USA
President Bush is expected to unveil his fiscal 2007 budget Monday. One of its key features, an administration official said, is a proposed freeze in Medicare payments to hospitals. If approved by Congress, the recommendation by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission could save as much as $35 billion during the next five years.
Thousands of mourners stood in lines for hours over the weekend in Atlanta to pay their last respects to Coretta Scott King, who carried on her husband's civil rights legacy after his assassination in 1968. Mrs. King became the first woman and the first African-American to lie in state in the Georgia Capitol.
Winds of 50 m.p.h. and more lashed western Washington and Oregon over the weekend, knocking out electricity to thousands of customers, closing a floating bridge in Seattle, and shutting down passenger rail service for 48 hours between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, because of a storm-related mudslide.
About 2,000 inmates brawled Saturday in an hour-long melee at the maximum-security North County Correctional Facility, 40 miles northwest of Los Angeles. One man was killed and about 50 others were hurt. Prison officials said the violence appeared to grow out of a feud between black and Hispanic gangs.
Crusading author Betty Friedan, who died Saturday in Washington, is credited with laying the groundwork of the modern feminist movement with her 1963 bestseller, "The Feminine Mystique." The book asserted that women should not be limited by traditional expectations about their roles as wives and mothers.
Most of the leads from the domestic surveillance program authorized by the White House but conducted without warrants were dismissed within days or weeks, The Washington Post reported. The administration has defended National Security Agency eavesdropping because it focuses on catching terrorists.
Teenage fugitive Jacob Robida, who was wanted for a hatchet-and-gun attack on patrons of a Massachusetts gay bar, died Sunday of wounds sustained in a gun battle with Arkansas police. Robida killed a Gassville officer who'd pulled him over on a routine traffic stop. That led to a chase and shootout, during which a woman riding in his car also died.
