NATIONAL NEWS
Pa. university students upset about fitness class
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A Pennsylvania university's requirement that overweight undergraduates take a fitness course to receive their degrees has raised the hackles of students and the eyebrows of health and legal experts....
Planes ready to leave Brunswick, Maine Navy base
BRUNSWICK, Maine (AP) -- The rumble of Navy patrol aircraft flying overhead will soon be a thing of the past as the remaining P-3 Orions depart from Brunswick Naval Air Station....
Terror plot ringleader gets 13-year prison term
MIAMI (AP) -- The ringleader of a group of men convicted of plotting to destroy Chicago's Sears Tower and bomb FBI offices has been sentenced to 13 1/2 years in prison....
Police: NC girl raped, killed on day she was taken
FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- A 5-year-old North Carolina girl was raped and killed the same day she was taken from her home, according to an arrest warrant released Friday. Shaniya Davis was sexually assaulted and asphyxiated Nov. 10, the day her mother reported her missing from the trailer park where she was staying, according to the warrant. Authorities embarked on a nearly weeklong search that ended when the girl's body was found dumped off a rural road....
Pa. judges in juvenile kickbacks case win immunity
SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) -- Two former Pennsylvania judges accused of taking kickbacks to supply private detention facilities with juveniles have been granted partial immunity from civil liability....
Murder trial move to LA a setback for transit cop
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The decision to move Johannes Mehserle's trial to Los Angeles County is a setback for the former transit officer charged with killing an unarmed man on New Year's Day....
SC lawmakers to take up impeachment of governor
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- South Carolina lawmakers plan to formally consider impeaching Gov. Mark Sanford for the first time next week, the chairman of the committee beginning that work said Friday....
Teen pleads guilty in violent Border Patrol murder
SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A 17-year-old pleaded guilty Friday to murdering a Border Patrol agent who was shot eight times in head, neck and torso in the mountains east of San Diego....
Lawyer: Ohio's legal injection a human experiment
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- An attorney for a condemned killer says Ohio's new lethal-injection plan is so untested it would amount to human experimentation if used for the first time next month....
Panel: Extending nuclear weapons life successful
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- An independent panel says the United States can extend the life of aging nuclear weapons for decades with existing programs, a finding that activists contend means there's no need for the nation to design replacements for the nuclear arsenal....
Atty: Hospital hearing set for Fort Hood suspect
SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- An attorney for the Army psychiatrist charged in the mass shooting at Fort Hood says his client will have his first court hearing in his hospital room on Saturday....
Giuliani back in spotlight _ but what's the show?
NEW YORK (AP) -- Whether he's planning another run for the White House or a bid for senator or governor, or he just misses the spotlight, Rudy Giuliani is suddenly back and talking about the topic that made him a national star - Sept. 11....
WORLD NEWS
Museum: Galileo's fingers, tooth are found
ROME (AP) -- Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei's corpse in a Florentine basilica in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again and will soon be put on display, an Italian museum director said Friday....
6 world powers press Iran on nuclear issue
BRUSSELS (AP) -- Representatives of six world powers urged Iran on Friday to accept a U.N. plan aimed at delaying its ability to build a nuclear weapon, as the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency warned Tehran not to miss the opportunity to resolve the dispute....
Afghan police are weak link in security force
KABUL (AP) -- Underpaid, under-equipped and under-trained, Afghanistan's 93,000-member police force is the weak link in an ambitious security strategy to hand over defense of the country to Afghans so American and other foreign troops can go home....
Floods devastate UK Lake District, much of Ireland
COCKERMOUTH, England (AP) -- Raging floods engulfed northern England's picturesque Lake District on Friday following the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in Britain, killing a police officer and trapping dozens in their swamped homes....
Mexican reporter on organized crime goes missing
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Authorities in the western Mexican state of Michoacan are investigating the disappearance of a journalist who wrote about organized crime....
Researcher: Faint writing seen on Shroud of Turin
ROME (AP) -- A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus....
US envoy criticizes coverage of Obama China visit
BEIJING (AP) -- Washington's ambassador to Beijing hit out Friday at negative U.S. media coverage of President Barack Obama's visit to China, saying it failed to take into account important progress on many issues....
Mumbai still vulnerable 1 year after attack
MUMBAI, India (AP) -- The walls that the rockets blew out have not been repaired, and the plaster is a dense scattershot of bullet holes. Dozens of holes, blasted by grenades, pockmark the linoleum floors....
Gates: US to do its part to slow Afghan corruption
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) -- The United States will do its part to reduce corruption in Afghanistan by examining its own contracts and projects, even as it is demanding the same from the Afghan government, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday....
Kidnapped Britons say Somali pirates may kill them
LONDON (AP) -- A British couple being held hostage by Somali pirates said in an interview broadcast Friday that they fear they will be killed or handed to a terrorist group if a ransom is not paid soon....
Egyptian soccer fans riot against Algeria
CAIRO (AP) -- Egyptian soccer fans burned Algerian flags and rioted outside the Algerian Embassy in Cairo, smashing cars and shop windows, in an escalating row between the two countries over a bitter World Cup rivalry....
Swedish Soprano Elisabeth Soderstrom dies at 82
STOCKHOLM (AP) -- Swedish soprano Elisabeth Soderstrom, an international opera star, has died, her husband Sverker Olow says....
