USA
The highest-ranking soldier charged in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal pled guilty to five charges of abusing Iraqi detainees. Army Reserve Staff Sgt. Ivan "Chip" Frederick was expected to be sentenced Thursday. Several other charges were dropped in exchange for his cooperation in future investigations and courts martial, in which he could testify.
Searching to establish accountability for intelligence failures leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the House Intelligence Committee asked the CIA to turn over an internal report, begun almost two years ago, that might shed light on the situation, The Los Angeles Times reported. An intelligence official told the Times that the report is incomplete. No CIA employees have yet been fired or disciplined.
New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer (D) broadened his probe into insurance brokerage fees to include an examination of life and health insurance companies. Last week, Spitzer launched a civil lawsuit against Marsh & McLennan Cos. of New York, a leading insurance firm, accusing it of cheating customers by taking payoffs from other carriers to steer corporate clients their way.
Americans concerned about a flu vaccine shortage - and in a position to do so - were going to Canada, where clinics are offering them innoculations. On Tuesday, 80 Americans showed up in Estevan, Saskatchewan, about nine miles north of North Dakota, for shots.
Emergency workers were searching the woods and fields around Kirksville, Mo., for missing passengers on a commuter flight from St. Louis that crashed Tuesday night on its landing approach. At least eight of the 15 people on board were killed. The flight data recorder was recovered but no cause for the crash has been established.
A 13-year strike at the world's largest walnut-processing plant could be within weeks of a resolution, a regional National Labor Relations Board spokes-man said. Last week, replacement workers at the Diamond of California plant in Stockton, Calif., voted to join the Teamsters Union, one whose demands is that the strikers get their jobs back. Below, Delores Smith and Margaret Munoz, who walked off the job in 1991, stand before the plant.
