Washington

Terrorism fight a boost to Olympics, Bush says

President Bush says the U.S. effort to fight terrorism is transforming the complexion of the Olympic games in Athens with the rise of teams from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was suspended from the International Olympic Committee in 1999 due to the Taliban’s ban on participation of women athletes.

Saddam Hussein put his son Odai in charge of Iraq’s Olympic committee, a step that allegedly led to torture of athletes who did not perform well. Iraq is the only Olympic committee in the world with its own prison, a former U.S. diplomat has said of Saddam’s regime.

“For the first time in history, people everywhere will see women competitors wearing the uniform of Afghanistan,” the president said Saturday in his weekly radio address from Redmond, Wash.

Washington, D.C.

Senator touts energy grid bill in radio address

Congress must pass legislation to protect the nation’s electricity grid if it wants to avoid repeats of the devastating outages that rolled across eight states last year, Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said Saturday.

“America is not a Third World country that can’t guarantee power to its citizens. We are not a country without resources, technology or ingenuity,” Cantwell said in the weekly Democratic radio address.

“But we are a country without mandatory rules for performance and coordination of our electricity grid, because Washington Republicans and their special interests refuse to do what’s right for the country by passing new electricity rules that hold violators accountable.”

Washington, D.C.

Nader flies coach class

President Bush flies Air Force One during his campaign swings. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chooses a leased Boeing 757. But Ralph Nader, ever the populist, has declared homely Southwest Airlines the unofficial airline of his campaign.

Southwest Airlines, the Greyhound bus of the air, is known for its first-come, first-served seating policy. Or, as the Nader campaign, put it, “all passengers fly coach on Southwest, as befits a presidential campaign for the people.” The consumer advocate also praised Southwest’s founder, Herb Kelleher, for demonstrating that the “the lowest-paid chief executive, now chairman of the board, of any major domestic airline, has produced better service, lower fares and more profits, in dollars, than the top largest three airlines combined over the past three years.”