USA
Setting the scene for possible protests, President Bush was attending a campaign fund-raising event in Pittsburgh, a bastion of the troubled steel industry, a day after administration officials indicated he'll lift tariffs on steel imports later this week. American goods face billions of dollars in threatened retaliatory duties by the European Union and other trade partners, after the World Trade Organization last month ruled the tariffs illegal. But US Steel Corp. chief executive Thomas Usher, a co-host of the fund-raiser, said: "To buckle under to the Europeans would be a mistake."
In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court found 20 seconds is a sufficient wait before police break down a suspect's door in illegal-drug searches. Any longer, the justices agreed, would allow time to dispose of evidence. The high court declined, however, to say how long officers should wait in serving other types of warrants. The case involved a 1998 drug bust in Las Vegas.
Defending police actions in a case that reignited racial tensions in Cincinnati, the city's police chief said officers appeared to follow procedure in subduing a black man who died in custody Sunday. A police video shows Nathaniel Jones lunging at the six officers, who struck him with nightsticks. Preliminary tests found traces of cocaine and another drug in Jones' system, officials said. His death is under investigation by the Citizen Complaint Authority, set up after 2001 race riots touched off by the police shooting of an unarmed black man.
A leading plague researcher at the center of a bioterrorism scare was acquitted on the most serious federal charges against him, but was found guilty on 47 other counts by a jury in Lubbock, Texas, Monday. Thomas Butler of Texas Tech University was cleared of smuggling samples of plague bacteria into the US and lying to the FBI, after reporting 14 vials missing from his lab. Butler later said he may accidentally have destroyed the vials, but isn't sure. He was convicted on unrelated embezzlement and fraud charges for negotiating contracts with pharmaceutical firms while doing clinical studies for them.
In a victory for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), the state Assembly voted Monday to overturn a law that would have allowed illegal immigrants to obtain drivers's licenses. Schwarzenegger vowed to repeal the controversial measure during his campaign to replace former Gov. Gray Davis (D).
After weekend dog attacks that killed one woman and injured two other people, authorities in Denver are considering negligent homicide charges against the animals' owners. Neighbors said the three pit bulls were notorious menaces.