Iraq

Discovery of decapitated body deepens hostage crisis

Police discovered a decapitated body in an orange jumpsuit and a head in a bag on the banks of the Tigris River, authorities said Thursday, prompting fears that a second Bulgarian hostage had been killed.

The deepening hostage crises across Iraq led Kenya, facing an ultimatum by militants to behead three of its citizens in captivity, to tell its people Thursday to leave Iraq. The kidnappings have further complicated Iraqi interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s efforts to persuade reluctant nations to join the U.S.-led coalition and send troops here.

Allawi asked Egypt, which also has a citizen threatened with decapitation in Iraq, “to talk to some Arab and Islamic leaders to send forces to protect” a U.N. mission in the country. But an official in the Egyptian president’s office said Egypt would send troops only if other Arabs did so first.

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Congress approves $417 billion defense bill

The Pentagon would get an additional $25 billion for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and 7 percent more for the rest of its programs in a $417.5 billion defense bill Congress overwhelmingly approved Thursday.

With money for 39 more Army Black Hawk helicopters, a Virginia-class attack submarine and a 3.5 percent pay raise for the troops, the measure illustrated strong wartime support for the military, crossing party lines.

Eager to affirm their backing less than four months from Election Day, the Senate approved the measure 96-0 and the House shipped it to President Bush by 410-12.

New York City

Catholic lawmakers ignoring bishops’ Communion warning

Scores of leading Roman Catholic politicians across the country appear undaunted by election-year warnings from bishops that those who support abortion rights may be unworthy to receive Holy Communion. In Associated Press interviews with more than 75 such politicians, none said that they were abstaining from the sacrament over the issue, and many said they believed voting for legalized abortion did not jeopardize their standing with the church.

AP reporters spoke to governors, state legislators, congressional representatives, U.S. senators and other officials, who all said they were at peace with their political practices.

American bishops issued a statement last month saying lawmakers who consistently back abortion rights risk “cooperating in evil.”

MIAMI

Federal court narrowly upholds gay adoption ban

Florida’s ban on adoptions by gays narrowly withstood another legal challenge, but some dissenting federal judges condemned the nation’s only such blanket prohibition.

In a 6-6 vote, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta declined Wednesday to reconsider the case of four gay men who had appealed an earlier adverse ruling by a three-judge panel of the court.

In a sharply worded dissent, Judge Rosemary Barkett noted that no other groups, including child molesters and domestic abusers, is barred from adopting in Florida.