India: Warships moved from Pakistan waters

India moved its warships Tuesday away from waters near Pakistan as Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived with ideas for helping the nuclear-armed neighbors avoid another war over Kashmir.

Still, shelling and small-arms fire killed at least seven people overnight along the disputed province’s frontier, and pro-militant groups in Pakistani territory vowed to continue their guerrilla insurgency.

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said the threat of war remained real as long as troops were nose-to-nose on the Kashmir border. “As long as that capability remains, the situation will remain dangerous,” he said.

The Indian navy recalled its warships to Bombay a day after the government said it would allow Pakistani aircraft to fly over India after a six-month ban.

Washington, D.C.: 9-11 stone completes new Pentagon facade

Workers fitted a blackened slab of limestone into place at the Pentagon Tuesday, marking nine months since the Sept. 11 attack by completing repair of the building’s damaged facade.

“You’ve healed this wall, and in doing so, you’re helping to heal this nation,” Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told a crowd of construction workers at the site. He said the reconstruction “honors those who died here and defies those who seek not to build but to kill and destroy.”

The stone placed Tuesday was engraved with the date Sept. 11, 2001 it was damaged when hijackers flew an American Airlines jet into the Pentagon, killing themselves and 184 others.

Workers have rebuilt the portions of three outer rings of the massive office building that had to be torn down after the attacks. The rebuilt sections have to be finished with walls, wiring, fixtures and the like before furniture, and then workers, can be moved back in.

Kentucky: Clergymen accused in sex cases resign

Lexington Bishop J. Kendrick Williams resigned Tuesday after being accused of molesting youngsters decades ago, becoming the latest U.S. bishop brought down by the sex scandal engulfing the Roman Catholic Church.

In a statement, Williams, 65, denied the allegations brought against him by three men. The alleged abuse took place in 1969 and 1981, while he was a parish priest in Louisville.

Also Tuesday, an auxiliary bishop in New York stepped down after admitting to several affairs with adult women.

The cases of Williams and Bishop James McCarthy, a former secretary to the late Cardinal John O’Connor, bring to four the number of U.S. Roman Catholic bishops who have quit this year following accusations that they broke their celibacy vows. All but McCarthy were accused of molestation.

Florida: Astronauts set endurance record

Two spacewalking astronauts wired up and bolted down a work platform Tuesday that will allow the international space station’s 58-foot robot arm to roam across the orbiting outpost.

An even more momentous event occurred later when the two Americans who had moved out of the space station and into space shuttle Endeavour broke NASA’s space endurance record.

Astronauts Daniel Bursch and Carl Walz were in bed Tuesday night when they sailed past the 188-day, four-hour mark set by Shannon Lucid in 1996 aboard Russia’s old Mir station. Before they went to sleep, Mission Control reminded them of the historic occasion and asked if they wanted to go after the 438-day world record.

“I’m very happy,” Bursch replied, shaking his head no. He, Walz and their Russian commander, Yuri Onufrienko, have been in orbit since early December.