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Saying "We need more peace, as opposed to process," Jordan's King Abdullah II called for accelerated talks on Middle East peace and Palestinian statehood. Until such goals are in sight, Abdullah told CNN late Monday, moderate Arab states won't be able to address terrorism among their people. The king is expected to make the same case in talks today with President Bush, who is seeking to organize a regional peace conference this summer. Bush met with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon yesterday. (Related stories, pages 1, 2, 3.)
Boston Cardinal Bernard Law is due to be deposed today in a civil suit against John Geo-ghan, a defrocked Roman Catholic priest accused of molesting dozens of children. Law is under pressure to resign for his handling of cases of alleged abuse by priests. Yesterday, a retired priest, the Rev. Paul Shanley, pleaded innocent to charges that he repeatedly raped a boy at his Newton, Mass., parish between 1983 and 1990.
Calmer winds helped firefighters gain control of a 250-acre wildfire in the Black Mountain Forest west of Denver. (Above, an aircraft drops flame-retardant slurry on the blaze.) In neighboring New Mexico, a fast-moving fire in the Santa Fe National Forest prompted evacuation warnings for the Dalton and Pecos canyons.
The FBI issued an alert on a suspect wanted in a series of pipe bombs in rural mailbloxes, police in Lubbock, Texas said. The suspect was described as a 22-year-old man. Yesterday's all-points-bulletin followed the discovery of a pipe bomb in a rural mailbox in Amarillo, Texas. Authorities said appeared similar to 17 others found in Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, and Colorado.
A bill to provide $29.8 billion in antiterrorism and defense funding is expected to win approval from the House Appropriations Committee today. The measure covers the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30 and would provide $2.7 billion more than Bush has requested. But it faces possible problems in the full House, where Republican leaders want to add a provision that would raise the federal borrowing limit.
After years of legal wrangling over use of the acronym WWF, the World Wrestling Federation conceded defeat to the World Wildlife Fund. The professional wrestling organization said it now will be known as World Wrestling Entertainment Inc., or WWE.
