from the federal government — and they can't fly because of the wind situation."
Twenty-one firefighters and at least 24 others have been injured. One person was killed by the flames, and the San Diego medical examiner's officer listed five other deaths as connected to the blazes.
Thousands of people remained in emergency shelters, where many had an agonizing wait to find out whether their homes had survived.
"I'm ready to go, but at the same time, I don't want to go up there and be surprised," said Mary Busch, 41, who did not know whether her home in Ramona, in San Diego County, was still standing. She has lived at the evacuation center at Qualcomm Stadium since Monday, sleeping in her SUV with her 11- and 8-year-old sons.
Others were eager to return to houses they were confident had survived.
"I called my home and my answering machine still works, so that's how I know we're OK," said Rancho Bernardo resident Fuli Du, who packed his belongings Wednesday preparing to leave Qualcomm.
He spent his 41st birthday Tuesday at the stadium, where he has been staying with his wife and two young sons.
More evacuation orders were issued Wednesday. Residents of the San Diego County communities of Fallbrook and Julian, an area devastated by a 2003 wildfire, were ordered out of their homes. Officials also were evacuating De Luz, an unincorporated community north of Camp Pendleton that was being threatened by a wildfire on the Marine base. The fire also closed Interstate 5 and the Metrolink commuter rail, snagging the morning commute.
However, residents were allowed to return to some areas of San Diego County including Carlsbad, Chula Vista, Del Mar, Encinitas and Solana Beach.
"There are some hot spots and issues there, but we wouldn't be letting people go back if it weren't safe," county spokeswoman Lesley Kirk said.
The city of San Diego was assessing whether to allow people to return to their homes in Rancho Bernardo, one of the hardest-hit areas, Mayor Jerry Sanders said.
A man accused of setting a small brush fire in a rural foothill area of the San Bernardino Mountains was booked for investigation of arson. However, San Bernardino County sheriff's spokeswoman Cindy Beavers said authorities don't know if he is connected to any of the region's wildfires.
So far, the fires have inflicted the worst damage in San Diego County, where five blazes continued to burn. The largest fire had charred 196,420 acres — about 300 square miles — from Witch Creek to Rancho Santa Fe, destroying 650 homes, businesses and other buildings. Other hard-hit areas included San Bernardino County, where hundreds of homes burned in the mountain resort communities near Lake Arrowhead.
___
Associated Press writers Chelsea J. Carter, Jeremiah Marquez, Daisy Nguyen, Robert Jablon and Thomas Watkins in Los Angeles, Martha Mendoza in Lake Arrowhead, Jacob Adelman in Santa Clarita, Elliot Spagat, Allison Hoffman and Scott Lindlaw in San Diego, Pauline Arrillaga in Del Mar, Ryan Pearson in Lake Forest and Jennifer Loven in Washington contributed to this report.

More forced to flee Calif. fires

By ALLISON HOFFMAN and GILLIAN FLACCUS, Associated Press Writers

SAN DIEGO - Thousands more residents were ordered to evacuate their homes Tuesday, bringing the number of people chased away by the wind-whipped flames that have engulfed Southern California to at least 300,000.

By day three, the dozen wildfires had burned more than 700 homes and set 245,957 acres — 384 square miles — ablaze, and the destruction may only be the start for the region. Tuesday's forecast called for hotter temperatures and more explosive Santa Ana gusts.

The blazes bedeviled firefighters as walls of flame whipped from mountain passes to the edges of the state's celebrated coastline, spreading so quickly that even hotels serving as temporary shelters for evacuees had to be evacuated.

Wanda Tomkinson, 79, fled the Doubletree hotel in Del Mar with her husband and their Boston Terrier after employees called each room to tell customers they had to leave. The couple, carrying medication, clothes, tax records and a dog bowl, said they were relying on a family friend to take them in.

If not, Tomkinson added, "the Lord'll take care of us."

As the fires spread, most out of control, smaller blazes were merging into larger, more fearsome ones. Evacuations were being announced in one community after another as firefighters found themselves overwhelmed by gale-force Santa Ana winds, some gusting to 70 mph.

As dawn broke, authorities issued a new round of mandatory evacuations to residents in parts of San Diego County. About 3,800 homes were told to evacuate in Wildcat Canyon and Multh Valley, and another 1,800 in North Jamul and Indian Springs.

State officials warned that the total estimate of evacuees in the region could rise, because officials were still working to determine how many people had fled. San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders said that 274,000 homes and at least 300,000 residents were asked to clear out in San Diego county alone.

At Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, about 40 aircraft that included F-18 fighter jets, C-130 cargo planes and Marine helicopters were evacuated to other bases in California and Arizona.

President Bush declared a federal emergency for seven counties, a move that will speed disaster-relief efforts. He also sent federal disaster officials to California.

"All of us across this nation are concerned for the families who have lost their homes and the many families who have been evacuated from their homes," Bush said Tuesday. "We send the help of the federal government."

The wildfires claimed one life, in San Diego County, and injured 42. At least 16 of the injured were firefighters.

Fire crews and fleeing residents described desperate conditions that were sure to get worse. Temperatures across Southern California were about 10 degrees above average and were expected to approach 100 degrees Tuesday in Orange and San Diego counties.

"We are getting very strong northeast winds. They are very erratic, causing us to modify our procedures," said Capt. Don Camp, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The fires were exploding and shooting embers in all directions, preventing crews from forming traditional fire lines and severely limiting aerial bombardment, he said.

"Lifesaving is our priority. Getting people out from in front of the fire — those have been our priorities," Camp said.

Thousands of residents sought shelter at fairgrounds, schools and community centers. The largest gathering was at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, where up to 10,000 evacuees anxiously watched the stadium's television sets, hoping for a glimpse of their neighborhood on the local news. Sanders pleaded for donations of blankets, cots, pillows and food for the people staying there, and officials said more people were expected to arrive Tuesday.

San Diego County was ablaze from its rural north to its border region with Mexico, where the wildfires that started Sunday claimed their only fatality to date: Thomas Varshock, 52, of Tecate, a town on the U.S. side of the border southeast of San Diego. His body was found Sunday afternoon, the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office said, although no other details were released.

At least 250,000 in San Diego alone were told to leave. Public schools were closed, as were campuses at the University of California, San Diego and San Diego State University.

In the northern part of the county, 500 homes and 100 businesses had been destroyed as a wildfire exploded to 145,000 acres and marched toward the Pacific Coast enclave of Del Mar, forcing a partial evacuation.

The scope of the infernos was immense and was reminiscent of the blazes that tore through Southern California four years ago this month, killing 22 and destroying 3,640 homes.

The fires have been made worse by fierce Santa Ana winds. The winds — which sweep through Southern California's canyons in fall and winter — are stronger than normal, turning already parched scrubland into tinder. They generated walls of flame that bore down on housing developments in a wide swath.

Homes have burned from the beaches of Malibu to the mountain retreats east of Los Angeles and south through Orange and San Diego counties to Mexico.

East of Los Angeles, a two-front fire destroyed at least 160 homes in the Lake Arrowhead area, the same mountain resort community where hundreds of homes were lost four years earlier.

One of the blazes, near Green Valley Lake, was so intense that firefighters were forced to pull back. It jumped Highway 18 and was headed toward the community of Running Springs, said Steve Lowe, a fire information officer with the San Bernardino National Forest.

Touring an evacuee camp at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger pledged to do everything in his power to assist the firefighting effort and help those who have lost their homes.

"I will be relentless all the way through this," Schwarzenegger said.

___

Associated Press writers Chelsea J. Carter, Jeremiah Marquez, Daisy Nguyen and Thomas Watkins in Los Angeles, Martha Mendoza in Lake Arrowhead, Jacob Adelman in Santa Clarita, Elliot Spagat and Scott Lindlaw in San Diego, Pauline Arrillaga in Del Mar and Jennifer Loven in Washington contributed to this report.

US insurers lobby over offshore tax breaks

By Andrea Felsted, Insurance Correspondent

Some of the US's biggest insurers are squaring up to giants of the Bermudan reinsurance industry over possible moves to crack down on tax breaks enjoyed by insurers based outside the US.

The US insurers, including Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway , WR Berkley Corp, Hartford (NYSE:HIG), Chubb (NYSE:CB) and Travelers, are lobbying Washington to limit the tax breaks available to insurers that write business in the US, but can lay off risks to subsidiaries in tax-friendly locations.

William Berkley, chairman and chief executive of WR Berkley Corporation, told the Senate Finance Committee last month: "If left unchecked, this will cause much more of the US capital base to migrate abroad and ultimately the future of our domestic insurance industry will be threatened."

However, the Bermudan reinsurance market argues the campaign is protectionist and anti-competitive.

Insurers headquartered outside the US can legally cut their tax bills by reinsuring a significant proportion of the US risks they write to subsidiaries in locations with low or no corporation tax, such as Bermuda. In effect, they pay less tax on the money they build up to pay future claims.

US insurers are concerned that the practice gives non-US headquartered insurers with capital bases in low-tax jurisdictions a competitive advantage.

They want legislation to limit the tax benefit to ensure a level playing field.

Bermudan insurers, however, say claims that reinsurance arrangements with subsidiaries are used to avoid tax bills are "bogus".

Clinton seeks return of cleanup tax

By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday called for the return of a tax on companies to pay for cleaning toxic waste sites, riling Republicans who called it unfair for firms that do not despoil the environment.

Sen. Clinton, D-N.Y., renewed her long-standing call to reinstate the tax program during a subcommittee hearing she chaired on the Superfund program, begun more than two decades ago to deal with major environmental health hazards such as Love Canal in western New York.

"I think it's clear this program needs additional funding. I think reinstating the polluter-pays fee is a step we must take both to provide additional funds for the cleanups and to make the program fairer. Ordinary taxpayers should not pay for cleanups and that's what's been happening," Clinton said.

The New York lawmaker has made that argument repeatedly during her years in the Senate, but it carries more weight now that she is the front-runner for her party's presidential nomination.

Since Democrats took control of the Senate earlier this year, Clinton has used her position as chair of a Senate Environment and Public Works subcommittee to rap the Bush administration's record on environmental issues.

A Republican on the committee, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, said he was strongly opposed to resurrecting the Superfund tax as Clinton advocates.

"The tax does not distinguish a company that is a polluter from an environmental steward," Inhofe said. "The tax goes where the money is, not where the responsibility lies."

Congress rejected requests from the Clinton White House in the 1990s to continue the Superfund tax, which imposed taxes on companies dealing in petroleum and 42 other chemicals. After the tax ended, the fund ran out of money in 2003.

Democrats at the hearing also criticized Environmental Protection Agency officials for what they said was a slower pace in cleanups, arguing that the government has let more than 100 contaminated sites linger longer than necessary.

EPA assistant administrator Susan Bodine told the panel such criticism is an indirect result of the program's successes over the years because the sites still left to clean are the most complicated and difficult.
___
On the Net:
Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov

Security guards fired randomly: Iraq official

By Aseel Kami

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi authorities on Wednesday accused guards working for a foreign security company of firing randomly when they killed two women in the latest incident involving private security contractors that has outraged Iraqis.

Family members held a funeral service for the two women after the shooting on Tuesday at a Baghdad intersection involving guards working for Australian-run, Dubai-based Unity Resources Group (URG).

URG said in a statement it deeply regretted the incident, in which it said a car had failed to stop despite repeated warnings.

It has not yet answered phone calls or emails to its offices in Baghdad and Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates.

Baghdad security spokesman Brigadier-General Qassim Moussawi said the women were at an intersection in Baghdad's Karrada district when four four-wheel-drive vehicles drove up in convoy.

"It opened fire randomly, hitting an Oldsmobile vehicle being driven by a woman," Moussawi told Reuters, adding that the shooting was under investigation.

URG's statement said its security team was approached at speed by a vehicle which did not stop despite warnings that included hand signals, signal flares and a warning shot. A witness said the guards opened fire when the car edged forward.

URG has worked in Iraq since 2004 and its security escorts typically include Iraqi guards with foreign team leaders.

The bodies of the two women, members of Iraq's small Armenian Christian sect, were taken in simple wooden coffins to an Armenian church in central Baghdad on Wednesday.

"She was a housewife," the brother of one of the victims, who gave his name only as Albeer, told Reuters Television.

CAR BOMB

In more violence in northern Iraq, six people were killed in a car bomb attack on a convoy carrying the security directorate chief for Salahuddin province, security officials said.

Provincial security chief Colonel Jassim Hussein Mohammed was not hurt in the attack in the provincial capital Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles), north of Baghdad, but one of his bodyguards was among those killed and another two were wounded.

The attack came a day after two suicide car bombers targeting a police chief and a tribal leader killed 22 people in the northern oil city of Baiji.

Al Qaeda has vowed to ramp up its attacks during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, which ends at the weekend, especially targeting security officials and Sunni Arab tribal leaders who have joined U.S. forces to fight the Sunni Islamist group.

The U.S. military said it had killed 37 militants and detained 25 suspects in a four-day operation targeting al Qaeda safe havens in the Diyala River valley north of Baghdad.

The military launched a series of offensives against the Sunni Islamist group and Shi'ite militants in Diyala over the summer to deny them bases from which to launch attacks on Iraqi civilians and U.S. and Iraqi security forces.

Moussawi also announced an indefinite ban on parking cars on main streets and intersections in Baghdad in a bid to thwart potential car bomb attacks in the final days of Ramadan.

Many Iraqis see private security companies as little more than private armies which act with impunity and are still angry over a September 16 shooting involving U.S. firm Blackwater in which 17 people were killed.

The Blackwater shooting brought private security contractors under the spotlight, with the incident now the subject of at least four investigations by Iraqi and U.S. officials.

"People run away from them, they are afraid to cross the street in front of them," a Baghdad resident, who gave his name only as Qais, told Reuters Television.

The Iraqi government has accused Blackwater of "deliberately killing" the 17 Iraqis in last month's shooting in west Baghdad. A government source has said the government wants Blackwater to pay $8 million compensation to each victim's family.

Blackwater, which employs about 1,000 people in Iraq and guards the U.S. embassy, says its guards responded lawfully to a threat against a convoy.

(Additional reporting by Yasser Faisal and Ross Colvin in Baghdad)

2 car bombings kill at least 10 in Iraq

By SINAN SALAHEDDIN, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD - Two nearly simultaneous car bombs targeted a local police chief and a prominent Sunni sheik working with U.S. forces against al-Qaida in Iraq in a northern city on Tuesday, killing at least 18 people, authorities said.

Meanwhile, three parked car bombs struck the Iraqi capital. The first hit a commercial area in the Khulani district, killing at least eight and wounding 25 people, including four traffic policemen.

The attack came as a call to prayer resounded from the nearby Khulani mosque, itself a target of a June truck bombing that killed 87 people. Bystanders rushed to help the wounded, pull out victims from burning cars and load bodies on carts.

Youssif Mohammed, a 36-year old vendor of second-hand clothes near Khulani Square, said the blast targeted minibuses that stop there en route to Baghdad's eastern Shiite districts. "I saw a fireball and then heard a huge explosion," Mohammed said. "Immediately, the place was covered by smoke and dust."

Also in the predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Shaab, another parked car bomb killed two people and wounded 16, according to police. By early afternoon, a third killed five and wounded four people near a fuel station in the eastern neighborhood of Binok, police said. Four cars were damaged in that blast.

The attacks were among a series of bombings in recent days as the terror network apparently steps up its promised Ramadan offensive as the end of the Islamic holy month draws near.

At least 24 people were killed in Baghdad and to the north on Monday in car and truck bombings, which are generally blamed on al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgents. Many of the attacks have targeted Iraqi police officers, who have been frequent targets of the insurgency because they are seen as cooperating with the U.S. and Iraqi governments.

In Beiji, a Sunni city 155 miles north of Baghdad, a minibus laden with explosives slammed into the house of a local police chief, while a Toyota Land Cruiser blew up outside the home of a leading member of the local Awakening Council, a group of Iraqis who have turned against extremists in the area.

Six houses were destroyed in the blasts, which took place within minutes of each other and some 500 yards apart in a residential area.

Initially, police and hospital officials said at least 10 people were killed and 17 wounded but raised the toll to 18 dead and 27 wounded, as more victims were found in the rubble.

The U.S. military said the police chief, Col. Saad al-Nifoos, survived, but there was no immediate word if the Sunni tribal official, Sheik Hamad al-Jibouri, was among the casualties.

"This is yet another failed attempt to break the will of the Iraqi people who just want to go on with their lives without violence, raise their children, earn a living and coexist together in a peaceful manner," said Lt. Col. Michael O. Donnelly, military spokesman for northern Iraq.

Witness Saleh Jassim Moussa said two of his relatives from the neighborhood were killed in the attacks.

The force of the blast was so strong, it shattered all the windows and ripped the doors from their frames in his home, only a 100 yards away from the first explosion.

"It was a really huge explosion, we panicked and ran out but for minutes, we couldn't see anything because of the heavy smoke," said Moussa, 38, a government employee, who was reached by phone. "We're still digging through the rubble, looking for others."

Beiji is in the Sunni province of Salahuddin, which along with the vast Anbar province to the west is part of Iraq's Sunni heartland. The heartland has been the home base for the al-Qaida in Iraq insurgency, but attacks in the area have decreased after local leaders backed by the U.S. military organized tribal Awakening Councils and turned against the terror network.

Also Tuesday morning, drive-by shooters killed the deputy police chief in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, police said.

Brig. Gen. Abdul-Al Thanon was leaving his house when four gunmen showered him with bullets from a speeding car. The deputy's driver was wounded in the morning attack in Mosul's northern Hadbaa neighborhood, police Brig. Gen. Mohamed al-Wakaa said.

A roadside bomb ripped through and outdoor market near a bus station in Jisr Diyala on Baghdad's southeastern outskirts, killing two civilians and wounding 10 others, police said.

In the southern neighborhood of Sadiyah, gunmen in a speeding car fatally shot a Shiite father and his two sons as they were leaving their home, police said. The police officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

Leavitt seeks deal on children's health

By HOPE YEN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush's health secretary expressed hope Sunday for a deal with the Democratic-run Congress on expanding children's health insurance even as the House speaker worked to round up enough Republicans to override a veto.

"Everybody wants children to have health insurance," Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said. "The president has already said, 'I want a compromise.'"

Leavitt added, "If it takes more money, we'll put it up." He did not cite a figure.

Bush vetoed legislation last week that would increase spending for the State Children's Health Insurance Program by $35 billion over five years. Bush has called for a $5 billion increase.

Several Republicans in both the House and Senate have sided with majority Democrats on the issue, and the Senate has enough votes to override the veto. But in the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has delayed an override attempt until Oct. 18, saying she needs to attract support from 14 more Republicans.

"It's hard to imagine how we could diminish the number of children who are covered," said Pelosi, D-Calif., in an interview broadcast Sunday. "The president calls himself 'the decider,' and I don't know why he would want to decide that one child has health care and another does not."

"So we take it one step at a time. And right now, we have the next 10 days to two weeks to try to peel off about 14 votes in the House," she said.

The program provides health insurance to children in families with incomes too great for Medicaid eligibility but not enough to afford private insurance.

Bush and Leavitt have decried the spending increase primarily supported by Democrats as unnecessarily subsidizing middle-income people as part of Democrats' "goal of government-run health care for every American."

Leavitt appeared on ABC's "This Week," Pelosi was interviewed Friday by "Fox News Sunday."

Bush says US 'does not torture'

By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush defended his administration's detention and interrogation policies for terrorism suspects on Friday, saying they are both successful and lawful.

"When we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we're going to detain them, and you bet we're going to question them," he said during a hastily called appearance in the Oval Office. "The American people expect us to find out information, actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That's our job."

Bush was referring to a report on two secret memos in 2005 that authorized extreme interrogation tactics against terror suspects. "This government does not torture people," the president said.

The two Justice Department legal opinions were disclosed in Thursday's editions of The New York Times, which reported that the first 2005 legal opinion authorized the use of head slaps, freezing temperatures and simulated drownings, known as waterboarding, while interrogating terror suspects, and was issued shortly after then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales took over the Justice Department.

That secret opinion, which explicitly allowed using the painful methods in combination, came months after a December 2004 opinion in which the Justice Department publicly declared torture "abhorrent" and the administration seemed to back away from claiming authority for such practices.

A second Justice opinion was issued later in 2005, just as Congress was working on an anti-torture bill. That opinion declared that none of the CIA's interrogation practices would violate the rules in the legislation banning "cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of detainees, The Times said, citing interviews with unnamed current and former officials.

"We stick to U.S. law and international obligations," the president said, without taking questions afterward.

White House and Justice Department press officers have said the 2005 opinions did not reverse the 2004 policy.

Bush, speaking emphatically, noted that "highly trained professionals" conduct any questioning. "And by the way," he said, "we have gotten information from these high-value detainees that have helped protect you."

He also said that the techniques used by the United States "have been fully disclosed to appropriate members of the United States Congress" — an indirect slap at the torrent of criticism that has flowed from the Democratic-controlled Congress since the memos' disclosure.

"The American people expect their government to take action to protect them from further attack," Bush said. "And that's exactly what this government is doing. And that's exactly what we'll continue to do."

The 2005 opinions approved by Gonzales remain in effect despite efforts by Congress and the courts to limit interrogation practices used by the government in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The authorizations came after the withdrawal of an earlier classified Justice opinion, issued in 2002, that had allowed certain aggressive interrogation practices so long as they stopped short of producing pain equivalent to experiencing organ failure or death. That controversial memo was withdrawn in June 2004.

The dispute may come down to how the Bush administration defines torture, or whether it allowed U.S. interrogators to interpret anti-torture laws beyond legal limits. CIA spokesman George Little said the agency sought guidance from the Bush administration and Congress to make sure its program to detain and interrogate terror suspects followed U.S. law.

Senate and House Democrats have demanded to see the memos.

"Why should the public have confidence that the program is either legal or in the best interests of the United States?" Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., wrote in a letter to the acting attorney general.

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., promised a congressional inquiry.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said he was "personally assured by administration officials that at least one of the techniques allegedly used in the past, waterboarding, was prohibited under the new law."

A White House spokesman, meanwhile, criticized the leak of such information to the news media and questioned the motivations of those who do so.

"It's troubling," Tony Fratto said Friday. "I've had the awful responsibility to have to work with The New York Times and other news organizations on stories that involve the release of classified information. And I can tell you that every time I've dealt with any of these stories, I have felt that we have chipped away at the safety and security of America with the publication of this kind of information."

North Korea agrees to disable nuke plant

BEIJING - North Korea will provide a complete list of its nuclear programs and disable its facilities at its main reactor complex by Dec. 31, actions that will be overseen by a U.S.-led team, the six nations involved in disarmament talks said Wednesday.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei said that as part of the agreement, Washington will lead an expert group to Pyongyang "within the next two weeks to prepare for disablement" and will fund those initial activities.

"The disablement of the five megawatt experimental reactor at Yongbyon, the reprocessing plant at Yongbyon and the nuclear fuel rod fabrication facility at Yongbyon will be completed by 31 December 2007," said Wu, who read the statement from the six nations to reporters, but did not take any questions.

The Bush administration welcomed the agreement, calling it significant progress.

"These second-phase actions effectively end the DPRK's production of plutonium — a major step towards the goal of achieving the verifiable denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House's National Security Council.

The complex at Yongbyon has been at the center of North Korea's nuclear weapons programs for decades and is believed to have produced the nuclear device Pyongyang detonated a year ago to prove its long-suspected nuclear capability.

Since then, Pyongyang rejoined the six-nation disarmament negotiations that involve the United States, China, Japan, Russia and South Korea as well as North Korea. Under a broad agreement reached in February, North Korea pledged to disable its nuclear programs in return for 1 million tons of heavy fuel oil or other assistance.

Wednesday's statement outlines the next steps in the February deal. Although negotiators tentatively agreed on the statement Sunday after four days of talks, it was forwarded to their capitals for approval, leading to a delay in its public release.

The statement also said the U.S. and North Korea will "increase bilateral exchanges and enhance mutual trust" but did not set a specific timetable for when Washington will remove Pyongyang from a list of countries that sponsor terrorism — a key North Korean demand. Arrangements will be made in future meetings between the two on normalizing their relations, the statement said.

In addition, the statement reiterated the five other countries' commitment to deliver the fuel oil and other energy and economic assistance as spelled out in the February deal.

Shortly after Wednesday's deal was announced, however, Japan said it would not provide aid to North Korea or lift its economic sanctions against the country because of a dispute over North Korea's past abductions of Japanese citizens.

"There will be no immediate action from Japan. We will wait to see what North Korea does next," Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said. "Japan's policy remains unchanged. We will consider aid once we see progress on the abductions issue."

Tokyo wants Pyongyang to account for its abduction of Japanese nationals in the 1970s and 1980s — a main sticking point for the two countries, which have no diplomatic ties.

Jury awards $11.6 million in Knicks case

By TOM HAYS, Associated Press Write

NEW YORK - A federal jury decided Madison Square Garden and its chairman must pay $11.6 million in damages to former New York Knicks executive Anucha Browne Sanders in her sexual harassment lawsuit.

The jury also found Knicks coach Isiah Thomas subjected Browne Sanders to unwanted advances and a barrage of verbal insults, but that he did not have to pay punitive damages.

Deciding MSG had harassed Browne Sanders, the jury found the Garden owes $6 million for allowing a hostile work environment to exist and $2.6 million for retaliation; MSG chairman James Dolan owes $3 million.

"What I did here, I did for every working woman in America," said Browne Sanders, who came out of the courtroom beaming. "And that includes everyone who gets up and goes to work in the morning, everyone working in a corporate environment."

She said it also was for "women who don't have the means and couldn't possibly have done what I was able to do."

The Garden said it would appeal, but the verdict gave Thomas a partial victory after an ugly, three-week trial.

"I'm innocent, I'm very innocent, and I did not do the things she has accused me in this courtroom of doing," said Thomas, who's married with two children. "I'm extremely disappointed that the jury did not see the facts in this case. I will appeal this, and I remain confident in the man that I am and what I stand for and the family that I have."

After the verdict, Browne Sanders hugged family members and friends gathered in the back of the courtroom.

U.S. District Judge Gerard E. Lynch called it an "eminently reasonable" verdict, and gave the jurors instructions on how to proceed. Before the jury resumed deliberations, attorneys from both sides appealed to the jurors.

Browne Sanders' lawyer, Anne Vladeck, had urged the jury to affix damages that sent a message "to avoid this happening to somebody else." She said the defendants had ruined her client's career, and she called Dolan a liar.

Thomas's lawyer, Ronald Green, told jurors they had already sent "a very clear, very strong and very forceful message.

"Punishment for the sake of punishment is not what this is all about," he said.

The harassment verdict was widely expected after the jury sent a note to the judge Monday indicating that it believed Thomas, the Garden and Dolan sexually harassed Browne Sanders, a married mother of three.

"We believe that the jury's decision was incorrect," MSG said in a statement before punitive damages were awarded. "We look forward to presenting our arguments to an appeals court, and believe they will agree that no sexual harassment took place and MSG acted properly."

MSG is owned by Cablevision Systems Corp., based in Bethpage, N.Y., and Dolan is Cablevision's CEO. Shares fell 35 cents, or 1 percent, to $34.71 in afternoon trading.