USA

President Bush said Tuesday he stood by his view that US security is not compromised by a deal to allow a United Arab Emirates company to take over the operations of six US ports. This came after Sen. Susan Collins (R) of Maine, who heads the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, released a censored document that raised concerns about "intelligence gaps" the Coast Guard found in assessing the security risks of a possible takeover by Dubai Ports World. The deal has been delayed 45 days for further review.

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that federal extortion and racketeering laws cannot be used to ban protesters from demonstrating outside of abortion clinics. The decision ends a decade-old legal fight in which social activists expressed concerns that barring such protests could curtail their efforts to agitate for change.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has promised to visit California to assess the fragile levee system in the Sacramento-San Joaquin delta area, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) said. The governor declared a state of emergency late last week that identified 24 critically eroded sites.

US emissions of greenhouse gases rose 1.7 percent in 2004, more than double the rate during each of the two previous years, according to a draft report from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Baseball Hall of Fame named Effa Manley as the first woman ever elected to the shrine. She and her husband co-owned the Newark Eagles of the Negro Leagues.

The National Education Association, which represents 2.8 million public school teachers, announced a partnership with the AFL-CIO that allows local NEA affiliates to join the 9-million-member labor giant. NEA President Reg Weaver declined to predict how many of its 13,250 affiliates would join the AFL-CIO, which recently has seen five large unions leave its ranks to form a rival labor federation.