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WASHINGTON, July 18, 2006 – Iraqi security forces captured an insurgent-run kidnapping ring and an assassination squad during two separate operations in Baghdad yesterday. In the first incident, Iraqi troops seized two insurgents believed to be involved in a kidnapping ring during an operation conducted near Abu Ghraib. The collared insurgents also are believed to have conducted illegal weapons deals and assisted foreign fighters coming into Iraq, U.S. officials said. Another person of interest was detained. In another operation conducted near Gazaliah, Iraqi forces captured four insurgents suspected of involvement in area kidnappings and assassinations in the Baghdad area. Two...

Ivorians catch bird flu dance fever By James Copnall BBC News, Abidjan DJ Lewis says the dance will stop people being scared to eat chicken In a nightclub in Ivory Coast's main city, Abidjan, DJ Lewis stretches his arms out either side of his body, bends his arms at the wrists, and begins trembling like a man possessed. A man possessed? Three seconds later, the DJ and musician sets that impression straight, by clucking loudly in his best imitation of a dying chicken. "It's like a chicken with Parkinson's disease trying to dance to hip-hop," said one onlooker. Welcome to...

5/9/2006 - MCGUIRE AIR FORCE BASE, N.J. (AFPN) -- Sports history landed in the lap of a McGuire Airman May 8 while he sat in the right field bleachers of Citizens Bank Park, as the Philadelphia Phillies played the San Francisco Giants. Airman 1st Class Carlos Oliveras of the 305th Aerial Port Squadron caught Barry Bonds' 713th home run ball, which left the Giants outfielder one home run behind Babe Ruth for second place on baseball’s career list. “Mid-game, I saw the crowd getting up out of their seats, and then I saw the ball bounce off the McDonald’s sign...

BAGHDAD, April 6, 2006 – U.S. officials announced today that Iraqi forces captured a terrorist leader in Iraq early last month. Iraqi forces captured and arrested Iraqi terrorist leader Muhammed Hila Hammad Ubaydi, also known as Abu Ayman, in the Mahmudiyah neighborhood of southern Baghdad March 7. Investigators held notice of this capture until now to wait for the results of DNA testing, which confirmed the identity of the man in custody. "Ayman's capture was the result of a determined manhunt conducted by Iraqi intelligence professionals and several intelligence agencies within the coalition," U.S. officials said in a release. Until...

Can you catch cancer? In the early 1980s, US doctors began to notice a strange phenomenon. A rare form of cancer, once confined to elderly Jewish men in Europe, was suddenly cropping up among young gay men. The explanation? By catching a new virus, called HIV, they were also developing cancer. Now doctors believe that other infections, even simple coughs and colds, can trigger everything from childhood leukaemia to cervical cancer. Should we be worried? Sarah Boseley investigates Tuesday January 24, 2006 The Guardian (UK) Within a few years, girls will be vaccinated against cancer. Not every cancer - at...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 17, 2005 – Iraqi and coalition forces working a joint operation detained three suspected insurgents with a number of munitions Nov. 16, military officials reported. The men had a 60 mm mortar tube, two 81 mm mortar rounds, a 115 mm round and a fire extinguisher packed with explosives. The men are being detained pending further questioning. Elsewhere in Iraq, Iraqi soldiers detained two men Nov. 16 during a search for suspects in a roadside bomb attack that knocked over a power line tower about 10 kilometers south of Samarra. Soldiers with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 5th...

1 million tires catch on fire in Wis. July 20, 2005 WATERTOWN, Wis. -- A massive fire erupted in a huge pile of tires at a recycling plant Tuesday, sending black smoke billowing for miles and forcing roads to be closed while firefighters tried to contain the blaze. The fire ignited in about 1 million tires at the Watertown Tire Recycling Co., said Lt. Doug Ninmann of the Dodge County Sheriff's Department. No one was injured and the cause wasn't determined, but people within a mile's radius were warned to take shelter if the smoke becomes too intense, he said....

How's this for a fish story? A priest known by locals as the Fishing Father was praying the Magnificat as he was ice fishing one cold afternoon last month. He makes a point of praying whenever he fishes, whether he catches anything or not. On. Jan. 4, it turned out to be quite an intercessory prayer: the Rev. Mariusz Zajac pulled in a world-record walleye, 18.3 pounds. Delighted with his catch, Zajac promptly posted a photo of him holding the lunker on a fishing enthusiasts' website, and the Internet was instantly abuzz about his Lake of the Woods haul --...

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) plans to ask Congress to spend more to crack down on undocumented workers and arrest and deport illegal immigrants. But he wants to fund only a fraction of the new Border Patrol agents called for in a bill he signed last year. Bush's budget plan will call for spending $23 million, nearly five times the current level, on work site investigations by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a government official familiar with the spending plan told The Associated Press on Tuesday. The money would be used to conduct audits on employers, investigate violations...

There was always a game going on in my neighborhood....... We didn't have a real ball field; we cobbled one together from a couple of backyards, a vacant lot, a garden, and a dog pen. My back yard was the infield in spring; I remember a man my father used to work with coming by and being greatly distressed at how we neighborhood boys had worn base paths into the grass. "Those boys are killing your yard," the man said. And I remember my father's answer: "Those boys will be gone someday, that grass will grow back."

<p>People age 15 to 24 account for far more cases of sexually transmitted diseases than any other age group, driving a multi-billion dollar medical problem, new studies by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.</p> <p>Those young Americans - half of whom will get an STD before age 25 - accounted for 9.1 million of the 18.9 million new cases reported in 2000, even though they make up only a quarter of the sexually active population.</p>

Europe's 10-year mission to catch a comet Europe's mission to land a spacecraft on a comet is set for take-off next month, a year after the project was delayed because of problems with a rocket launcher. The European Space Agency will propel the Rosetta craft into space on February 26 from a base in Kourou, French Guiana, said Jean-Yves Le Gall, director-general of Arianespace, which made the rocket that will launch the craft. If the Rosetta mission succeeds, it will break new ground by placing a lander on a swift, icy comet. Until now, spacecraft only carried out brief fly-bys...

Cats 'can catch and pass on Sars' Medical researchers have found cats can catch Sars and pass it on to other animals. A team of US scientists at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston say the finding raises the question of whether cats can pass the virus to humans. Researcher Dr Robert Shope, an expert on emerging diseases, said: "You might want to quarantine the pets as well as the people. If it's been shown that the virus can transmit from cat to cat, it doesn't take much of a leap of faith that it will transmit to...

LONDON (Reuters) - A new screening technique being developed by scientists in England may help turn the tables on breast cancer by identifying tumors far earlier. Breast cancer is one of the biggest killers of women across the world, accounting for more than 43,000 deaths a year in the United States and 13,000 in Britain alone. As with all cancers, early detection is key to enhanced survival rates. Currently mammograms can only detect tumors when they have grown to between 10 and 12 millimeters across, but New Scientist magazine reported that a technique being developed at University College London can...

Catch some rays, sun-shunning Aussies told August 05 2002 at 08:51AM Sydney - After years of being ordered to shun the sun, Australians are now being advised to get a little more light in their lives. New research suggests that efforts to reduce skin cancer and a growing tendency for people to stay indoors may be having an unwanted adverse effect - vitamin D deficiency, which can contribute to the brittle bone disease osteoporosis. In a "clinical update" published in the respected Medical Journal of Australia, Professor Caryl Nowson of Deakin University reported that the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency...