A horse rider passes through a flourishing rape field in western Germany. The 45-year-old pop star reportedly gave the elder boy wine to drink and on at least two occasions the child passed out. He reportedly touched the boy inappropriately after he had passed out. He reportedly surfed the internet on a laptop computer with the boy to find images of naked women. Facades were torn off buildings, revealing rooms still ablaze. Cars parked nearby were smashed by debris. Clouds of dust and black smoke rose from the seven-story building and settled over the neighborhood. A third of those polled feel strongly this is the case; another third say they have at least some worries. "I think we're twitching on the edge of Armageddon; a lot of people I work with feel the same way," He rejected the idea that terrorists are winning the fight, but he added, "They're not losing it, either." Two vans passing the station were destroyed - one carrying kindergartners, the other taking girls to middle school. Dead children, burned beyond recognition, were taken to hospital morgues. Poppy cultivation has been increasing in the remote tribal regions along the border. The government has little control over the region and opium poppies fetch much higher prices than other crops, like corn, grown by the region's impoverished farmers. Bulldozers began demolishing a partially built building, witnesses said, while gunmen exchanged fire with troops. Four gunmen and three civilians, including a 15-year-old boy, were killed, hospital officials said. Twenty-seven others were wounded. Rescue workers used heavy equipment and shovels Wednesday to dig for possible victims trapped in the basement of a flattened tavern where at least three others were killed. They said workers were hampered by the century-old building's crumbling, unstable sandstone walls. "You can't just go in there and tear it apart," the mayor said. "You have to do it by hand." Objections. "Must prostitutes be left exposed to slavery or murder at the hands of pimps because protecting them from crime would encourage them to ply their trade and thus offend almost every religious faith?" the court asked. Radio and television stations plan to play part or all of the tapes from those arguments as part of news coverage of the cases. Ordinarily, news organizations covering the court must rely only on handwritten notes from oral arguments, because reporters are not allowed to bring tape recorders or cameras into the courtroom. Recent years have seen a flowering of nostalgia for East Germany in the east where high unemployment and a declining population have prompted many to recall fondly the advantages of life under the communist regime. "I am angrier because all this time I thought he was crazy," she said. "Seeing him today and hearing him, I don't think that he is crazy." Aborigines believe that to point a kangaroo bone at someone is to bring that person ill fortune, and the black magic is strong enough to cause death. British commuters take note -- the respectable person sitting next to you on the train fumbling with their cell phone might be a "toother" looking for sex with a stranger. Chinese police have broken up a gang of deaf teenaged robbers who carried out a string of thefts on the orders of a brutal leader. The risk was similar to Internet users "running naked through the jungle, which didn't matter until somebody released some tigers." The group said it has seen a surge this year in the number of sites that promote terrorist recruitment, urging young people to join "holy wars" and become suicide bombers. A Mexican cook killed his drinking buddy, cut up his body and boiled him in herbs, according to police who fear he may have been turning him into tamales. Tamales are made of packets of maize dough with a savory or sweet filling, typically wrapped in corn husks or banana leaves. They often contain pork or chicken. "I am not aware of any country that allows free-for-all sex in the barracks," he said. "You can't have people going around the barracks having sex everywhere. It's ludicrous." A German woman and a male friend face prosecution for human trafficking after they put the woman's daughter up for auction on the Internet at a starting price of one euro ($1.18), authorities said on Wednesday. The few arms that have been surrendered so far were "junk," - including rocket-propelled grenade rounds marked "inert," 100 rusted mortar shells, dud rockets and unusable guns. One of the missing pieces is about the size of a pencil. The other is about as thick but is 17 inches long. Photographs of flag-draped cases bearing American casualties from Iraq should not have been made public under a Pentagon policy prohibiting media coverage of human remains, officials said. "As people began to see the reality of it and see the 55,000 people who were killed coming back in body bags, they became more and more upset by the war," he said. "This is not about privacy. This is about trying to keep the country from facing the reality of war. Consider what might happen if government were asked to put out a daily newspaper. Well, for starters, there would likely be a flurry of meetings, leaked memos, and then I suspect leaked recommendations, followed by the adoption of a draft policy guideline and then a 90-day open comment period where interest groups would proceed to shred that guideline." The government has also urged the industry to adopt stringent measures, such as storing aircraft in locked hangars, installing hidden switches to prevent aircraft thefts and securing fertilizer, pesticides and other chemicals. The Army, for example, is reorganizing to increase the number of combat brigades from 33 to as many as 48 over the next several years. And the Pentagon is finding ways to pull troops out of jobs that could be done by civilian Defense Department workers or government contractors, thus freeing more troops for combat-related duties. Jurors deciding the case of a white supremacist charged with trying to hire someone to kill a judge who ruled against him asked to review the testimony of a former follower who said his leader asked him to carry out the deed. The girl became upset and began to use profanity and hit the office assist button on the classroom wall, the incident report said. The teacher then allegedly told two 14-year-old boys to pick up the girl and throw her out the window. Prisoners jumped from the walls of a Brazilian prison to escape an uprising in which inmates have butchered their foes, severed their heads and brandished them from the walls. On Monday, rebel inmates threw the mutilated corpses of rivals from the walls around the prison. They decapitated two of the dead men and hung their heads from the wall. The inmates also strung up three dead bodies by their feet as horrified relatives waiting outside watched. The couple, described by officials as a 32-year-old transsexual with female breasts wearing a purple thong and a 17-year-old boy in white boxer shorts, were admitted to the hospital for psychiatric evaluation. "Lots of believers, men and women, came to me and asked permission to become martyrs and to execute martyrdom operations. I keep telling them to wait, but if there was an assault on our cities or on our religious authorities we will be time bombs and will not stop before destroying enemy forces. Most of the victims died of multiple trauma, many suffering crushed chests and limbs or heads partially or totally torn off. An HIV outbreak in the adult movie industry is contained, a health group said Thursday in arguing against a call for government regulation of the multibillion-dollar industry. Since announcing last week that two performers tested positive for HIV, the Adult Movie Industry Healthcare Foundation has identified 51 performers who had on-screen sex with them after they contracted the virus. Among American, Chinese and Turkish writers, poets died significantly younger than nonfiction writers, and among the entire sample, poets died younger than both fiction writers and nonfiction writers. The document softened a draft that had discouraged the use of altar girls and denounced such practices as applauding and dancing during Mass. The woman described satanic ceremonies in which clergy members placed her in a coffin filled with cockroaches, forced her to swallow what she believed to be a human eyeball and penetrated her with a snake "to consecrate these orifices to Satan." She also alleged that the group of clerics killed an infant and a 3-year-old child, performed an abortion on her and mutilated dogs during the rituals, according to a copy of her statement. The daughter was hospitalized for psychiatric examination. No charges were filed because the mother's death was from natural causes. No further details were available. "Chemical munitions could mean any number of things," including smoke grenades, he said. In all, more than 1 million barrels of oil could not be loaded during the shutdown. "But it's not the company's fault if it has a dumb client. I'm not blaming the companies, I'm blaming the government." Staring back at her was a woman inside a three-foot-long felt and satin vagina. "Loco! Loco!" she squealed. The group gathered around and snapped photos. "These people have no shame!" Cipro became widely known during the anthrax scare in 2001, when it was given to people exposed to the lethal spores. Five people were killed and 17 sickened in the anthrax attacks. Last year, 5 million people became infected. That's a failure of prevention," he said. "Last year 3 million people died of AIDS, more than ever before. That's a failure of providing treatment." But there are downsides to the two commonly used chelation drugs. One requires painful shots directly into muscle and the other is taken orally, a method of little use to a vomiting patient. The potato commission had been supported by 20 different organizations that represent products including toothpaste, bottled water, smoke detectors, and baby products. Justices were told their certification marks are put on more than 17 billion products each year. Some lawmakers worry that private security forces operate too far outside U.S. military control - and laws. And experts wonder what would happen if a contractor did something tragically wrong, like shoot an Iraqi child. Ten companies with billions of dollars in U.S. contracts for Iraq reconstruction have paid more than $300 million in penalties since 2000 to resolve allegations of bid rigging, fraud, delivery of faulty military parts and environmental damage. Secret Service agents questioned a high school student about anti-war drawings he did for an art class, one of which depicted President Bush's head on a stick. Another pencil-and-ink drawing portrayed Bush as a devil launching a missile, with a caption reading "End the war - on terrorism." The drawing that drew the most notice showed a man in what appeared to be Middle Eastern-style clothing, holding a rifle. He was also holding a stick with an oversize head of the president on it. "If this 15-year-old kid is perceived as a threat to the president, then we ARE living in '1984', I'm telling Christians to stay indoors and don't be provoked," he said. The judge dismissed the complaint of disturbing the peace, saying it had not broken any noise restrictions. "Laughter is a general sound of life. It will not be banned," he said. It was not clear who shot the policemen. But as the dead and injured officers were taken into a hospital next to the city's largest mosque, an angry crowd gathered. Men armed with machetes and sharpened sticks shouted "God is Great" and called for a holy war against the region's Christian separatists. The first group of three hostages has received the brunt of media coverage. Their kidnapping was announced in a video showing them blindfolded, kneeling before their heavily armed captors. Riot police detain a pro-democracy protester during a demonstration. Nearly every day, angry people fill the streets, demanding a return to democracy. Nearly every evening, hundreds of those same people pack the city's jails. Most are freed after a few hours under arrest. And the next day, the cycle begins again. After hours in traffic, some motorists were so furious that some yelled out for the man to jump. Gunfire and mortar blasts could be heard for more than an hour in the afternoon, then three thunderous explosions shook the area as warplanes circled overhead. Two black plumes of smoke rose over the area, as heavy machine-gun fire continued. After the attack, a cargo truck was left with its tires shot out and windshield pockmarked with bullets. Pools of blood were on either side of the truck's cab, and U.S. soldiers at the scene said two casualties were taken away. Their nationalities were unknown. While Saddam was in power, the government organized festivals throughout Iraq on his birthday. He was ousted from power during a U.S.-led invasion last year. At that time, about 200 people gathered in Tikrit waving Iraqi flags on his birthday, a celebration that was broken up when U.S. soldiers in Humvees with mounted machine guns arrived and threatened to use force. "People were screaming my name," he said. "It was crazy. People who don't normally even talk to me have been very supportive." A narcotic painkiller that looks like a lollipop - designed to speed relief to cancer patients - is starting to show up in illegal sales with the nickname "perc-a-pop." The drug's ease of use and sweet taste have law enforcement officials worried about the potential for abuse. A berry-flavored lozenge on a stick, contains the synthetic opioid fentanyl. "It's a drug that is easily administered or taken by somebody who might be afraid to either take a pill, snort or inject a needle in their arm." The street value of a perc-a-pop is $20. "It is a big problem. Rabbits are being killed with kindness. They are designed to eat grass but are being fed things like pizza, crisps and digestive biscuits." The soft, white, shiny cheese, Druzhba, or 'friendship', comes in small squares wrapped in foil -- and has long been a cult snack to go with vodka. The government had been tipped off about the dawn attacks in the southern provinces and were lying in wait with overwhelming firepower. "We want to express our regret to chickens for having to kill them, while also giving thanks to them for providing us with food, I don't know how chickens feel about it, but humans should show appreciation. There were so many chickens that had to be sacrificed because of the bird flu. So a memorial service is extremely important." There was nothing deliberately humorous about the chicken funeral services. Over 200 officials and poultry producers observed a minute of silence and then bowed to the stack of eggs. "We now have more than 300 blood bottles, compared to only 150 three weeks ago. We are getting stuff more than the usual," he said. The declaration, adopted unanimously, committed the countries to teach children about combating anti-Semitism and to promote remembrance of the Holocaust, in which 6 million Jews were killed by the Nazis. And bits of debris and concrete dust filled the air. "It was not something you wanted to breathe. It was something you had to taste," he said. One picture shows an Iraqi prisoner who was told to stand on a box with his head covered and wires attached to his hands. The prisoner was told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted. Other photos showed naked prisoners being forced to simulate sex acts. "We've had a very high rate with our styles of getting them to break; they usually end up breaking within hours." Methods often reported, it said, included prolonged sleep deprivation, beatings, exposure to loud music and prolonged periods of being covered by a hood. A policeman in Berlin has been suspended after he gave a fellow officer the stiff-armed Hitler salute at the start of his shift. "These people do not have a specific logic, and unfortunately, we are facing a group of insane people. "Flying saucer fever has gripped Iran after dozens of sightings in the last few days. Fanciful cartoons of alien spacecraft have adorned the front pages. "Nous sommes desoles que notre president soit un idiot. Nous n'avons pas vote pour lui." The translation reads: "We are sorry that our president is an idiot. We did not vote for him." Both stations also showed a photograph of a female U.S. soldier standing by a hooded naked prisoner. The soldier is pointing at his genitals, which are blurred out, and grinning at the camera. The stations also broadcast a picture of several naked men intertwined as if they were engaging in a sex act. "Some people have asked me to tone down my words and to avoid escalation with the Americans. My response is that I reject any appeasement with the occupation and I will not give up defending the rights of the believers. America is the enemy of Islam and Muslims and jihad is the path of my ancestors.It had pretty much turned the right side of my head into hamburger," he testified. Seconds later, he was hurled face-first into a wall as concrete and steel from the floor above him crumbled and fell. He suffered a fractured skull and broken nose, and he suffered permanent blindness in his right eye when a two-centimeter shard of glass pierced it. "Those people all had normal levels of uranium in their urine," the doctor claimed. The scandal comes on the heels of another in January when six veterans of the city's drug squad were charged with, among other things, perjury, extortion and assault. That same month, a homeless man, who said he had been savagely beaten by officers six years ago, was awarded money in his suit against the police department. "We're disposable," she said of the military's attitude toward reservists. "Why would they want the active-duty people to take the blame? They want to put this on the M.P.'s and hope that this thing goes away. Well, it's not going to go away." The militants made an unusual and horrific appeal to recruit the young, dragging the bloodied corpse of a Westerner through a high school parking lot and urging the students to join their brethren in a holy war. They appear to have badly miscalculated the response: school officials said some of the boys ran from the scene crying; others spoke of nightmares. "This is not right," said a traumatized 18-year-old. "This is un-Islamic." One of his friends was dead, 12 others lay wounded and the four soldiers still left standing were surrounded and out of ammunition. The siege began after four civilian security personnel were attacked, killed, burned and mutilated. The girl testified that she tried to escape from the trailer, but did not scream or shout for help. "I was too scared. I was afraid he'd hit me or something," she said. In fact, he plans to undergo a sex-change operation. Tom will become Marla. "Was there an environment, a culture that not only condoned this, but encouraged this kind of behavior? Who was in charge? Was there a breakdown in command here? ... We need to understand all the dynamics of this." Passengers walk through a "puffer" machine, which sucks in the air around them and within seconds determines whether they've been in contact with explosives. Every person constantly radiates as much heat as a 100-watt light bulb in a "human convection plume." The puffer machine has a hood that catches the optimal amount of plume, he said. Higher-level radioactive waste, including uranium ore sludge and powdery metallic production wastes, will need a more secure disposal site with lined pits. Asked how many American troops have died in Iraq, the Pentagon's No. 2 civilian estimated the total was about 500 - more than 200 soldiers short. 20 militiamen were killed in the battle - based on bodies and "watching young men fall after being hit." He said there were few civilian casualties because troops were using precision fire. "There will be an investigation, there will be a prosecution, and heads will roll." The growing popularity of hybrid vehicles is a step toward cleaner air and less dependence on gasoline. But for rescuers at accident scenes, they represent a potential new danger: a network of high-voltage circuitry that may require some precise cutting to save a trapped victim. "You don't want to go crushing anything with hydraulic tools," said an assistant chief with the Fire Department. "It's enough to kill you from what they're telling us in training." Hybrids draw power from two sources, typically a gas or diesel engine combined with an electric motor. The battery powering the electric motor carries as much as 500 volts, more than 40 times the strength of a standard battery. That worries those who must cut into cars to rescue people inside. "Everybody's concerned about the electrical side, but could you imagine if we tried to bring gasoline out today as a motor fuel?" It was not immediately clear where the two girls were fatally shot. "The problem is, the information was wrong." If terrorists downed an airliner with a shoulder-fired missile, the cost to the airline industry could run into the billions of dollars. "The nation is awash in conservative misinformation," adding "viewers and listeners are bombarded by conservative misinformation presented as fact." While frogs had been known to hitch rides in the cargo holds of aircraft, it was the first time the Quarantine Service was aware of one being found in a meal. A Texas man so moved by the film "The Passion of the Christ" that he went to police in March and confessed to killing his girlfriend pleaded not guilty to the murder. They said they had been told up until the last minute that he would plead guilty. "I was in shock. I was, like, 'What did he say? Not guilty?" A Texas man is suspected of using a bubble bath by candlelight and soothing music as bait to set a date with death for his wife. He appeared to accidentally bump the radio, the wife was able to bump the radio before it hit the water, and thought that there might be something suspicious. What she found was that her husband had recently visited Web sites that detailed bathtub electrocutions. "These things are complicated, they take some time," he said of the investigations. "The system works." An investigation into reports of inappropriate sexual contact, improper use of physical restraints and long stays in isolation units. "The photos that we all saw last week and into this week stunned every American. It was shocking. It showed acts that are despicable. ... What they did was illegal, against all regulation, against all standards. It was immoral." President Bush rode across Ohio on Monday in a bus emblazoned, "Yes, America can." It turns out the bus was made in Canada. Two men and a woman were convicted of assaulting six children as part of a crime ring that allegedly included sodomy, group sex and pornographic photography. None of the children were ever examined by doctors, even though some of the allegations included forcible sodomy. President Bush told a skeptical Arab world on Wednesday that the treatment of Iraqi prisoners by some members of the U.S. military was "abhorrent" and does not represent "the America that I know." He stopped short of apologizing. Much of the slang is the vernacular of "Javads," a wayward breed of young men who drive around Tehran, trying to lure girls into their cars. Unsurprisingly, many of their racy, often chauvinistic expressions derive from their beloved automobiles. A "zero kilometer," a reference to a car with no mileage on the clock, is a virgin. "Been in an accident" refers to a girl who has become pregnant. Girls' backsides, a favorite talking point of hot-blooded Javads, are "hubcaps." The byproducts of a Texas cow that was destroyed after it showed potential signs of a central nervous disorder must be made into pig feed or be destroyed. "It really doesn't matter if the army is disbanded," he said. "I don't want war. Who likes war? There should be a peaceful solution." Falling in love -- that crazy, blissful feeling -- causes gender-bender changes in men and women's testosterone levels. A study by an Italian researcher shows that when couples fall in love their testosterone levels alter. It falls in men and rises in women so they become more like each other. No one could figure out why Lara the cow stopped giving milk until an Albanian veterinarian pulled plastic from her guts as heavy as the average woman. "This culture is in big trouble. All you see on television are debased images. You saw the Super Bowl. I don't even need to say anything more about it." Among the records were documents indicating that he was transferred from parish to parish after allegations surfaced, and that he had attended a forum with other people who later went on to form the North American Man-Boy Love Association, or NAMBLA. "It's the accumulation of all these miscalculations, misconceptions and missteps - and an arrogant inability to admit his mistakes - that require him to step down." "First they beat us. They hit us all over, then they tore off our clothes." He said the abuse lasted for four hours, during which they were all kept naked, a particularly humiliating experience in conservative Arab culture. "In our cells we didn't have water, we didn't have toilets, we just had buckets for our needs," she said. "There were no beds. There were mattresses on the floor, but they were always damp. There was no contact with your family. You were completely cut off from the outside." At one point, he said, the men were forced to climb on top of each other in a pile. He pointed at a photo of seven nude men stacked in a pyramid. "That's me," he said, indicating the man at the bottom left of the picture. The guards lifted his hood, and as a female guard stood in front of him, ordered him to masturbate, he said. They then pulled his hood back down. "I was standing there, then they took my hand and put it on the head of someone in front of me." Nocturnal with an excellent sense of taste, rats can detect minute amounts of poison, down to one part per million. "We need to close that loophole, because real bullets that killed real people went through those loopholes." By one estimate, rats are behind 26 percent of all electric cable breaks in New York because of their attraction to wires. Their front two teeth grow five inches (12.5 cm) a year and allow them to gnaw on concrete and steel. Their skeletons can collapse so they can squeeze through holes as small as three quarters of an inch wide -- the average width of their skulls. New York subway workers call them track rabbits, and when rats are not foraging for food they are having sex. Rats have sex 20 times a day with as many females as possible. Also, rats in all-male colonies will have sex with each other. "This is the worst destruction I've seen," he said. "Usually it's decay that causes problems. Sometimes they arrested all adult males present in a house, including elderly, handicapped or sick people," it said. "Treatment often included pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking and striking with rifles." Troubling to Israelis is the fact that one influential group of evangelicals believes in a final, apocalyptic battle between good and evil in which Jesus returns and Jews either accept him or perish - a vision that causes obvious discomfort among Jews. "I don't want my people to be assassinated, sacrificed, killed or slaughtered because of their beliefs." Two women and a child died when they were thrown from the SUV, while its other four occupants - a woman and three children - died inside. Troopers initially thought five people died, but two more bodies were found when the SUV was lifted, authorities said. The FBI's nearly $600 million effort to modernize its antiquated computer systems to help prevent terrorist attacks is "not on a path to success," The military said there were signs of trauma to the body, which was found. "Our group today attacked the enemy armored vehicles and these are parts of their armored vehicles," a male voice said. "What is offensive to me is that we have generals and the secretary of defense hiding behind a 20-year-old farm girl from West Virginia who lives in a trailer park. That is a standard psychological war method," he said. An explosion that blew a hole in a sewage tank dumped up to 200,000 gallons of sludge and wastewater into the Spokane River and a parking lot, authorities said. One worker was missing and presumed dead and three others were injured. A search of the river and its banks was called off Monday evening, with authorities reluctantly concluding the missing man was most likely in the sewage tank. "Your attention please, ladies and gentlemen, Building 2 is secure. There is no need to evacuate Building 2. If you are in the midst of evacuation, you may use the re-entry doors and the elevators to return to your office. Repeat, Building 2 is secure." The bodies were ripped apart and scattered over the radius of one kilometer. "Sometimes I wish that I didn't know all that I know, I wish I didn't know that it could have been avoided - that hurts much more." The Pentagon issued a statement calling the claims "outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture." He said all the assaults were videotaped. "Just because it's on TV, it doesn't mean it's true." On a conservative radio talk show last week, the Republican governor said he "rejects the idea of multiculturalism" and that young immigrants should learn English and assimilate into American culture. On the radio, he referred to multiculturalism as "crap." His remarks came after the state Comptroller complained at a public meeting that he had trouble understanding a restaurant worker who spoke poor English. "I don't want to adjust to another language, this is the United States. I think they ought to adjust to us." Lemurs, once believed to be cute but basically stupid, show startling intelligence when given a chance to win treats by playing a computer game, U.S. researchers reported. So far, it suggests primitive animals such as lemurs need a good reason, such as a treat, to bother trying to count. Humans and monkeys, in contrast, will stretch their minds simply out of curiosity. A Catholic priest shot to death the mayor of a town in Mexico early on Wednesday after the pair got drunk and began punching each other during a religious festival, state officials said. Witnesses described a home where there was barely room to move because of clothes, boxes, papers and debris covering the floor. The air was foul, and the bathroom floor and tub were covered with clothes. "She is never going to have a TV show on the niceties of decorating homes or a living magazine or be a sponsor of a housewares line at Kmart, she never will," he said. "Punish the bullies, not the grieving mothers." He was kicked and punched by bullies and started sleeping in his closet with knives out of fear. He also would defecate on himself to get out of going to school. "It's the first time we can't just point a finger at a leader and say 'You did this wrong' and instead have to say 'We're doing this wrong,'" Someone clogged up a toilet in a bathroom he cleans and scrawled racial epithets on the walls ordering him to clean up the mess. He said he told his supervisor each time. "I actually found a hangman's noose hanging," he said in an interview. "It really shook me up." Access to such technology makes the Vietnam conflict - dubbed the nation's first "living room war" due to greater access to TV images - seem like the Dark Ages. Now it's instant war, in real time. "To me, the war is just kind of like another show on television," says a 28-year-old idiot from St. Louis who works in magazine distribution. "I try to check in on it a couple times a week. But it doesn't have much bearing on my life." And as awful as they are, he says he's not shocked by these latest war images. "America is the enemy of God," fighters shouted. "The good or evil it had in store for us was for experiment yet to determine, and these little vessels contained every article by which we were to expect to subsist or defend ourselves." He called the U.S. president a "jerk" earlier this year and accuses his administration of seeking to topple him, a charge denied by Washington. Opium and laudanum were among the painkillers, but many of the items on the pharmaceutical list were bleeding or purging agents. The list notes 50 dozen bilious pills -- also known as thunder-clappers -- that were powerful purgatives. The bandits had a good idea of how to get money in the used grease market, but she thinks it odd that anyone would put so much effort into making off with so much cooking byproduct. "They said, 'No way. We signed up for the core program - pre-approved for operations against the high-value terrorist targets - and now you want to use it for cabdrivers, brothers-in-law, and people pulled off the streets,'" the source said. A fireworks show before an indoor football game went awry and filled the coliseum with smoke, sending everyone outside trying to catch their breath. Two people sought treatment for respiratory problems. "It felt like I was choking, as I tried to take a deep breath, it felt like I couldn't get any air." Police said the car traveled about 30 feet in reverse, knocking down a 9-year-old girl, who was pushing her 2-month-old brother in a stroller. The car then lurched forward, accelerating as it traveled about 80 feet across the parking lot, striking another 9-year-old girl, a 21-year-old woman and 54-year-old man, police said. "All I could see was a ball of fire rising into the air and there were body parts all around. We picked up the pieces and some of them were burned," he said. Witnesses told police the car then became airborne, hitting a hedge near the front of the church before crashing into a monument bearing the Ten Commandments and pinning two women beneath its wheels. The church's pastor prepared to administer last rites. "I ran for the oils and anointed the people. It didn't look good." Horror stories already abound in the gay community, where meth's reputation for boosting stamina and sex drive made it too tempting for some. "It was euphoric beyond anything I'd ever experienced." That euphoria soon degenerated into sleepless days and deep depression. "But if crystal meth breaks out, it's going to be a big problem." He told the foreign leaders: "Watch America. Watch how we deal with this. Watch how America will do the right thing." Intelligence led him to believe the Iraqis had mobile biological weapons labs. "It appears not to be the case that it was that solid," he said. In the case of the mobile trucks and trains, there was multiple sourcing for that. Unfortunately, that multiple sourcing over time has turned out to be not accurate." He continued: "At the time that I made the presentation, it reflected the collective judgment, the sound judgment of the intelligence community. But it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading." People who eat beef tainted by the aberrant protein that causes mad cow can contract a similar rare but fatal disease. Condemning animals with broken bones is "a waste of wholesome food and an economic burden. I don't have a problem with the ban on 'sick' downers, but what about the 'healthy' animal that slips and falls, and either breaks a leg or 'splits out?'". "All downed animals that are marketed and brought to slaughter are subjected to horrendous cruelties; often they are dragged to slaughter by their tails and ears, or dumped and left to die in agony. Each and every one of them suffers unimaginable pain and fear." Two Portland, Oregon DJs were fired for making jokes as they aired a recording of the Nick Berg's beheading, station management said, calling their actions "beyond comprehension." The DJs and their producer were fired from their morning show after the pair laughed and played background music while repeatedly airing Berg's screams as militant Islamists decapitated him. The poll showed 24 percent of respondents had fallen asleep either at their desk, in a meeting or in the toilet. Thirty-nine percent said they had not fallen asleep at work, but had to make an effort to stay awake. Now's the time to make their move: Billions of the red-eyed insects, who get only one chance every 17 years to mate, are crawling their way above ground for this rare opportunity. Scientists say this year's batch, known as Brood X, is the largest of the cicada groups that appear at various intervals. North Korea harshly condemned the United States for abusing prisoners in Iraq, calling it an "empire of evil." "Yankees have turned Iraq into a chasm of death," The abuses "are a continuation of hideous terrorism and human rights abuses the U.S. has perpetrated against other countries and nations throughout its history, as it is known to be an empire of evil whose main mission is to commit aggression, murder, terrorism and maltreatment," the spokesman said. North Korea is frequently named as one of the world's most egregious rights abusers, accused of torture, forced abortions and infanticide, as well as harsh restrictions on freedom of expression and foreign travel. Angry young Muslim men attacked "nonbelievers" with machetes Tuesday, while others burned cars, stores and apartments in apparent revenge for last week's killings of hundreds of Muslims by a Christian group. Three corpses - one charred and another badly mutilated - lay in the streets; it was unclear who killed them. There were unconfirmed reports of several others killed by young men who barricaded streets with burning tires and garbage. "The terrorists who are seeking to destroy Iraq have struck a cruel blow with this vile act today," he said. "But they will be defeated ... The Iraqi people will ensure that his vision of a democratic, free and prosperous Iraq will become a reality." Women balanced mattresses on their heads, children carried blankets and men carted away sofas. One man lowered a cooking gas container by rope from a second-floor window, and another piled fire wood onto a horse cart. The army is also considering digging a deep trench, or even a moat, to block the tunnels that lead from Egypt. Italian soldier's death in Iraq roils Rome. Opposition leaders contended that after heavy fighting in the past three days and scattered clashes in the past weeks, the mission can no longer be described as humanitarian. "You can watch things about the Holocaust. Why can't you watch this?" one 14-year-old student was quoted as asking. "Shoot me! Shoot me! You'd be doing me a favor!" a badly burned inmate, recalls screaming at guards who trained their guns on inmates fleeing the burning cellblock. Gang members tried to attack firefighters when they arrived, prompting guards to fire in the air "to prevent a massive prisoner escape." The death toll is expected to rise; 103 of the 186 inmates died outright, and 23 more are hospitalized with severe burns, like those of one inmate, his face and body a mass of swollen tissue and peeling tattoos. The gangs' symbols are tattoos of deaths-head, daggers and dice. The 'homies' (fellow gang members) who were sleeping on the floor, they were all dead. There are more than 100,000 gang members belonging to 500 different gangs in Honduras. In response to the government crackdown, they have staged a number of increasingly gruesome killings in recent months, leaving decapitated heads and mutilated bodies - often of young women - alongside scrawled messages of defiance. 19 hijackers "defeated the INS, they defeated the Customs (Department), they defeated the FBI, they defeated the CIA." Nerve gases inhibit key enzymes in the nervous system, blocking their transmission. In large enough doses, sarin causes convulsions, paralysis, loss of consciousness and potentially fatal respiratory failure. Small exposures can be treated with antidotes, if administered quickly. "The details we will be presenting may be painful for you to see and hear." With gays and lesbians now legally wed in Massachusetts, foes of gay marriage vowed Tuesday to campaign hard, in state and national elections, for candidates willing to reverse the tide. "It's very difficult, once a right has been claimed in law, to reverse that right, but we're going to try," said a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. As many as 17,500 people each year are brought to the United States by human traffickers who trap them in slavery-like conditions for forced sex, sweatshop labor and domestic servitude. The women experienced food deprivation, beatings, physical restraint and were forced to live in guarded barracks. About two-thirds of the cases prosecuted involve prostitution or sex slavery, with most of the rest involving forced labor. Still, significant threats remain, especially now, as high "background noise" from terrorists and heightened sensitivity during the election year has officials on guard for a possible attack whose nature they can't quite pin down. Now - based on captured material, interviews and other sources of information - al-Qaida wants to strike with something other than a conventional explosive device. He worries about chemical and biological attacks, including a dirty bomb. And, in particular, he points to the possibility of another anthrax biological attack, following the one that wreaked havoc on the postal system, closed a Senate building for three months and killed five in 2001. "If the past is indeed prologue, then we are going to screw up, or they are going to get lucky," he said. "I can't sleep." Under heavy cover fire from helicopters, Israeli troops combed this refugee camp for weapons and gunmen Tuesday in the biggest Gaza offensive in years. Twenty Palestinians were killed, including two teenagers shot as they gathered laundry. "The kids were terrified, there was very loud boom, they started screaming and crying," he said. The Israeli army said the aim of "Operation Rainbow" was to destroy weapons-smuggling tunnels and arrest Palestinian militants. It said it did not intend to demolish large numbers of Palestinian homes. Troops tore down four homes Tuesday, witnesses said. Last week, Israel destroyed about 100 houses, making more than 1,000 Palestinians homeless. "Again and again Israel has defended itself with skill and heroism," Bush said. The cement-floor holding rooms and massive freezers are nearly ready for the horses, two years after fire destroyed the only horse slaughtering plant in Illinois and one of only three in the nation to process the meat for human consumption. "Can you imagine if we had a plant to kill dogs for human consumption?" A third recently released British detainee at Guantanamo has accused the prison camp of having a brutal punishment squad, called "The Extreme Reaction Force" and says the abuse was videotaped. The Pengtagon acknowledges that there is such a force and that everything it does is videotaped. Actions by the Extreme Reaction Forces were taped so they could be reviewed by senior officers, the newspaper said. "There was always this guy behind the squad, filming everything that happened," he was quoted as saying. He was punched and kicked and had his beard, hair and eyebrows shaved by the guards. On one occasion, he said, "they pepper-sprayed me in the face, and I started vomiting. They pinned me down and attacked me, poking their fingers in my eyes, and forced my head into the toilet pan and flushed." During interrogation, he was shackled and left in a cold room for up to eight hours. They were forced to squat with their hands chained between their legs for hours during interrogations when guards used strobe lights, dogs and loud music to extract information. The troops sometimes chat at breakfast about the images capturing the brutality of Iraq's conflict, when the power is on and the staff sergeant in charge of the chow hall turns the television to the news, or when they return at night to base camp, gritty and dusty from daylong patrolling of the desert. "Hey, you heard of that American whose head was cut off?" one Marine shouts to a buddy. "Man, those pictures, with the prisoners, that stinks," says another. "Something like this really puts the stain on all of us here, we are trying to help and this gives us all a bad eye. It's a big pool of manpower to get up to date with," he said. "It's like I've been dropped in from outer space when I look at images like that." The grisly beheading of the American by killers who said they were avenging the victims in the prisoner abuse scandal became one more argument for keeping the additional pictures of abuse under wraps for now. "The way we treated these men was hard even for the soldiers, especially after realizing that many of these 'combatants' were no more than shepherds." Charge 1 - Maltreatment of subordinates by taking "a photograph of nude detainees being forced into a human pyramid position." Charge 2 - "negligently failed to protect detainees from abuse, cruelty and maltreatment, as it was his duty to do." Charge 3 - "did maltreat a detainee, a person subject to his orders, by escorting the detainee to be positioned in a pile on the floor to be assaulted by other soldiers, conspiracy to maltreat detainees, dereliction of duty, maltreatment of detainees, assaulting detainees, indecent acts, adultery and obstruction of justice. "When the issue becomes one of holy sites, there will be no place for anything other than ... great sacrifices and the call of martyrdom," He urged supporters to demonstrate on Friday while wearing "martyrdom shrouds" to show their readiness to die. A 50-year-old paranoid schizophrenic, jabbered about being innocent and demanded his rights just before receiving a lethal injection Tuesday evening. His last words were a plea: "Give me my life back." The high court has also said an inmate may not be executed if he doesn't know why he's on death row and the punishment he faces. "He's basically saying that all we can do with someone like him is take him out back and shoot him," he said. "Everybody on the street knows he's the sacrificial lamb." Throughout his capital murder trial, outbursts earned him repeated expulsions from the courtroom. He frequently talked about "remote control devices" and "implants" that controlled him. "I don't know how to put it delicately, but when men are locked up for a long time and they see their girlfriend, or their wife, or someone else's girlfriend, it can cause tension. That's not a good thing in this kind of environment," he said. Unfortunately, with the death, it kind of sets a little different mood than we'd like to have at this time." He was drifting in and out of consciousness, incoherent and combative. "It's going to take the legal system and the political system quite some time to work this all out." A woman tried to get rid of unwanted houseguests by gassing them. A family frien