Beardface News

(02-04) 18:52 PST Berkeley — A week after blasting the Marines as “unwelcome intruders” in Berkeley, two City Council members want the city to back off the declaration that ignited the wrath of the nation’s right wing and inspired a Republican senator to try to sever Berkeley’s federal funding.

As a band played the Iraqi national anthem, officials lowered the old flag and hoisted a new, temporary one at an official ceremony at Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s office in Baghdad’s Green Zone.

The toll in Kenya’s post-election violence has surpassed 1,000, the Red Cross says.

Two Iranian sisters convicted of adultery face being stoned to death after the supreme court upheld the death sentences against them, the Etemad newspaper Monday quoted their lawyer as saying.

WASHINGTON - President Bush proposed a $3.1 trillion budget yesterday that includes big increases in military spending, major cuts in payments to healthcare providers, and extensions of tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest Americans. Bush, who inherited a budget surplus, said he expects a near-record deficit of $407 billion when he leaves office next year.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an update last week to its investigation of an outbreak of a paralysing condition that is affecting certain meat processing plant workers who use compressed air to remove the brains from the heads of pig carcases.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (Reuters) - Palestinian gunmen and Egyptian forces exchanged fire at the Gaza-Egypt border on Monday, killing one person and wounding 59 others a day after Cairo closed the breached frontier with the Hamas-run enclave.

An Israeli woman has been killed by a suicide bomber in a shopping centre in the southern Israeli town of Dimona.

The mayor of a small town in Texas has resigned after secretly keeping her neighbour’s Shih Tzu while pretending it had died.

WASHINGTON - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton said Sunday she might be willing to garnish the wages of workers who refuse to buy health insurance to achieve coverage for all Americans.

Air Force Lt. Col. James Kromberg, a former Marine aviator, became the first service member to fly the F-35 on Wednesday at Naval Air Station Fort Worth Joint Reserve Base, Texas.

Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for an attack on the Israeli embassy in Mauritania, which wounded at least three bystanders.

Muslim women working at U.K. medical facilities are increasingly refusing to comply with the basic hygiene standard of rolling up their sleeves when their washing hands, it was reported.

NEW YORK - The figure in the photograph is clad in Army fatigues, boots and helmet, lying on his back in peaceful repose, folded hands holding a military cap. Except for a thin trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth, he could be asleep.