Washington, D.C.

Suspected al-Qaida fugitives charged in USS Cole attack

Two fugitive al-Qaida suspects were charged Thursday with helping carry out the 2000 bombing attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors.

The unsealing of the federal indictment in New York against the two Yemeni men, Fahd al-Quso and Jamal Ahmed Mohammed Ali al-Badawi, was an important step toward extraditing them once they are captured abroad, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said. They could face the death penalty if convicted in the United States.

Al-Quso had planned to videotape the blast from a nearby apartment overlooking the Yemeni port city of Aden “to encourage other would-be terrorists to engage in similar attacks,” Ashcroft said.

London

Epilepsy drug may help fight against alcoholism

An epilepsy drug offers significant promise in helping alcoholics quit drinking and appears to be more effective than drugs now in use for the problem, a new study shows.

Half of the 55 alcoholics who took the antiseizure drug topiramate either quit drinking altogether or cut back their drinking sharply.

Researchers found that those given the medication were six times more likely than those on a dummy pill to abstain from alcohol for a month, according to the report published today in The Lancet.

Michigan

Thousands evacuated after two dams wash out

Two dam breaks sent water surging downriver toward Marquette, the largest town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and more than 1,700 people were ordered to leave their homes Thursday.

The deluge flooded a power plant, but no injuries were reported and no one was reported missing. Officials were trying to determine whether other dams would hold and telling evacuees they would not be able to return until this morning at the earliest.

Heavy weekend rains caused an earthen dam on Silver Lake, about 30 miles west of Marquette, to partially collapse Wednesday afternoon.

Water rushed down the Dead River, carrying debris that backed up below a bridge and caused floodwaters to spread toward the city of about 20,000.

Washington, D.C.

Senate nears approval of global AIDS relief bill

The Senate was poised late Thursday to significantly increase American funding to fight AIDS worldwide with a measure that would give President Bush a boost when he seeks a greater international effort at next month’s meeting of world leaders in France.

The five-year, $15 billion measure targeted to AIDS victims in sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean “allows us to go to the world,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. “The United States takes world leadership with this commitment.”

Bush, in his State of the Union address in January, urged Congress to pass the plan, which would nearly triple current U.S. commitments to fighting a disease that has killed more than 30 million people in the last two decades.