USA
Debate was increasing over US troop strength in Iraq, with Senate Democrats and some Republicans urging President Bush to bolster American forces - perhaps with UN-approved multinational troops - on Sunday TV talk shows. But Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told NBC's "Meet the Press" that while coalition troops "are very busy right now.... I have never said we are stretched too thin." A Newsweek poll released over the weekend found 55 percent of those surveyed oppose sending more US soldiers to Iraq, with 69 percent concerned that the stability operation could take years.
The US is constructing a fifth camp for counterterrorism detainees at its Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, naval base. The new Camp V will house 100 detainees, bringing capacity to 1,100, and expand interrogation facilities, a spokeswoman said Sunday. The US has come under fire from human rights groups and the home nations of some detainees, most of whom were taken into custody in Afghanistan, for refusing to treat them as prisoners of war.
Retail gasoline prices rose more than 15 cents a gallon in the past two weeks, industry analyst Trilby Lundberg said Sunday. Her Lundberg Survey of 8,000 stations nationwide found an average price of $1.75 a gallon for unleaded regular, a penny shy of the record high set in March. She said refinery shutdowns as a result of the East Coast power blackout and a pipeline closure in Arizona temporarily disrupted supplies, but that prices should begin to fall after Labor Day, when there's a traditional drop in demand.
Eight Oregon firefighters returning from a blaze in Idaho were killed Sunday when their van hit a tractor-trailer on a remote highway near Vale, Ore. Two people in the truck were injured in the crash. Police said the van was trying to pass another truck at the time.
Saying "We need jobs, Mr. President, not empty promises," Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean criticized Bush on the economy, the war in Iraq, and other issues at a rally in Seattle Sunday. His campaign staff said 8,000 people attended, a record turnout for the former Vermont governor. The stop was part of Dean's "Sleepless Summer Tour," a four day, nine-city blitz that wraps up Tuesday in Chicago and New York.
Seventy-nine percent of Americans buckle up while on the road, with safety-belt use highest in states where drivers face the prospect of a police pullover and fines, according to a new report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The figure is a 4 percentage-point jump from a year ago, and tops the agency's goal of 78 percent. Drivers in the West had the highest buckle-up rates, at 84 percent; those in the Northeast had the lowest, at 74 percent.
Tokyo's Musashi Fuchu team won Little League Baseball's World Series Sunday, routing the US champions from Boynton Beach, Fla., 10-1. Japanese teams have won three of the past five Little League titles.
