USA
A record $490 billion US budget will likely await the new president, a Bush administration official said Monday before a formal announcement. The White House had predicted a $407 billion deficit, slightly lower than the all-time high of $413 billion. The sagging economy and economic stimulus payments to taxpayers are cited as contributing to escalation of the deficit.
About 1,000 protesters opposed to immigration raids rallied in Postville, Iowa, Sunday, including busloads of people from Chicago and Minnesota's Twin Cities. The diverse group included many Hispanics upset by a May 12 raid at a local meatpacking plant that resulted in 389 arrests, mostly of Guatemalan and Mexican nationals living in the town.
A congregation's liberal social views led a gunman to go on a deadly shooting spree at a church in Knoxville, Tenn., investigators said Monday, the day after congregants tackled suspect Jim Adkisson. He was charged with the first-degree murder of two adults, and injuring seven others at a youth performance at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church.
Former President Jimmy Carter joined environmentalists Sunday in Oglethorpe, Ga., in assailing a plan to build three dams along the Flint River to provide water for the drought-stricken state. Carter had also opposed the plan in the 1970s.
Baseball's Hall of Fame inducted relief pitcher Rich "Goose" Gossage Sunday, along with former manager Dick Williams. Gossage played for a number of teams, including the Yankees; Williams guided the Oakland A's to two championships. Former Dodgers owner Walter O'Malley and former commissioner Bowie Kuhn were enshrined posthumously.
A special suicide hot line provided for military veterans received more than 22,000 calls for help in its first year, the government reported. Launched last July, the hot line was established in response to criticism that the Veterans Affairs Department hadn't done enough to help wounded soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. Government sources claim the hot line averted 1,221 suicides.
Girls competing in the All-American Soap Box Derby enjoyed their best year ever, winning five of the six titles during the weekend's 71st annual finals of gravity-powered racing in Akron, Ohio.
