Alaska

Search continues for missing helicopter crew

Frustrated by furious winds, mountainous seas and a mere five-hour window of December daylight, rescuers searched Thursday for six people lost in the Bering Sea after the Coast Guard helicopter that had plucked them from a crippled freighter crashed in the darkness.

The ship they left behind ran aground and split apart, spilling thousands of gallons of fuel that threatened sensitive wildlife habitats on the western side of Unalaska Island in the Aleutian chain. Environmental officials said it could take months to clean up.

Searchers hoped the missing crew had somehow lived through the night, but 43-degree waters reduced survival estimates to about three hours. Rescuers were hampered by seas that swelled to 20 feet and wind that howled at 35 mph.

Florida

Space station crew told to cut back on food

Food is running so low aboard the international space station that the two crewmen have been instructed to cut back on calories, at least until a Russian supply ship arrives in a little over two weeks, NASA said Thursday in Cape Canaveral.

If anything goes wrong with the Christmas Day delivery, the space agency will have no choice, given the grounding of its shuttle fleet, but to abandon the station and bring the men home in early January.

This cargo ship “is very critical, there’s no question about that,” said NASA’s space station program manager, Bill Gerstenmaier. Supply runs to the space station have been conducted exclusively by the Russians ever since last year’s Columbia disaster.

North Carolina

Marine who was missing charged with desertion

A Marine who was reported abducted in Iraq last summer and later turned up in his native Lebanon was charged Thursday with desertion in Raleigh.

Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was charged after a five-month investigation into his June disappearance from a U.S. military camp near Fallujah, Iraq, according a statement from the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade at Camp Lejeune.

Hassoun, of West Jordan, Utah, is accused of taking unauthorized leave from the unit where he served as an Arabic interpreter.

Hassoun also is charged with loss of government property and theft of a military firearm for allegedly leaving the Marine camp while still in possession of his 9 mm service pistol.

Washington, D.C.

U.S. says terrorists can use lasers to blind pilots

Terrorists may seek to down aircraft by shining powerful lasers into cockpits to blind pilots during landing approaches, federal officials are warning in a bulletin distributed nationwide.

The memo sent by the FBI and the Homeland Security Department says there is evidence that terrorists have explored using lasers as weapons, though there is no specific intelligence indicating al-Qaida or other groups might use lasers in the United States.

“Although lasers are not proven methods of attack like improvised explosive devices and hijackings, terrorist groups overseas have expressed interest in using these devices against human sight,” the memo said.

San Antonio

Surgery can tell whether breast cancer is spread

Removing just one to three key lymph nodes instead of the usual dozen or more can spare women lifelong arm problems and reliably indicate whether breast cancer has spread and needs aggressive treatment, the first big study to test this approach has found.

Many doctors have been doing this without proof that it is as good as the standard operation, and they still don’t know whether it will hurt women’s survival odds.

But the large, federally funded study has answered at least the accuracy question, finding that the less severe surgery is 97 percent accurate at revealing whether cancer has spread beyond the breast.

“There is a high degree of accuracy here,” said Dr. Thomas Julian, a surgeon at Drexel University College of Medicine.

Rhode Island

TV reporter gets house arrest over source

A TV reporter was sentenced Thursday to six months of home confinement for refusing to say who leaked him an FBI videotape of a politician taking a bribe.

Jim Taricani, 55, was found guilty last month of criminal contempt for defying U.S. District Judge Ernest Torres’ order to identify his source, and could have gotten up to six months in prison.

The judge went along with the punishment recommended by prosecutors, saying the only reason he did not send Taricani to prison was the reporter’s precarious health: Taricani had a heart transplant in 1996 and takes medication daily to prevent organ rejection.

Missouri

MU students charged with abusing opossums

Two students at the University of Missouri-Columbia have been charged with animal abuse for stuffing about 40 opossums — living and dead — into a plastic barrel for a frat house stunt.

In the bizarre contest, members were given one point for each dead opossum they could find and two points for a live one, authorities said. The Missouri Department of Conservation quoted fraternity members as saying they planned to release the opossums into the yard of another fraternity.

The alleged abuse was discovered Nov. 19 when neighbors complained about the noise.

Fraternity members Zachary Wade Famuliner and Adam Paul Thomas were charged with animal abuse and illegally pursuing, taking, killing, possessing or disposing of wildlife — misdemeanors. The students, both 19, pleaded not guilty.

Nebraska

$66,000 damages set in sex-for-rent case

A landlord was ordered to pay more than $66,000 in damages Thursday to 10 women who accused him of violating federal Fair Housing laws by demanding sex in lieu of rent.

The award against John Koch was far less than the $1.9 million the U.S. Justice Department had sought.

Federal officials filed a civil suit against Koch after about 20 women — many of them low-income and desperate to find housing — accused him of demanding sexual favors as far back as 1996 in lieu of such things as rent, late rent charges and security deposits.

Koch, who owns 43 rental houses in Omaha, also was accused of inappropriately touching female tenants, entering their homes without notice and stealing items if they rejected his advances.

California

NASA telescopes finds dust rings around stars

For the first time, scientists have found rings of dust around planet-bearing stars — an important confirmation of theories about how planets form, NASA announced Thursday.

The Spitzer Space Telescope found the rings around five stars about the size and age of the Earth’s sun, which is about 5 billion years old. A ring or disc also was found around a sixth star only a few hundred million years old. All are orbited by gaseous planets.

One scientist compared Spitzer’s discovery to finding bricks left over from construction of a house, since planets are believed to form out of dust clouds.

Beijing

Coal mine blast kills 33, including five rescuers

A coal mine explosion in northern China killed 33 people in the latest disaster to strike the country’s accident-prone mining industry, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Friday.

The blast occurred at 4:20 p.m. Thursday in Yuangquan, a city in the northern province of Shanxi, the report said. Twenty-eight miners were killed in the explosion at the Daxian Sankeng Colliery, as were five people who descended into the pit trying to rescue them.

About 40 other miners working underground at the time were able to escape, Xinhua said.

San Francisco

First flight to Vietnam since 1975 leaves U.S.

With fanfare and an appearance by actor David Hasselhoff, a United Airlines flight headed for Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday — the first direct flight from the United States to Vietnam in almost three decades.

The flight, carrying 347 people, was scheduled to arrive in the city formerly known as Saigon on Friday, garnering a coup for United as the only American carrier allowed to land in Vietnam since the end of the war in 1975.

“It’s just one more step toward normalization,” said Geoffrey Clifford, 55, a photographer who was flying to Vietnam for the 20th time.

Jerusalem

Sharon wins key vote to rescue Gaza pullout

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon easily won a crucial party vote to reinforce his shaky government to carry out his Gaza pullout plan, party officials announced Thursday.

Sharon proposed inviting the dovish Labor Party and Orthodox Jewish to join his government, ensuring a solid majority for his Gaza withdrawal plan in the face of internal opposition from his Likud Party.

Cabinet minister Israel Katz announced that the final count of the vote in the Likud Central Committee was 62 percent in favor of Sharon’s proposal and 38 percent against.

A loss in the Central Committee could have forced new elections and jeopardized the Gaza withdrawal — a centerpiece of efforts to restart peace talks with the Palestinians in the wake of Yasser Arafat’s death.

United Nations

In turnaround, U.S. gives support to Annan

The United States expressed confidence in Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Thursday and said he should remain at the helm of the United Nations, an abrupt turnaround from its refusal to back him last week after a U.S. senator called for his resignation.

The statement from U.S. Ambassador John Danforth, who said he was speaking on behalf of the Bush administration, aligned the United States with the 190 other members of the United Nations.

“We are not suggesting or pushing for the resignation of the secretary-general,” Danforth said. “We have worked well with him in the past and look forward to working with him for some time in the future.”

Belgium

NATO ministers agree to expand Iraq training

NATO foreign ministers agreed Thursday to launch the next phase of the alliance training mission in Iraq, a move that should see up to 300 military instructors arrive in Baghdad in the coming weeks.

The 300 will move first to Baghdad and to the outskirts of the capital by spring to set up a military academy for Iraqi armed forces, said NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

He said several NATO allies had come forward with offers of soldiers at the meeting of foreign ministers, including Poland, Hungary and the Netherlands. At least 16 of the 26 NATO nations were expected to participate in the mission, according to NATO officials.

Secretary of State Colin Powell expressed disappointment that Germany, France, Belgium, Greece and Spain were sticking to their refusal not to take part.

Congo

Toll in Congo conflict estimated at 3.8 million

Six years of continuing conflict in Congo has claimed 3.8 million lives, half of them children, with most killed by disease and famine in the still largely cutoff East, according to an International Rescue Committee study that estimates the toll.

The group’s last survey, released in April 2003, estimated 3.3 million deaths.

For years, the international association has produced the most widely used running estimate of deaths in Congo, Africa’s third-largest nation.

More than 31,000 civilians continue to die each month as a result of the conflict despite peace deals, the group says.

Venezuela

Channels alter content, fearing media law fines

Some Venezuelan television channels began altering their programs Thursday, citing fears of penalties under a new law restricting violence and sexual content over the airwaves.

The law, which took effect Thursday, limits broadcasts deemed to be obscene or violent and details a range of offenses for which the government may fine noncompliant organizations.

The private TV channel Globovision blocked out photographs of street violence with white space when it displayed the day’s newspapers, filled with coverage of Wednesday riots that police said left at least 25 injured.

Romania

Hundreds protest alleged election fraud

In demonstrations similar to those in neighboring Ukraine, hundreds rallied in downtown Bucharest on Thursday to protest alleged fraud in recent presidential elections.

Dancing to hip-hop music and brandishing banners reading, “They can’t steal as much as you can vote!” protesters urged people to vote for Bucharest Mayor Traian Basescu, the opposition candidate in this Sunday’s run-off to disputed Nov. 28 elections.

Some wore orange clothes and waved orange flags, the official color of the opposition Justice and Truth Alliance — and coincidentally the same hue adopted by the political opposition in Ukraine.

Juniors can win $5,000 in NEH essay contest

High school juniors can win up to $5,000 for writing an essay on totalitarianism and the United States.

The deadline for entries is April 15.

First prize is $5,000. Five finalists will each receive $1,000.

“The Idea of America” essay contest is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

For more information and to find the specific question students must answer in their essays, visit www.wethepeople.gov/essay.