Afghanistan

U.S. forces launch airstrikes

Land- and sea-based planes launched airstrikes against enemy forces in eastern Afghanistan during the weekend, U.S. Central Command said Sunday.

Navy Cmdr. Dave Culler said the strikes were launched after coalition forces were attacked when trying to pass a roadblock at 1:30 a.m. CST Saturday. One friendly Afghan was killed and three were wounded in the attack.

Culler declined to be specific about the location and said the action is ongoing.

Cuba

Officials tour Guantanamo

Senior Bush administration policymakers have made a stealth inspection of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, seeking a formula for what to do with the 300 suspected terrorists at the offshore U.S. detention center here.

The officials included Pierre-Richard Prosper, the State Department’s ambassador at large for war crimes issues, and Elliott Abrams, President Bush’s special assistant for democracy, human rights and international operations at the National Security Council.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that he would be briefed, perhaps this week, on proposed guidelines for military tribunals. Once signed by President Bush, military sources say, the guidelines would spell out the venue for the court, and this isolated U.S. Navy base on southeastern Cuba is considered a likely location.

California

Common Cause founder dies

John W. Gardner, who helped launch Medicare and became known as “the father of campaign finance reform,” died Saturday at his home in Palo Alto. He was 89.

The trailblazing advocate of democratic participation and volunteerism also led the Carnegie Corp. beginning in 1955 and kept engaged in the nation’s intellectual life until he was bedridden in January from complications of prostate cancer.

Gardner went to Stanford to teach in 1989 after decades of public service, which by 1964 earned him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Gardner introduced Common Cause in 1970. As its membership swelled to hundreds of thousands, the nonpartisan group wielded tremendous political clout, helping reform the nation’s campaign finance laws to limit money politicians could make from politics.

Gardner was secretary of Health, Education and Welfare at the height of President Johnson’s Great Society, the only Republican in the Cabinet.

Vermont

Ski bus crash injures 28

A bus carrying skiers and snowboarders to a Vermont resort slipped out of control Sunday on a snow-covered interstate near Brattleboro and flipped on its side. Twenty-eight people were injured.

Emergency workers said they found passengers climbing out of the driver’s side windows of the bus after the crash on Interstate 91.

Authorities said 26 of the 50 passengers were treated locally for minor injuries while two others were transferred to Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, N.H.

The crash came during one of the biggest ski weeks of the year. President’s Day weekend and week attract thousands of people to Vermont’s slopes.