USA

Thomas Hamill, the kidnapped truck driver who escaped his Iraqi captors May 2, arrived home in Macon, Miss., Saturday. Daily prayer, he said, reinforced his faith that he'd survive. Hamill was wounded and captured April 19 when his convoy was ambushed. He ended his three-week ordeal by squeezing open the door of a farmhouse north of Baghdad and running half a mile to US military vehicles he'd heard drive by. He was among seven American contractors who disappeared after the April attack. The remains of four have been found, and two are still missing. Two US soldiers also were involved in the incident, one of whom was later found dead. The other remains missing. Hamill, is reunited with his family on the steps of the county courthouse in Macon.

Sen. John Warner (R) of Virginia, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday that the Pentagon will provide Congress with unreleased photos showing Iraqi prisoners being abused by US soliders. He said he did not know when the images, which purportedly show even worse examples of mistreatment than those already revealed, would be available to the public.

As the leader of an expert advisory team last year, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the Army's new detention chief in Iraq, advocated a more active role for guards during interrogations at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, The Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.Miller, who was in charge of the US lockup at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before arriving in Iraq, denied that the team's recommendations may have contributed to the mistreatment documented there. Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported that the Defense Department in April 2003 approved stressful interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay. Similar harsh treatment, when medically monitored, was approved for "high-value detainees" in Iraq, the report said.

A rally in the rural town of Dayton, Tenn., drew 400 supporters of homosexuality Saturday outside the courthouse where, in 1925, a jury convicted John Scopes of teaching evolution. The Rhea County Gay Day celebration was organized in response to the county commission's March vote (since reversed) to ban homosexuals and arrest them for "crimes against nature."

Yielding to a harsh reaction by fans, Major League Baseball and Columbia Pictures late last week scrapped a plan to place ads for the movie "Spider-Man 2" on the bases during a June 11-13 promotion.