Bachmann says she'd consider Everglades drilling

Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann said Sunday that she would consider oil and natural gas drilling in the Everglades if it can be done without harming the environment.

Bachman said the United States needs to tap into all of its energy resources no matter where they exist if it can be done responsibly.

"The United States needs to be less dependent on foreign sources of energy and more dependent upon American resourcefulness. Whether that is in the Everglades, or whether that is in the eastern Gulf region, or whether that's in North Dakota, we need to go where the energy is," she said. "Of course it needs to be done responsibly. If we can't responsibly access energy in the Everglades then we shouldn't do it."

In 2002, the federal government at the urging of President George W. Bush bought back oil and gas drilling rights in the Everglades for $120 million. Bachmann, who wants to get rid of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, said she would rely on experts to determine whether drilling can be done without harming the environment.

"No one wants to hurt or contaminate the earth. ... We don't want to harm our water, our ecosystems or the air. That is a minimum bar," she said.

"From there, though, that doesn't mean that the two have to be mutually exclusive. We can protect the environment and do so responsibly, but we can also protect the environment and not kill jobs in America and not deny ourselves access to the energy resources that America's been so blessed with."

The Minnesota congresswoman, who is seeking the GOP nomination to challenge President Barack Obama in 2012, is on a four-day swing through Florida, ending Monday in Miami.

At each stop she has said she wants to eliminate the "job-killing" EPA. She elaborated on the idea in an interview after rallying hundreds of enthusiastic supporters in Sarasota.

"We do have EPA's in each of the 50 states and I think that it's up to the states," she said. "The states have the right to develop their own environmental protections and regulations, as they all have."

She said she recognizes there is a federal role when environmental issues cross borders, but she added that a big problem with the EPA now is that it does not consider job creation or job losses as part of its role in enforcing regulations. She said the regulations it does have prevent businesses from being able to reasonably create a profit.

"If we create a new department that is focused on conservation and get rid of the EPA, that would send a strong signal about what our priorities are. We believe in conservation, but I also believe at the same time that the EPA has overstepped its bounds," Bachmann said.

Among other topics, Bachmann said the stock market drop after this summer's debt ceiling compromise demonstrated disappointment that Washington had not taken more significant steps to reduce spending.

"We need to get our house in order fairly quickly," she said. "What you saw with the markets was the markets reacting to the fact that Washington, D.C., did nothing to get its house in order."

She also said she would consider Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who took office earlier this year, as a running mate.

"Marco Rubio has the hallmarks of, I think, everything that a person would look for in a potential candidate. He's got so much going for him," Bachmann said, also naming South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint as another possibility.

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29 dead in suicide bomb in Iraq mosque

A suicide bomber blew himself up inside Baghdad's largest Sunni mosque Sunday night, killing 29 people during prayers, a shocking strike on a place of worship similar to the one that brought Iraq to the brink of civil war five years ago.

Iraqi security officials said parliament lawmaker Khalid al-Fahdawi, a Sunni, was among the dead in the 9:40 p.m attack.

Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, a spokesman for Baghdad's military operations command, confirmed the bombing happened inside the Um al-Qura mosque during prayers in the western Baghdad neighborhood of al-Jamiaah. The blue-domed building is the largest Sunni mosque in Baghdad.

"I heard something like a very severe wind storm, with smoke and darkness, and shots by the guards," said eyewitness Mohammad Mustafa, who hit in the hand by shrapnel. "Is al-Qaida able to carry out their acts against worshippers? How did this breach happen?"

That the bomber detonated his explosives vest inside the mosque is particularly alarming, as it is reminiscent of a 2006 attack on a Shiite shrine in the Sunni city of Samarra that fueled widespread sectarian violence and nearly ignited a nationwide civil war. In that strike, Sunni militants planted bombs around the Samarra shrine, destroying its signature gold dome and badly damaging the rest of the structure.

Under deposed dictator Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, Iraq's Shiite majority was persecuted and repressed. Shiites took power after his ouster, stoking Sunni resentment that bore the insurgency.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday's bombing, but suicide attacks generally are a hallmark of al-Qaida, which is dominated by Sunnis. Intelligence officials have speculated that al-Qaida will do almost anything to re-ignite sectarian violence, but the group recently had focused on attacking Iraqi security forces and the government to prove how unstable Iraq remains.

Two security officials and medics at two Baghdad hospitals put the casualty toll at 29 dead and 38 wounded. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

Al-Moussawi put the death toll at only six and said there was no significant damage to the mosque. Conflicting death tolls are common immediately after attacks in Iraq.

In a statement early Monday, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called on Iraqis to stand strong against terrorists and "pursue them wherever they are."

"Solidarity and unity, and standing as one line behind the army and the police, are the only way to eliminate this danger, which does not differentiate between the Iraqis and targets all of us," al-Maliki said.

The attack hit Sunnis who were praying in a special service during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, which ends Tuesday. It demonstrates anew that security measures to protect Iraqis as U.S. forces prepare to leave remain riddled with gaps, and shows the extent to which militants want to extend violence even as the eight-year- U.S. presence winds down.

The mosque's security is provided by the government-supported Sunni Endowment, and al-Moussawi raised the possibility that the bomber had inside help.

"For sure there must have been someone inside the mosque who helped the bomber," al-Moussawi said. "It must have been someone who is protecting the mosque."

Sheik Ahmed Abdul Gafur al-Samarraie, the head of Sunni Endowment, agreed that was a possibility and said the group would investigate how the bomber got inside the mosque, where an estimated 200 people were praying. He said this is the first time such a security breach had occurred, and said guards did not suspect the bomber because he had a broken hand that was bandaged.

Al-Samarraie said the bomber exploded just a few feet (meters) from him, and called himself the likely target. He blamed al-Qaida.

"Those people are infidels and unbelievers, and their criminal acts will never deflect us from our unity," al-Samarraie told Iraqi state TV. "We will remain as unified Iraqis."

He described "a deep sorrow for the murder of a child who was praying today. The blast tore his body to pieces: his legs in one place and a hand in another."

Al-Fahdawi, the Sunni lawmaker, was targeted twice by al-Qaida, in 2004 and 2005, when he was the head of Sunni Endowment in Anbar province.

The strike happened hours after the U.N.'s outgoing top diplomat in Iraq said the government in Baghdad must determine whether its security forces are strong enough to thwart violence before requiring U.S. troops to leave at the end of the year.

In his last interview after two years in Baghdad, U.N. envoy Ad Melkert said Iraqi security forces have made "clear improvements" but declined to say if he thinks they are ready to protect the country without help from the American military.

"It's up to the government, really, to assess if it is enough to deal with the risks that are still around," Melkert said in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press on the eve of his departure Monday.

"Obviously, security remains a very important issue."

The U.S. and Iraqi governments are negotiating how many American troops might stay, and what role they would play, in a mission that has already lasted more than eight years. A 2008 security agreement between Baghdad and Washington requires all U.S. troops to be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, but the country's shaky security situation and vulnerability to Iranian influence has prompted politicians on both sides to buck widespread public disapproval and reconsider the deadline.

A decision on whether U.S. troops will remain is not expected for several weeks at least, and the American military is already starting to pack up to leave. About 46,000 U.S. troops currently are in Iraq. The White House has offered to keep up to 10,000 there.

Violence has dropped dramatically across Iraq from just a few years ago, but deadly attacks still happen nearly every day.

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Gadhafi forces killed detainees, survivors say

Retreating loyalists of Moammar Gadhafi killed scores of detainees and arbitrarily shot civilians over the past week, as rebel forces extended their control over the Libyan capital, survivors and a human rights group said Sunday.

In one case, Gadhafi fighters opened fire and hurled grenades at more than 120 civilians huddling in a hangar used as a makeshift lockup near a military base, said Mabrouk Abdullah, 45, who escaped with a bullet wound in his side. Some 50 charred corpses were still scattered across the hangar on Sunday.

New York-based Human Rights Watch said the evidence it has collected so far "strongly suggests that Gadhafi government forces went on a spate of arbitrary killing as Tripoli was falling." The justice minister in the rebels' interim government, Mohammed al-Alagi, said the allegations would be investigated and leaders of Gadhafi's military units put on trial.

So far, there have been no specific allegations of atrocities carried out by rebel fighters, though human rights groups are continuing to investigate some unsolved cases.

AP reporters have witnessed several episodes of rebels mistreating detainees or sub-Saharan Africans suspected of being hired Gadhafi guns. Earlier this week, rebels and their supporters did not help eight wounded men, presumably Gadhafi fighters, who were stranded in a bombed out fire station in Tripoli's Abu Salim neighborhood, some pleading for water.

Najib Barakat, the health minister in the rebels' interim government, said Sunday that he does not yet have a death toll for the weeklong battle for Tripoli. Hundreds have died and more bodies, some in advanced stages of decay, are still being retrieved from the streets.q

Barakat said efforts are being made to identify bodies. At the least, the corpses of suspected Gadhafi fighters, especially non-Libyans, are being photographed before burial, to allow for possible future identification by relatives.

In fighting late Sunday, pro-Gadhafi elements fired Grad rockets at rebel forces gathering in the town of Nawfaliyah, not far from Gadhafi's home town of Sirte, rebels said.

Rebels gave residents there 10 days to allow rebel forces in peacefully or face an assault. A rebel spokesman said many Gadhafi loyalists have fled to Sirte and are preparing for a fierce battle.

Rebels rode into Tripoli a week ago, then fought fierce battles with Gadhafi forces, especially at the former Libyan leader's Bab al-Aziziya compound and the Abu Salim neighborhood, a regime stronghold.

As the rebels consolidated their control and Gadhafi fighters fled, reports of atrocities began emerging over the weekend.

Human Rights Watch said it has evidence indicating regime troops killed at least 17 detainees in an improvised lockup, a building of Libya's internal security service, in the Gargur neighborhood of Tripoli. A doctor who examined the corpses said about half had been shot in the back of the head and that abrasions on ankles and wrists suggested they had been bound.

The group spoke to Osama Al-Swayi who had been detained there, along with 24 others.

On Aug. 21, detainees heard rebels advancing and shouting "Allahu Akbar!" or "God is great" he told Human Rights Watch.

"We were so happy, and we knew we would be released soon," he said. "Snipers were upstairs; then they came downstairs and started shooting. An old man (and another person) were shot outside our door. (The rest of us) ran out because they opened the door and said, "Quickly, quickly, go out."

He said the soldiers told them to lie on the ground. He said he heard one soldier saying, "Just finish them off." Four soldiers fired at the detainees.

"I was near the corner and got hit in the right hand, the right foot and the right shoulder. In one instant, they finished off all the people with me. ... No one was breathing. Some of them had head wounds," he told the rights group.

Gadhafi forces set up another detention center in a hangar near their Yarmouk military base in southern Tripoli.

Abdullah, who was at the hangar Sunday, said he had survived a massacre there last week. He said he had been detained in the city of Zlitan to the east on Aug. 16 and was brought to the hangar with other civilian captives. All were beaten and tortured, he said.

"They didn't even ask us questions," he said, "They just beat us and called us rats."

On Tuesday, he said, more than 120 prisoners were in the hangar when a soldier told them they'd be released at dusk, Abdullah said. A short time later, guards hurled hand grenades inside, then opened fire. He was shot and wounded in his side, but fled the hanger. He hid outside when soldiers returned and fired on other survivors. When they left, he escaped.

Ahmed Mohammed, 25, also said he survived the massacre and told a similar story. Neither knew how many had been killed nor how and when the bodies had been burned.

Amnesty International spoke to another survivor, Hussein al-Lafi, who said three of his brothers were killed that day.

"They (the guards) immediately opened fire, and I saw one of them holding a hand grenade. Seconds later, I heard an explosion, followed by four more. I fell on the ground face down. Others fell on top of me and I could feel their warm blood ... People were screaming and there were many more rounds of fire."

On Wednesday, guards at a Gadhafi military base in the Tripoli suburb of Qasr Ben Ghashir shot dead five prisoners held in solitary confinement, Amnesty said, citing survivors. Other detainees panicked and broke out of their cells when they heard the shots, survivors said. By that time, the guards had fled, the report said.

In addition to the killings at detention centers, Human Rights Watch said it collected testimony about Gadhafi soldiers randomly shooting civilians. In one incident, on Wednesday, medical lab technician Salah Kikli said he saw Gadhafi fighters pull two unarmed men, including one in medical scrubs, from an ambulance and kill them.

Al-Alagi, the justice minister, said the reported atrocities did not come as a surprise because the regime acted in a brutal manner in the past. He said that the justice system would have to be "cleansed" before investigations can begin.

It remains unclear who is responsible for some of the other killings, including of dozens of dark-skinned men whose bodies were found in two areas of Tripoli.

Reporters saw bodies in advanced stages of decomposition at Abu Salim hospital, including in the parking lot, a ward and in the basement. Barakat, the health minister, said a total of 75 corpses were found at the hospital.

Another group of bodies was strewn across a roundabout near Bab al-Aziziya, Gadhafi's compound. Five were in a field clinic, housed in a tent, and one of the corpses still had an IV sticking in his right arm.

Human Rights Watch counted a total of 29 bodies in that area, where Gadhafi loyalists, many from sub-Saharan Africa, had camped out in recent months. The group said it was not yet clear who was responsible for the deaths.

Some rebel fighters have mistreated detainees, pushing or hitting them, though others have tried to stop abuse. In many cases, wounded rebels and regime fighters were treated side-by-side in rebel-controlled hospitals.

On Sunday, in a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, rebels apprehended a dozen black men and accused them of being mercenaries in Gadhafi's army. The detainees were occasionally punched before one of the rebels convinced his comrades the men were just migrant workers.

William Osas, a 32-year-old Nigerian, said he and other Africans had fled to a farm nearby to escape the fighting, and the men were detained while they were looking for food. Reporters from The Associated Press visited the farm and found hundreds of Africans living there, including many women.

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Irene: Wet, deadly and expensive, but no monster

Stripped of hurricane rank, Tropical Storm Irene spent the last of its fury Sunday, leaving treacherous flooding and millions without power — but an unfazed New York and relief that it was nothing like the nightmare authorities feared.

Slowly, the East Coast surveyed the damage — up to $7 billion by one private estimate. The center of Irene crossed into Canada late Sunday, but for many the danger had not passed.

Rivers and creeks turned into raging torrents tumbling with limbs and parts of buildings in northern New England and upstate New York. Flooding was widespread in Vermont, and hundreds of people were told to leave the capital, Montpelier, which could get flooded twice: once by Irene and once by a utility trying to save an overwhelmed dam.

Meanwhile, the nation's most populous region looked to a new week and the arduous process of getting back to normal.

New York lifted its evacuation order for 370,000 people and said subway service, shut down for the first time by a natural disaster, will be partially restored Monday, though it warned riders to expect long lines and long waits. Philadelphia restarted its trains and buses.

"All in all," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, "we are in pretty good shape."

At least 21 people died in the storm, most of them when trees crashed through roofs or onto cars.

The main New York power company, Consolidated Edison, didn't have to go through with a plan to cut electricity to lower Manhattan to protect its equipment. Engineers had worried that salty seawater would damage the wiring.

And two pillars of the neighborhood came through the storm just fine: The New York Stock Exchange said it would be open for business on Monday, and the Sept. 11 memorial at the World Trade Center site didn't lose a single tree.

The center of Irene passed over Central Park at midmorning with the storm packing 65 mph winds. By late Sunday, it was down to 50 mph. Only tropical storm warnings for the south coast of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia remained in effect late Sunday, and those were expected to be lifted early Monday.

"Just another storm," said Scott Beller, who was at a Lowe's hardware store in the Long Island hamlet of Centereach, looking for a generator because his power was out.

The Northeast was spared the urban nightmare some had worried about — crippled infrastructure, stranded people and windows blown out of skyscrapers. Early assessments showed "it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be," New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said.

Later in the day, the extent of the damage became clearer. Flood waters were rising across New Jersey, closing side streets and major highways including the New Jersey Turnpike and Interstate 295. In Essex County, authorities used a five-ton truck to ferry people away from their homes as the Passaic River neared its expected crest Sunday night.

Twenty homes on Long Island Sound in Connecticut were destroyed by churning surf. The torrential rain chased hundreds of people in upstate New York from their homes and washed out 137 miles of the state's main highway.

In Massachusetts, the National Guard had to help people evacuate. The ski resort town of Wilmington, Vt., was flooded, but nobody could get to it because both state roads leading there were underwater.

"This is the worst I've ever seen in Vermont," said Mike O'Neil, the state emergency management director.

Rivers roared in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In the Hudson Valley town of New Paltz, N.Y., so many people were gathering to watch a rising river that authorities banned alcohol sales and ordered people inside. And in Rhode Island, which has a geography thick with bays, inlets and shoreline, authorities were worried about coastal flooding at evening high tide.

Chris Fogarty, director of the Canadian Hurricane Centre, warned of flooding and wind damage in eastern Canada and said the heaviest rainfall was expected in Quebec, where about 250,000 homes were without power.

The entire Northeast has been drenched this summer with what has seemed like relentless rain, saturating the ground and raising the risk of flooding, even after the storm passes altogether.

The storm system knocked out power for 4½ million people along the Eastern Seaboard. Power companies were picking through uprooted trees and reconnecting lines in the South and had restored electricity to hundreds of thousands of people by Sunday afternoon.

Under its first hurricane warning in a quarter-century, New York took extraordinary precautions. There were sandbags on Wall Street, tarps over subway grates and plywood on storefront windows.

The subway stopped rolling. Broadway and baseball were canceled.

With the worst of the storm over, hurricane experts assessed the preparations and concluded that, far from hyping the danger, authorities had done the right thing by being cautious.

Max Mayfield, former director of the National Hurricane Center, called it a textbook case.

"They knew they had to get people out early," he said. "I think absolutely lives were saved."

Mayfield credited government officials — but also the meteorologists. Days before the storm ever touched American land, forecast models showed it passing more or less across New York City.

"I think the forecast itself was very good, and I think the preparations were also good," said Keith Seitter, director of the American Meteorological Society. "If this exact same storm had happened without the preparations that everyone had taken, there would have been pretty severe consequences."

In the storm's wake, hundreds of thousands of passengers still had to get where they were going. Airlines said about 9,000 flights were canceled.

Officials said the three major New York-area airports will resume most flights Monday morning. Philadelphia International Airport reopened Sunday afternoon, and flights resumed around Washington, which took a glancing blow from the storm.

In the South, authorities still were not sure how much damage had been done. North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue said some parts of her state were unreachable. TV footage showed downed trees, toppled utility poles and power lines and mangled awnings.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell had initially warned that Irene could be a "catastrophic" monster with record storm surges of up to 8 feet. But the mayor of Virginia Beach, Va., suggested on Twitter that the damage was not as bad as feared, as did the mayor of Ocean City, Md.

One of two nuclear reactors at Calvert Cliffs, Md., automatically went offline because of high winds. Constellation Energy Nuclear Group said the plant was safe.

In New York, some cabs were up to their wheel wells in water, and water rushed over a marina near the New York Mercantile Exchange, where gold and oil are traded. But the flooding was not extensive.

"Whether we dodged a bullet or you look at it and said, 'God smiled on us,' the bottom line is, I'm happy to report, there do not appear to be any deaths attributable to the storm," Bloomberg said.

New York officials could not pinpoint when transit service would be fully restored but warned that the Monday commute would be rough. The New York subway carries 5 million riders on an average weekday.

The casinos of Atlantic City, N.J., planned to reopen Monday at noon after state officials checked the integrity of the games, made sure the surveillance cameras work, and brought cash back into the cages under state supervision. All 11 casinos shut down for the storm, only the third time that has happened.

In Philadelphia, the mayor lifted the city's first state of emergency since 1986. The storm was blamed for the collapses of seven buildings, but no one was hurt and everyone was accounted for. People kept their eyes on the rivers. The Schuylkill was expected to reach 15 feet.

The 21 deaths attributed to the storm included six in North Carolina, four in Virginia, four in Pennsylvania, two in New York, two in rough surf in Florida and one each in Connecticut, Maryland and New Jersey.

In an early estimate, consulting firm Kinetic Analysis Corp. figured total losses from the storm at $7 billion, with insured losses of $2 billion to $3 billion. The storm will take a bite out of Labor Day tourist business from the Outer Banks to the Jersey Shore to Cape Cod.

Irene was the first hurricane to make landfall in the continental United States since 2008, and came almost six years to the day after Katrina ravaged New Orleans on Aug. 29, 2005.

As the East Coast cleans up, it can't afford to get too comfortable. Off the coast of Africa is a batch of clouds that computer models say will probably threaten the East Coast 10 days from now, Mayfield said. The hurricane center gave it a 40 percent chance of becoming a named storm over the next two days.

"Folks on the East Coast are going to get very nervous again," Mayfield said.

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Va. soldier sought in 4 deaths found dead in Pa.

An Army officer suspected of killing four people in Pennsylvania and Virginia was found dead in a wooded area Sunday after a manhunt during Tropical Storm Irene's winds and drenching rains paralyzed residents in this Philadelphia suburb.

Hours after he fired at several officers, wounding two of them, the body of Leonard John Egland, 37, of Fort Lee, Va., was found around 3:30 p.m. in this Bucks County community, said Warwick Township Police Chief Mark Goldberg.

The police chief said Egland had a gunshot wound but he would leave it to the coroner to determine whether it was self-inflicted.

Egland's body was found several hundred yards behind a Lukoil gas station where authorities say he had fired a semiautomatic rifle at SWAT team members who discovered his truck and found him before dawn in a trash bin. The officers chased him into the woods but lost him as the storm raked the area, Goldberg said.

"It was bad," he said. "Weather conditions were horrible and it was a very dangerous situation."

He said the SWAT teams had "performed courageously."

With Egland on the run, armed with two weapons, residents were warned to stay indoors and keep their doors locked, the police chief said.

The manhunt, Goldberg said, "tied up departments all over Bucks County ... It didn't prevent us from responding during the storm but it certainly taxed our resources."

Three Bucks County SWAT teams, state police and numerous police departments searched for Egland after his former mother-in-law was found shot to death in her home in Buckingham. Authorities in Virginia said Egland had earlier killed his former wife, her boyfriend and the boyfriend's young son before taking his own young daughter on a frantic drive through Irene's winds and rains into Pennsylvania.

The girl, believed by Goldberg to be about 6 years old, was abandoned Saturday night by Egland, unharmed, at St. Luke's Hospital in Quakertown, apparently after the child's grandmother was killed. A note was left with the child, authorities said; its contents were not released.

Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler said a nurse or orderly confronted Egland but the Army officer flashed a pistol and got away. The hospital worker called police with a description of the suspect and his black pickup truck.

Just before midnight, the truck was stopped by state and local police in Doylestown Township. Officers said the suspect fired shots from a semiautomatic rifle, hitting an officer in the arm and shattering a windshield that sent glass into the face of a Dublin officer.

Goldberg said both officers had been released from a hospital.

The truck was spotted around 4 a.m. Sunday parked at a restaurant in a Warwick Township shopping center. Local officers found Egland's truck and spotted him in the same area about an hour later and reported being fired upon. The officers, members of the Central Bucks SWAT team, were not hit, Goldberg said.

The body, found in woods behind the gas station and a business under renovation, matched Egland's description, he said.

A rifle and pistol were found with the body, which was discovered more than 10 hours after Egland fired at police the second time, authorities said.

Goldberg said that because of the lockdown, numerous residents were prevented from checking for storm damage at their homes.

"I know just from the way the phones were ringing in the police station that it was causing a great deal of anxiety among our people, and for us as well," he said. "It's a tragic event, but at least our residents can rest easy."

Police in Chesterfield County, Va., said Pennsylvania police had asked officers at 1 a.m. Sunday to check on the welfare of people at a home, where officers found the bodies of Egland's ex-wife, her boyfriend and his child. Names of the victims were not being released pending notification of relatives. A spokesman said the suspect had no known criminal history in the area.

Egland's former mother-in-law, 66-year-old Barbara Reuhl of Buckingham, was believed to have been killed Saturday night, Heckler said.

Goldberg said other family members were under police protection during the search for Egland, including one person who was at the police department. The police chief said he believed Egland's daughter was being cared for Sunday afternoon by relatives.

Egland had recently returned from the latest of three deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, Heckler said.

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Threat to David Letterman on Muslim forum

 
A frequent contributor to a jihadist website has threatened David Letterman, urging Muslim followers to "cut the tongue" of the late-night host because of a joke the comic made on his CBS show.

The Site Monitoring Service, a private intelligence organization that watches online activity, said Wednesday that the threat was posted a day earlier on the Shumuka al-Islam forum, a popular Internet destination for radical Muslims.

The contributor, who identified himself as Umar al-Basrawi, was reacting to what he said Letterman did after the U.S. military announced on June 5 that a drone strike in Pakistan had killed al-Qaida leader Ilyas Kashmiri.

Al-Basrawi wrote that Letterman had made reference to both Osama bin Laden and Kashmiri and said that Letterman had "put his hand on his neck and demonstrated the way of slaughter."

"Is there not among you a Sayyid Nosair al-Mairi ... to cut the tongue of this lowly Jew and shut it forever?" Al-Basrawi wrote, referring to El Sayyid Nosair, who was convicted of the 1990 killing of Jewish Defense League founder Meir Kahane. Letterman is not Jewish.

Al-Basrawi, which is likely to be an alias, has made some 1,200 postings to the Muslim website, said Adam Raisman, an analyst for the Site Monitoring Service. The private firm, part of the Site Intelligence Group, provides information to government and commercial clients on what jihadists are saying on the Internet and traditional media. Raisman said the online forum is often used by al-Qaida.

Muslim extremist groups in the past few months have increased calls for people to take violent action against certain targets in the West, he said.

"The concern is that there is someone who will read it, agree with it and say, 'I want to be the Sayyid Nosair of 2011 and kill David Letterman,'" Raisman said.

The FBI is also looking into the threat, said Jim Margolin, spokesman for the bureau's New York office. "We take every potential threat seriously," he said.

Neither CBS nor a Letterman spokesman, Tom Keaney, would comment on the threat. CBS would not make available a transcript of Letterman's monologue on the killing of Kashmiri.

Letterman has been the target of criminal threats in the past. A former CBS News producer was jailed for trying to extort $2 million from Letterman in 2009 by threatening to expose the host's sexual dalliances with members of his staff. A former painter at Letterman's ranch in Montana was jailed following a 2005 plot to kidnap the TV funnyman's nanny and son.

A radical Muslim group last year warned the creators of "South Park" that they could face violent retribution for depicting the prophet Muhammad in a bear suit on the Comedy Central cartoon. Author Salman Rushdie spent years in hiding after Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini urged he be killed for blasphemy after writing the book "The Satanic Verses."

Filmmaker Theo van Gogh was killed on an Amsterdam street in 2004 by a Dutch Muslim angered by his film "Submission," a fictional study of abused Muslim women.

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3 die of rare brain infection from amoeba in water

Two children and a young man have died this summer from a brain-eating amoeba that lives in water, health officials say.

This month, the rare infection killed a 16-year-old Florida girl, who fell ill after swimming, and a 9-year-old Virginia boy, who died a week after he went to a fishing day camp. The boy had been dunked the first day of camp, his mother told the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Those cases are consistent with past cases, which are usually kids — often boys — who get exposed to the bug while swimming or doing water sports in warm ponds or lakes.

The third case, in Louisiana, was more unusual. It was a young man whose death in June was traced to the tap water he used in a device called a neti pot. It's a small teapot-shaped container used to rinse out the nose and sinuses with salt water to relieve allergies, colds and sinus trouble.

Health officials later found the amoeba in the home's water system. The problem was confined to the house; it wasn't found in city water samples, said Dr. Raoult Ratard, Louisiana's state epidemiologist.

The young man, who was only identified as in his 20s and from southeast Louisiana, had not been swimming nor been in contact with surface water, Ratard added.

He said only sterile, distilled, or boiled water should be used in neti pots.

The illness is extremely rare. About 120 U.S. cases — almost all of them deaths — have been reported since the amoeba was identified in the early 1960s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About three deaths are reported each year, on average. Last year, there were four.

There are no signs that cases are increasing, said Jonathan Yoder, who coordinates surveillance of waterborne diseases for the CDC.

The amoeba — Naegleria fowleri (nuh-GLEER-ee-uh FOWL-er-eye) — gets up the nose, burrows up into the skull and destroys brain tissue. It's found in warm lakes and rivers during the hot summer months, mostly in the South.

It's a medical mystery why some people who swim in amoeba-containing water get the fatal nervous system condition while many others don't, experts say.

But the cases that do occur tend to be tragic, and there's only been one report of successful treatment.

"It's very difficult to treat. Most people die from it," Ratard said.

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New Noah's Ark in Ky. aims to prove truth of Bible

Tucked away in a nondescript office park in northern Kentucky, Noah's followers are rebuilding his ark. The biblical wooden ship built to weather a worldwide flood was 500 feet long and about 80 feet high, according to Answers in Genesis, a Christian ministry devoted to a literal telling of the Old Testament.

This modern ark, to be nestled on a plot of 800 acres of rolling Kentucky farmland, isn't designed to rescue the world's creatures from a coming deluge. It's to tell the world that the Bible's legendary flood story was not a fable, but a part of human history.

"The message here is, God's word is true," said Mike Zovath, project manager of the ark. "There's a lot of doubt: 'Could Noah have built a boat this big, could he have put all the animals on the boat?' Those are questions people all over the country ask."

The ark will be the centerpiece of a proposed $155 million religious theme park, called the Ark Encounter, and will include other biblical icons like the Tower of Babel and an old world-style village.

It's an expansion of the ministry's first major public attraction, the controversial Creation Museum. It opened in 2007 and attracted worldwide attention for presenting stories from the Bible as historical fact, challenging evolution and asserting that the earth was created about 6,000 years ago.

"The ark is really a different approach" than the museum, Zovath said. "It's really not about creation-evolution, it's about the authority of the Bible starting with the ark account in Genesis."

Inside the ark's headquarters in Hebron, a small team of artists and designers are working on the visuals at the new park, but once the project begins early next year, there will be hundreds at the creation, including a team of Amish builders from Indiana who will erect the giant ark. Many of the same people who helped design the museum are on board for the ark project, including Patrick Marsh, who helped build some of the attractions at Universal Studios in Florida.

Zovath said the ark will have old-world details, like wooden pegs instead of nails, straight-sawed timbers and plenty of animals — some alive, some robotic like The Creation Museum's dinosaurs. He said it has not yet been determined how many live animals will be in the boat during visiting hours, but the majority will be stuffed or animatronic. At their count, Noah had anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000 on board.

There are a handful of replica arks around the world, but Zovath said this one will be authentic inside and out.

"When you get to walk through the boat and see how big this thing really was, and how many cages were there, and how much room there was for food and water ... our hope is people start seeing that this is plausible, that the account could be believed," Zovath said.

A longtime critic of the Answers in Genesis ministry argues the attraction will bring in converts to creationism by challenging scientific findings about the world's history.

"Many think that since creationism is so irrational and so unscientific that nobody really could believe it, but that's not so," said Edwin Kagin, a lawyer in northern Kentucky who is president of a nationwide atheist group. The new park will be "so slick and so well done, you can get people to believe in anything. Creationism, when you're ready to believe anything."

The Ark Encounter won't be the nation's first theme park inspired by the Bible, or the first with Noah's big boat. A park in tourism-rich Orlando, Fla., features a portrayal of the crucifixion by actors six days a week, along with Jesus' resurrection and gospel concerts. The Holy Land Experience opened in 2001, but the nonprofit park struggled with debt before it was taken over by Trinity Broadcasting Network in 2007.

Other replicas of Noah's famous ship have been built around the world.

A huge fiberglass ark sits at the center of a Hong Kong Noah's Ark attraction, and another floating ark in the Netherlands is being built by a Dutch man, who wants to sail it to London for the 2012 Olympic games. Closer to home, a church in Frostburg, Md., is building a to-scale ark supported by a steel frame.

But attractions with religious themes can be a risky venture, according to an amusement park expert.

"In some ways it's a two-edged sword: If you go for the religious market, you already have something that is somewhat unique in the market, and that particular market is known to be willing to make a special effort, to drive an extra distance, to get the church groups to go out and make a special outing," said John Gerner, managing director of Leisure Business Advisors of Richmond, Va.

"The problem with that approach is you always risk bordering on being disrespectful if not sacrilegious," Gerner said. "There is a line as far as what you can do in this approach."

Some in the state hope it will be a major attraction. A feasibility study on the Ark Encounter declared that the park would attract 1.6 million visitors in its first year, Zovath said. The smaller Creation Museum has attracted well over a million people since it opened four years ago.

State officials are banking on the park's success and the 900 jobs it is expected to create, by making the project eligible for more than $40 million in sales tax rebates if the Ark Encounter hits its attendance marks.

Tying state incentives to a religious theme park has also attracted some criticism, though notably less than The Creation Museum, which received no state support. That facility was built on private donations.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, a Washington-based group, has said the park would run afoul of constitutional law.

"Noah didn't get government help when he built the first ark, and the fundamentalist ministry behind the Kentucky replica shouldn't either," the group said in a statement. But so far they have taken no legal action.

Kagin said challenging the project in court would likely be a losing battle because of the way the tax incentives are structured.

"The legislation is so drafted that they will give this incentive to any organization that is going to increase tourism in Kentucky," Kagin said. "And there's no question whatsoever that this group will."

Zovath said construction on the ark is expected to begin in the spring.

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Turkey PM compares Syrian leader to Gadhafi

Turkey's prime minister compared Syria's president to Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, as Damascus defied international calls to end the crackdown on a 5-month-old uprising.

President Bashar Assad has unleashed tanks, ground troops and snipers in an attempt to retake control in rebellious areas. The military assault has escalated dramatically since the start of the holy month of Ramadan in August, killing hundreds and detaining thousands.

"We made our calls (to Gadhafi) but unfortunately we got no result," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday. "The same thing is happening with Syria at the moment."

The conflict in Libya, which began a month before Syria's unrest, has descended into a civil war as Gadhafi defies calls to end the bloodshed.

On Wednesday, Erdogan said he personally spoke to Assad and sent his foreign minister to Damascus, but "despite all of this, they are continuing to strike civilians."

Turkey, a neighbor and former close ally of Syria, has been increasingly frustrated with Damascus' crackdown. But Turkey, Syria's most important trade partner, has not joined the U.S. and Europe in imposing sanctions.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon also spoke to Assad, demanding the immediate end of all military operations and mass arrests, according to a statement issued Wednesday by the U.N. Assad said that military and police operations had stopped, the statement said.

With tension rising, the U.N. said it has temporarily withdrawn about two dozen "nonessential" international staff from Syria because of security concerns. U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq also said some family members of U.N. staff have been relocated to other countries.

The government insists its crackdown is aimed at rooting out terrorists fomenting unrest in the country. In comments carried on the state-run news agency, Assad appeared to lash out at the international reproach, saying his country will not give up its "dignity and sovereignty."

Human rights groups and witnesses accuse Syrian troops of firing on largely unarmed protesters and say more than 1,800 civilians have been killed since mid-March.

In Latakia, a Mediterranean port city that has been subjected to a four-day military assault, security centers were overflowing with detainees Wednesday, forcing authorities to hold hundreds of other prisoners in the city's main football stadium and a movie theater, said Rami Abdul-Raham, head of the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Detentions centers are packed," he said.

A woman in Latakia died of her wounds Wednesday, two days after she was injured, according to the observatory and The Local Coordination Committees, another activist group. The LCC said a man was killed in the city late Tuesday.

In the northwestern Idlib province, a bullet killed a man as he stood on his balcony, according to observatory for Human Rights, which has a network of people on the ground. Troops were carrying out raids in the area at the time.

The regime's recent military operations have also targeted the central city of Homs, where security forces shot dead one person and wounded three during raids Wednesday, according to the observatory.

In Damascus, the regime focused its raids on the predominantly Kurdish neighborhood of Rukneddine, where security forces detained dozens after cutting electricity in the area, the observatory said. The neighborhood has witnessed intense anti-regime protests in the past weeks.

Amateur videos posted online showed Syrian soldiers in SUVs and pickup trucks as they drove down a street, apparently in Latakia. The troop were greeted in the al-Ramel neighborhood by Assad supporters chanting "our souls and our blood we sacrifice for you Bashar."

Another video showed a military helicopter flying over the coast.

The Associated Press could not verify the videos. Syria has banned most foreign media and restricted local coverage, making it impossible to get independent confirmation of the events on the ground.

Al-Ramel is home to a crowded Palestinian refugee camp where many low-income Syrians also live. UNRWA, the U.N. agency that aids Palestinian refugees, says thousands of refugees have fled the camp since Assad's forces began shelling the city in an operation that started Saturday.

"We have seen these same reports — we consider them credible —that Syrian forces fired into the U.N. Relief and Works Agency camp and that it has caused thousands of Palestinians to flee," said U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland, speaking to reporters in Washington. "This just speaks to the brutality and indiscriminate nature of the violence that Assad has unleashed."

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness said Wednesday the agency was providing assistance to about 2,000 displaced people at a temporary office outside the camp.

Tunisia's foreign ministry said Wednesday it has recalled its ambassador to Syria because of the "dangerous" developments in the country. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain also have recalled their ambassadors as Arab states joined the chorus of condemnation in recent weeks.

The foreign ministers of Turkey and Jordan renewed their call on Damascus to immediately end its crackdown.

In a joint news conference held on the sidelines of an Islamic nations' meeting to discuss famine in Somalia, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said: "The bloodshed must stop, all soldiers must be withdrawn from the cities and life in these cities must return to normal."

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Joplin goes back to school 3 months after twister

Seniors and juniors are taking classes in a converted big-box store. Freshmen and sophomores are in a building across town. The new middle school is in an industrial park.

Across Joplin, the schools are still a jumble, with books, computer monitors and unassembled furniture littering unfamiliar hallways. But as classes resumed Wednesday, students and teachers welcomed the start of another year as a return to something normal — or what passes for normal in a city crippled last spring by the nation's single deadliest tornado in six decades.

"You can't pretend like nothing happened," said high school English teacher Brenda White. "But everything is so new here. Every single thing that is this school is new and different."

The twister killed 160 people, injured hundreds more and destroyed thousands of buildings, including Joplin's only public high school. Now after months of cleaning up debris, attending funerals and trying to rebuild shattered lives, it was time to get back to pop quizzes and homework assignments.

"It's going to take a while to build everything back, but books are a good start," White said while stocking her classrooms with copies of "The Great Gatsby," ''The Kite Runner" and other literary standards, past and present.

The school system was hit especially hard by the May 22 tornado. Seven students and one employee were among the victims, including a senior pulled from his car by winds on his way home from the Joplin High School graduation ceremony. Six school buildings were destroyed, including the high school. Seven other buildings were badly damaged.

District leaders quickly realized that they would play a huge role in Joplin's recovery, for reasons symbolic as much as practical. They expanded the hours and locations of summer school in an effort to give children a reassuring routine — and their parents the time to deal with insurance agents, contractors and social service agencies.

They cobbled together a hodge-podge of temporary locations for fall classes, from the old Shopko store at Northpark Mall to a former Missouri Department of Transportation office where the superintendent and other administrators now work. Rival elementary schools combined, and a middle school found space in an industrial park.

Even in a corner of the country where hard work is cherished, the swiftness of the transformation was striking, White said.

"I've always known people are strong here. But this has really brought it home," she said. "People are so strong. They just get up, dust off and go to work."

Students arrived at the "mall school" Wednesday morning to a bevy of well-wishers holding Joplin High signs and lining the entrance road. Some teens gathered in modular classrooms, right next to a row of concrete-lined storm shelters. Others lingered in hallways.

They raved about the school's college-like feel. Drinks will soon be available from Joplin Joe's coffee bar, and every student could get a free laptop thanks to a donation from the United Arab Emirates worth as much as $1 million.

Parents and other relatives were impressed.

"It just blows your mind," said Pamela Berry, who accompanied her 17-year-old nephew to a Tuesday night open house. "I want to come back to high school."

The start of classes also offered students a chance to reunite with classmates who had endured the same ordeal.

"Everyone is closer, more friendly to each other," said senior Yainer Oviedo, whose mother and six siblings lost their home to the storm. He now lives with a classmate and still wrestles with his own harrowing memories of huddling behind a flimsy mattress while the tornado roared overhead.

"Our whole community has been through a lot," he added. "You look at someone and automatically know what they're going through."

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, who toured the school Wednesday, encouraged students to take advantage of their new learning environment.

"I hope you use what has been given to you to lift the expectations of Joplin even higher," he said. "While there's been tremendous suffering, there are even greater expectations."

Among those hoping to match those expectations was junior Christopher Jones. Unlike most years, his summer vacation couldn't end soon enough, he said.

"I was really just looking for a change," Jones said.

At East Middle School, which was relocated to a converted warehouse on the outskirts of town, students agreed that some things were unchanged: Cafeteria food still tasted terrible. Kids got lost on their way to class. And the odor of pet food from the factory across the street was gross.

Younger students, too, said they relate differently to each other — and to their parents — after surviving the disaster.

"It brought me a lot closer to my mom," said Madeline Fichtner, 13, who described riding out the storm without initially knowing whether her mother was safe.

School officials brought in additional counselors and trauma workers to help students and families who may still be struggling in the storm's aftermath.

"We can build buildings, but the emotional damage that this storm has caused is of a very significant concern and something we're going to be watching closely for months, if not years," Superintendent C.J. Huff said.

Phillip Gloyer, a communication arts teacher who is also a National Guard chaplain, said he planned to tap his divinity school training as well as his expertise in British literature.

"I'm just really focused on the kids' emotional health," he said. "A lot of hugs, a lot of encouragement. Asking them to tell their story. That's the best therapy."

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