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(12/04/07 2:48am)
MOSCOW – Foreign election observers and Russian opposition groups accused authorities Monday of manipulating a sweeping parliamentary victory for the party of President Vladimir Putin, who hailed the vote as a validation of his leadership.\n“Of course it’s a sign of trust,” Putin said in televised remarks. “Russians will never allow the nation to take a destructive path, as happened in some other ex-Soviet nations.”\nThe victory of the United Russia party sets the stage for Putin to stay in charge as a “national leader” even after he steps down as president next spring because of term limits.\nThe presidential candidate to be named by his party this month is expected to be a figurehead who would take orders from Putin or even step down early to let Putin regain his seat. Any candidate who has Putin’s support could be expected to win easily amid tight Kremlin’s control over media and official harassment of opposition groups.\nPro-Kremlin youth activists accused the United States of planning to incite “thieves” and “traitors” to seize key public buildings and squares, and urged the crowd at a postelection celebration Monday to help thwart the attempt.\nRussia’s opposition groups and European observers criticized the vote as unfair, citing reports of pressure exerted by election authorities and workplace managers for Russians to vote for Putin’s party.\nOpposition leader Garry Kasparov, the former chess champion, denounced the vote as “the most unfair and dirtiest in the whole history of modern Russia.”\nWith ballots from nearly 98 percent of precincts counted, Putin’s United Russia party was leading with 64.1 percent of the vote, the Central Election Commission said – which would give it a sweep of 70 percent of the seats in parliament.\nThe only opposition party to make it into parliament, the Communists, trailed with just 11.6 percent of the vote, with Kremlin-allied parties claiming the rest of Sunday’s vote.
(12/04/07 2:46am)
KABUL, Afghanistan – \nThe U.S. military is seeing early signs that al-Qaida might be stepping up its activities in Afghanistan, a senior defense official revealed for the first time Monday as Defense Secretary Robert Gates made his third trip to the country.\nGates said he has not yet seen data on any uptick in al-Qaida activity, but he said increasing levels of violence in the country are a concern and he plans to talk about it with other defense leaders from NATO nations operating \nin Afghanistan.\n“I’m not worried about a backslide as much as I am (about) how we continue the momentum going forward,” Gates told reporters in Djibouti on Monday just before he left for Kabul. “One of the clear concerns that we all have is that in the last two or three years there has been a continuing increase in the overall level of violence.”\nThe senior defense official said the U.S. military is concerned and is looking for definitive signs of greater activity by al-Qaida and foreign fighters, but the U.S. has not seen enough proof to draw any final conclusions. The official discussed the terrorist network on condition of anonymity because of the security concerns.\nAs Gates headed to Kabul, U.S. officials also said they are now considering the possibility of providing arms to local tribes in Afghanistan, along with training, equipment and other support. The effort would be modeled after successful efforts in Iraq to empower the locals to police their own neighborhoods.\nWhile no decisions have been made, officials said the plan is under review.\nThe U.S. military has been pushing the idea that more attention must be paid to tribal leaders in the provinces in both Afghanistan and Iraq, rather than focusing all the attention on buttressing the central governments of those two war-torn nations. The thinking is that the locals are closer to the community and their people, and thus can better police their own streets.\nMilitary officials have said they believe that the Taliban in Afghanistan is being refueled, possibly by militants crossing the Pakistani border, or through support from other countries in the region sympathetic to the militants.\nInsurgents are also finding more financing, including by taxing the widespread poppy crops that are used to make opium drugs.\nSenior officials with Gates said they are troubled by the overall increase in violence in Afghanistan, particularly in the south. And they said it will be a key topic of discussion when Gates and other defense leaders from countries involved in the coalition in that region meet in Scotland later this month.\nThis year has been the most violent since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghani---stan in 2001. Insurgency-related violence has claimed nearly 6,200 lives, according to a tally of figures from Afghan and \nWestern officials.\nCurrently there are about 26,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, including 13,000 with the NATO-led coalition. The other 13,000 U.S. troops are training the Afghan forces and hunting al-Qaida terrorists.\nDefense officials said that while NATO is still looking for at least a battalion of troops to supplement the fight in Afghanistan, the U.S. is not, at this point, moving to fill that need. Gates pressed NATO leaders earlier this year to fill some of the gaps in equipment and troops in Afghanistan, but got only a lukewarm response.
(11/27/07 5:59pm)
BAGHDAD – Iraq’s government, seeking protection against foreign threats and internal coups, will offer the U.S. a long-term troop presence in Iraq in return for U.S. security guarantees as part of a strategic partnership, two Iraqi officials said Monday.\nThe proposal, described to The Associated Press by two senior Iraqi officials familiar with the issue, is one of the first indications that the United States and Iraq are beginning to explore what their relationship might look like once the U.S. significantly draws down its troop presence.\nIn Washington, President Bush’s adviser on the Iraqi war, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, confirmed the proposal, calling it “a set of principles from which to begin formal negotiations.”\nAs part of the package, the Iraqis want an end to the current U.N.-mandated multinational forces mission, and also an end to all U.N.-ordered restrictions on Iraq’s sovereignty.\nIn a televised address Monday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said his government will ask the U.N. to renew the mandate for the multinational force for one final time, with its authorization to end in 2008. He insisted that the U.N. remove all restrictions on \nIraqi sovereignty.\nIraq has been living under some form of U.N. restriction since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the officials said.\nU.S. troops and other foreign forces operate in Iraq under a U.N. Security Council mandate, which has been renewed annually since 2003. Iraqi officials have said they want that next renewal – which must be approved by the U.N. Security Council by the end of this year – to be the last.\nThe two senior Iraqi officials said Iraqi authorities had discussed the broad outlines of the proposal with U.S. military and diplomatic representatives. The Americans appeared generally favorable subject to negotiations on the details, which include preferential treatment for American investments, according to the Iraqi officials involved in the discussions.\nThe two Iraqi officials, who are from two different political parties, spoke on condition of anonymity because the subject is sensitive. \nMembers of parliament were briefed on the plan during a three-hour closed-door meeting Sunday, during which lawmakers loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr objected to the formula.\nPreferential treatment for U.S. investors could provide a huge windfall if Iraq can achieve enough stability to exploit its vast oil resources. Such a deal would also enable the United States to maintain leverage against Iranian expansion at a time of growing fears about Tehran’s nuclear aspirations.\nAt the White House, Lute said the new agreement was \nnot binding.\n“It’s not a treaty, but it’s rather a set of principles from which to begin formal negotiations,” Lute said. “Think of today’s agreement as setting the agenda for the formal bilateral negotiations.”\nThose negotiations will take place during the course of 2008, with the goal of completion by July, Lute said.\nThe Iraqi officials said that under the proposed formula, Iraq would get full responsibility for internal security and U.S. troops would relocate to bases outside the cities. Iraqi officials foresee a long-term presence of about 50,000 U.S. troops, down from the current figure of more than 160,000.\nThe Iraqi target date for a bilateral agreement on the new relationship would be July, when the U.S. intends to finish withdrawing the five combat brigades sent in 2007 by President Bush as part of the troop buildup that has helped curb sectarian violence.
(11/27/07 2:52am)
Ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Monday registered to run in Pakistan’s parliamentary elections next month, while President Gen. Pervez Musharraf prepared to step down as army chief and be sworn in as its civilian leader. A day after returning from exile, Sharif signed his nomination papers at a court in the eastern city of Lahore. Supporters packed into the courtroom chanted “Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif!” However, he maintained a threat to boycott the Jan. 8 parliamentary vote and said that, even if he took part and won, he would not lead any government under Musharraf.\nMasked gunmen stormed the family home of a pro-Baath journalist and killed 11 of his relatives, colleagues said Monday, as Shiite legislators denounced a proposal to ease curbs on former members of Saddam Hussein’s ruling party, dimming hopes for the U.S.-backed measure aimed at national reconciliation. Dhia al-Kawaz, editor of the Jordan-based Asawat al-Iraq news agency, was in Jordan when his sisters, their husbands and children were reportedly killed in Baghdad. According to the news agency’s Web site, witnesses said more than five masked gunmen broke into the home and opened fire, then planted a bomb inside.
(11/27/07 2:51am)
PASCAGOULA, Miss. – Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott, the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, announced Monday he will retire from the Senate before January, ending a 35-year career in Congress in which he rose to his party’s top Senate job only to lose it over a remark interpreted as support for segregation.\n“It’s time for us to do something else,” Lott said, speaking for himself and his wife Tricia at a news conference.\nLott, 66, said he had notified President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour on Sunday about his plans. Barbour, a Republican, will name someone to temporarily replace Lott.\n“There are no problems. I feel fine,” Lott said.\nArizona Sen. Jon Kyl, who helped broker a bipartisan immigration bill that went down to defeat this year despite President Bush’s support for it, will run to replace Lott as the Republicans’ vote-counting whip, said spokesman Ryan Patmintra.\nLott described his 16 years in the House and 19 in the Senate as “a wild ride – and one that I’m proud of.”\nHe said he was leaving with “no anger, no malice.”\nLott’s colleagues elected him as the Senate’s Republican whip last year, a redemption for the Mississippian after his ouster five years ago as the party’s Senate leader over remarks he made at retiring Sen. Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party. Lott had saluted the South Carolina senator with comments later interpreted as support for southern segregationist policies.\nAsked about his conversation Sunday with President Bush, Lott said, “He was very kind in his remarks. Over the years we’ve had our ups and downs, good times and bad times, both of us.”\nBush did not stand behind Lott after his remarks about Thurmond, increasing pressure on the lawmaker to step down from the No. 1 Senate job.\n“He said that he felt like I’d be missed in my role” as Senate minority whip, Lott said.\nAfter the 2006 elections, when Democrats recaptured the Senate, Lott was put in charge of lining up and counting Republican votes as whip, the No. 2 job behind minority leader Mitch McConnell.\nLott, who said he wanted “to be able to leave on a positive note,” said he began thinking about retiring in August. His term runs through 2012.\nHe said he doesn’t have a new job lined up and that new restrictions on lobbying that take effect after Dec. 31, 2007 “didn’t have a big role” in his decision to retire. The regulations extend the “cooling off” period for lobbying by former members of Congress from one to two years.\nLott becomes the sixth Senate Republican this year to announce retirement. Democrats effectively hold a 51-49 majority in the chamber, including two independents who align themselves with Democrats. His retirement means that Republicans will have to defend 23 seats in next year’s election, while Democrats have only 12 seats at stake.\nLott expressed some frustration with the pace of progress on legislation under Democratic leadership, and said it was clearly better to be in the majority.\nBut he also said that politicians often take themselves \ntoo seriously.\n“In Washington, in life, we tend sometimes to get to thinking that we are especially anointed that only we can do this job, but somebody will pick up the flag and carry on.”
(11/26/07 2:55am)
Labor leader Kevin Rudd appeared set for a sweeping victory in elections in Australia on Saturday, a win that would end a conservative era and usher in major changes to policies on global warming and the Iraq war. A Labor win would also hand outgoing Prime Minister John Howard a humiliating end to a career in which he became Australia’s second-longest serving leader, and who appeared almost unassailable as little as one year ago. Potentially adding insult to injury, Howard was among government lawmakers in danger of losing his seat in Parliament – a result that would make him only the second sitting prime minister in 106 years of federal government to be dumped from the legislature.\nOfficial figures from the Australian Electoral Commission showed Labor in front with more than 60 percent of the ballots counted.
(11/26/07 2:54am)
The police action came a week before parliamentary elections and a day after authorities detained anti-government demonstrators, including former chess champion Garry Kasparov, after a Moscow rally.\nAbout 100 activists holding white flowers gathered near the Yabloko party headquarters and headed to a downtown site where they were to hold a rally, when some younger protesters unfurled banners of the banned National Bolshevik Party.\nPolice moved in, detaining young marchers first and then several dozen other protesters.\nWhen several hundred demonstrators reached the Dvortsovaya Square in front of the State Hermitage Museum, they found it tightly blocked by riot police. Police quickly rounded up another 50-70 protesters.\nThe violence occurred amid an election campaign in which some opposition political groups have been sidelined by new election rules or have complained of being hobbled by official harassment.\nOn Saturday, Russian authorities arrested Kasparov, one of President Vladimir Putin’s harshest critics, and sentenced him to five days in prison after he helped lead a protest.\nKasparov was charged with organizing an unsanctioned procession of at least 1,500 people against Putin, chanting anti-government slogans and resisting arrest, court documents said. His assistant said he was beaten during the demonstration.\nAt the hastily organized trial, two police testified that they had been ordered before the rally to arrest Kasparov.\nThe Kremlin has mounted a major campaign to produce a crushing victory for Putin’s United Russia party in December elections – perhaps to ensure that Putin can continue to rule Russia even after he steps down as president in May.\nThe constitution prevents him from serving three consecutive terms.
(11/13/07 2:23am)
SAN FRANCISCO – Federal investigators were considering Monday whether to file criminal charges against the crew members of a container ship that struck the Bay Bridge and ripped a gash in its fuel tank, creating the San Francisco Bay’s worst oil spill in nearly two decades.\nThe ship was being detained at the Port of Oakland. Crew members of the Asia-based Cosco Busan were questioned on board the vessel beginning Sunday, said Coast Guard attorney Christopher Tribolet.\nAny charges would likely fall under the negligence provisions of the Clean Water Act and the U.S. transportation code, Tribolet said.\nThe Coast Guard notified the U.S. attorney’s office Saturday about problems involving management and communication between the officers on the ship’s bridge at the time of the crash. Capt. William Uberti, the U.S. Coast Guard commander for the bay region, declined to elaborate, except to say: “It was just the way that everybody interacted” on the bridge.\nThe bridge personnel included the helmsman, watch officer, and ship’s master, as well as the pilot, Capt. John Cota, among the most experienced of the seamen who guide ships through the bay’s treacherous waters.\nIt was unclear how many crew members were still aboard the ship Monday. Questioning began Sunday, and at least six members were found to have immigration or visa issues, authorities said. Foreign crew members on board any ship in U.S. ports need the permission of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to disembark, \nTribolet said.\nDarrell Wilson, a representative for Regal Stone Ltd., the Hong Kong-based company that owns the Cosco Busan, declined to comment on the investigation. A call to the U.S. attorney’s office for Northern California was not returned Monday.\nThe ship struck the bridge early Wednesday, causing no structural damage to the span but leaking some 58,000 gallons of fuel oil into the bay. The thick, toxic fuel has fouled miles of coastline, forced the closure of nearly two dozen beaches and piers and killed dozens of seabirds.\nMeanwhile, the head of the Coast Guard defended his agency’s response to the spill while pledging a full and transparent investigation.\n“On the surface it would appear that we did everything by the book in this case as far as responding,” Commandant Adm. Thad Allen told The Associated Press while en route from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco to survey the damage.\n“However, having done this work for over 36 years, nothing is as it seems at the start,” he said. “We need to recover all the information, make sure all the facts are established.”\nThe Coast Guard has been criticized for a lag time of several hours between when agency officials learned that the spill was 58,000 gallons – not 140 as initially reported – and when that information was given to local officials and the public.\nAssociated Press writer Jason Dearen contributed to this report from San Francisco.
(11/13/07 2:22am)
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Sunday that Pakistan will stick to its January schedule for parliamentary elections but he set no time limit on emergency rule, raising grave doubts about whether the crucial vote can be free and fair. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, speaking two days after she was briefly put under house arrest, said the schedule for elections was “a first positive step,” but with an emergency in place, it would be “difficult” to campaign. Other opposition parties said Musharraf’s sweeping powers, which have already led to thousands of arrests and a ban on rallies, would make a mockery of the democratic process.
(10/22/07 2:09am)
U.S. and Iraqi forces, backed by Polish army helicopters, swept through Shiite militia strongholds south of Baghdad Saturday, rounding up dozens of militants and killing two. The prime minister met with the provincial governor, who called for reinforcements to root out “the criminals.” Iraqi police said 30 suspected fighters linked to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army were grabbed in a pre-dawn house-to-house search by U.S. and Iraqi raiders in two eastern neighborhoods in Diwaniyah, 80 miles south of Baghdad.
(10/22/07 2:07am)
MALIBU, Calif. – A wildfire driven by powerful Santa Ana wind threatened a university and forced the evacuation of hundreds of homes in the Malibu Hills on Sunday, authorities said. Flames destroyed a church and several homes, one of them a landmark castle.\nAbout 500 firefighters worked to protect Pepperdine University and some 200 homes in the upscale Malibu Crest and Serrah Retreat neighborhoods, said Los Angeles County Fire Department Inspector Sam Padilla .\nThe blaze had charred at least 500 acres and had jumped the Pacific Coast Highway, closing the popular road and setting fire to cars and trees in shopping center parking lots along the route. TV footage also showed several buildings in flames in the area.\nFaculty and staff at the 830-acre Pepperdine campus were urged to evacuate, school spokesman Jerry Derloshon said. Students had not yet been evacuated, but were being gathered at the campus’ basketball arena.\nTelevision news video showed clusters of beach-side homes ablaze.\nFlames consumed the landmark Castle Kashan , a stately fortress-like home with turrets and arched windows, as about a dozen residents watched from across a street. Chunks of brick fell from the exterior of the burning building overlooking the coast.\nErratic wind gusts pushed flames toward the Hughes Lab technology research campus, about a mile north of Pepperdine.\nFlames engulfed Malibu Presbyterian Church, which had been evacuated, said youth pastor Eric Smith . “That’s the really good news, that everyone’s out and safe,” Smith said.\nPalm trees bent in half and embers were carried through the air as wind gusted to 60 to 65 mph. Thick smoke obscured the sun.\nSusan Nuttall sat in her black Mercedes in a cul-de-sac just off the Pacific Coast Highway, saying she had fled her condo just below the Pepperdine campus.\n“We’re all scared to death and we have nowhere to go,” said Nuttall, 51, still wearing a bathrobe and holding her chihuahua.\nMitra Rajabi came to get her 80-year-old mother from her home near Pepperdine.\n“We’ve been through this before, but it’s never been this bad,” said Rajabi, 39, of Pacific Palisades . “It was like a war zone.”\nThe Puerco Canyon area was evacuated and a voluntary evacuation was in effect in the Corral Canyon area, Topanga Canyon emergency preparedness spokeswoman Lindajo Loftus said.\nLos Angeles fire Inspector Rick Dominguez told KABC news that water-dropping planes were having trouble hitting the fire because the wind was blowing the water before it could reach the ground.\nWildfires had been widely expected in Southern California during the weekend as hot weather and strong Santa Ana wind marked the height of traditional wildfire season after one of the driest rain years on record.\nAnother wildfire that broke out late Saturday had blackened about 500 acres in northeast Los Angeles County. One shed burned but no homes were immediately threatened and the fire was burning away from a freeway, authorities said.\nFire officials were focused on protecting Piru, a Ventura County town of 1,200 people about 5 miles west of the blaze on the other side of a small lake. A condor preserve also was potentially threatened.
(10/15/07 3:50am)
Wall Street extended its pullback Wednesday as investors, retrenching from an optimistic stance early in the week, waited to see how well corporate earnings and the job market have held up in an uneven economy. The market showed little conviction for a second day as economic readings offered few surprises and as investors looked for signs – possibly from the September employment report due Friday – of whether the market’s rebound from its summer lows has been warranted. The decline Wednesday preceded earnings reports from the recently completed third quarter and Friday’s jobs number, which can signal whether consumer spending will continue apace. Wall Street had little reaction to a report that the nation’s service sector, whose industries account for 80 percent of U.S. economic activity, showed a decline last month.
(10/15/07 3:48am)
HAVANA – Fidel Castro called in to the Venezuelan president during a television and radio broadcast on Sunday, the first time the ailing Cuban leader has made a live media appearance since February.\nThe telephone call came minutes after visiting Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez aired a new videotape of their weekend meeting in which he sang revolutionary hymns to Castro and called him “father of all revolutionaries.”\n“I am very touched when you sing about Che,” Castro told Chavez during his call to Chavez’s “Alo, Presidente!” program – referring to revolutionary icon Ernesto “Che” Guevara, to whom the program was dedicated.\n“There is electricity in the air,” Chavez said, obviously pleased with Castro’s call.\nOn the videotape, reportedly made during a meeting of more than four hours Saturday afternoon, Chavez also gave Castro a painting he said he made while imprisoned in the early 1990s after leading a failed coup.\nThe dark-colored painting showed the bars of his cell and a night scene beyond, with a full red moon and a guard tower in the distance.\nCastro told him he needed to sign his work. “No one knows the merit that this has, that you did this!”\nCuban state television was broadcasting Chavez’s program live from Santa Clara, where the communist government last week commemorated the 40th anniversary of Guevara’s death.\nChavez toured the museum below the towering statue of Guevara, which also contains a mausoleum housing Guevara’s remains.\nEarlier Sunday, Cuban state media released two new official photos of the men together, but provided no details about the ailing Cuban leader’s health.\nWearing the red, white and blue track suit that has become his typical dress during his convalescence, Castro looks pale and serious in one photograph published on the Web site of the Communist Youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde as he stands and shakes Chavez’s hand.\nBut Castro looks more animated in a second photograph as the pair sit in bamboo chairs at an undisclosed location while he appears to read from a book with a picture of Guevara on the cover while Chavez looks on. In both, Castro’s already sparse gray beard seems to have thinned considerably.\nThe last official image of Castro was a photograph released late last month, showing him looking more robust than in some past pictures as he stood and greeted Angolan President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos.\nChavez has visited the 81-year-old Castro several times since the Cuban leader underwent emergency intestinal surgery in late July 2006 and ceded authority to his younger brother Raul.\nCastro has not appeared in public in the 14 months since he fell ill. Castro called in to one of Chavez’s programs broadcast from Venezuela in February and the pair chatted for more than a half hour.
(10/15/07 3:47am)
SANTA CLARITA, Calif. – Firefighters finished removing charred debris Sunday from a freeway tunnel where three people died in a fiery, 29-vehicle pileup that could keep a major interstate shut down for days.\nInvestigators determined 28 commercial vehicles and one passenger vehicle were involved in the crash late Friday that killed three people and injured at least 10, Deputy Fire Chief John Tripp said. The search of the debris ended Sunday morning and confirmed no more fatalities.\nWith the large numbers of vehicles trapped inside the tunnel, “there was a potential for a greater number of critical injuries, let alone fatalities,” Tripp said.\nOfficials hope to reopen the southbound lanes of the closed freeway by Tuesday morning, but they have been hampered by concern about how many repairs will have to be made for the tunnel to be safe.\n“Our goal is to get the roadway open as quickly as possible,” said Will Kempton, director of the California Department of Transportation.\nAt least five big rigs burst into flames that spread to other vehicles and burned a full day after the crash on a rainy Friday night. At the height of the fire, flames shot out of both ends of the 550-foot-long tunnel, rising as high as 100 feet, firefighters said.\nAbout 300 firefighters were fighting the fire early Saturday, and the intense heat caused concrete to crack and melt, sending chucks falling onto a road below. Small fires lingered even as debris was being removed Saturday afternoon.\nThe bodies of two crash victims were found early Saturday and a third was found later in the day, authorities said. The dead were two adult males and one child, Los Angeles County Fire Inspector Jason Hurd said Sunday.\nThe bodies of one man and the child were in the cab of a truck hauling cantaloupe, which appeared to have hit a pillar outside the tunnel, a fire official told The Associated Press on condition his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak about the crash.\nThe other body was found in a truck about 12 feet short of the tunnel’s exit, said the official.\nThe exact ages of the victims were unknown. County coroner’s investigator Kelly Yagerlener said it could be several days before the names of the dead were released.\nThe pileup in the southbound truck tunnel of Interstate 5 began about 11 p.m. Friday when two big rigs collided on the rain-slickened highway, about 30 miles north of downtown Los Angeles.\n“There was an accident in front of me. I come to a stop and then they just start hitting me, one right after another,” trucker Tony Brazil told reporters at the crash site.\n“A couple drivers come over the top of the truck and (said), ‘Get out of here, let’s get out of here,’ so I got my wallet and my phone and I was able to squeeze between that truck there and the wall,” Brazil said.\nThe cause of the crash is being investigated.\nThe pileup snarled traffic for miles in all directions as motorists had to navigate neighborhood streets and mountain roads to get around the wreck. Traveling 100 yards on one street just down the hill from the crash took an hour.\nInterstate 5 is a key route connecting Southern and Northern California, as well as a major commuter link between Los Angeles and its northern suburbs.\nThe tunnel, built in the 1970s, and its mix of curves and darkness has long been regarded by truckers as one of the most dangerous areas of the freeway.\nThe stretch of freeway carries about 225,000 vehicles a day.\nAssociated Press Writer Jacob Adelman contributed to this report from Los Angeles.
(09/07/07 2:20am)
Briefly, they were 18-year-old freshmen sharing two things: their Navajo heritage and a University of Arizona dormitory room.\nBut less than three weeks after school started, something went terribly wrong between Mia Henderson and her roommate, Galareka Harrison.\nOn Wednesday, days after Henderson filed a police report accusing her roommate of stealing, a fight broke out between the two, and Henderson was stabbed to death, authorities said. Harrison was jailed on suspicion of murder.\n“You wonder what could provoke them to be so aggressive toward another girl because you never think that girls are going to act so violently,” said Holly Polk, a student from Elkhorn, Wis., who lives in the dorm where the fight occurred.\nPolice would not say what Harrison had been accused of stealing, and would not release the police report her roommate filed on Aug. 28.\nBut Lee Ann Dejolie, a Northern Arizona University student who described herself as a close friend of Henderson’s, said Henderson had complained earlier this week that her roommate had been going through her purse and taking things.\n“So Mia was really ticked off,” Dejolie said.\nBoth young women were enrolled in a special program designed to help American Indians adapt to college life.\nAbout 200 people, including members of Henderson’s former softball team at Tuba City High School on the Navajo reservation, went to the school’s athletic field Wednesday night to remember her.\n“It’s just tragic because the people in Tuba City know her really well, and Mia was a good kid,” said Hope MacDonald-Lonetree, a Navajo council delegate who represents Tuba City and grew up with the young woman’s mother. “She was known as a high-achiever; she was very congenial. She was not known to be in any kind of conflict or anything like that. She was just a good kid.”\nWhen Henderson filed the police report, she told police that she would not stay in her dormitory room until either Harrison or she was moved, Police Chief Anthony Daykin said. Daykin said the roommate had also been named as a possible suspect in a theft report filed by another student in the dorm.\nThe next day, Henderson declined an offer of different housing, Daykin said. The chief said Wednesday that he did not know when Henderson had returned to the dorm room or what had triggered their fight.\nBut students called police shortly before 6 a.m. after hearing screams, and officers found both young women injured. Both were taken to a hospital, where Henderson was pronounced dead.\nInvestigators would not say what kind of weapon was used.\nIt was not immediately known whether Harrison had lawyer. She denied all requests for interviews, a jail spokesman said.\nHarrison was not listed in the university’s Web phone directory, and attempts to locate her family members were unsuccessful.