HOUSTON: Mother told psychiatrist children were headed to hell

In an interview with a psychiatrist videotaped three weeks after she drowned her five children last summer, Andrea Yates said she believed she had to kill the children to keep them from going to hell.

On the tape, which was played Friday during her capital murder trial, Yates said that after the bathtub drownings she believed the state would execute her, Satan would be eliminated from the world and the children would be saved.

Yates has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity, and faces life in prison or the death penalty if she is convicted for the deaths of 7-year-old Noah, 5-year-old John and 6-month-old Mary. Charges could be filed later in the deaths of her other two children, Paul, 3, and Luke, 2.

Iowa: Bill-signing makes English state’s official language

Gov. Tom Vilsack signed a bill into law Friday declaring English the state’s official language.

Though it is mainly symbolic, the law requires all government proceedings be conducted in English. Supporters have said English is a unifying factor in a state that has become increasingly diverse.

Opponents, including many Hispanics and liberals, have called it thinly veiled racism. Twenty-six other states have similar laws.

“I recognize that the bill is not without controversy,” said Vilsack, a Democrat.

WASHINGTON: U.S., Libya progress toward repairing relations

The United States and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who once topped Washington’s list of terrorist threats, are moving gingerly to repair relations after more than 20 years of hostility and estrangement.

In recent weeks, Libya has indicated it is prepared to pay billions of dollars in compensation to the families of those who died in the 1988 Pan Am 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, according to U.S. government officials and others close to the negotiations.

If Libya’s offer is deemed fair by most of the families and is accompanied by an admission of responsibility for the bombing that killed 270 people, it will set in motion a series of events likely to end Libya’s pariah status, said a State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

WASHINGTON: Bush answers Daschle on ‘failure’ of war remarks

The campaign against terrorism is far broader than finding Osama bin Laden, President Bush said Friday as Republicans and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle traded new criticism over war comments.

A day after Daschle said bin Laden and other terrorist leaders must be caught “or we will have failed,” the South Dakota Democrat defended his remarks and said GOP criticisms had been “nothing short of hysterical.”

“Our war against terror is far greater than one person,” Bush said, “that in order to defend freedom and protect our children and our children’s children that we must rout out terror wherever it tries to hide.”