New Delhi

Gandhi takes step toward becoming prime minister

Sonia Gandhi moved a step closer Saturday to becoming India’s first foreign-born prime minister when her Congress party, the upset winner in a parliamentary vote, unanimously re-elected her to lead them in the legislature.

The largely formal move reflected her party’s apparent confidence that potential members of a parliamentary coalition being formed will not object to her Italian birth or try to prevent her from becoming the latest in the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty to lead India.

Congress scored a stunning general election victory this week over Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Hindu-nationalist coalition, and is now firmly on course to form a coalition government and take power within days.

California

Bush official: Bald eagle soon to be off threatened list

The American bald eagle — the national symbol whose decline helped spur the Endangered Species Act and a ban on the pesticide DDT — will be off the threatened species list this year, a top Bush administration official said Saturday.

Craig Manson, the administration’s point man on the Endangered Species Act, said it was time to concentrate recovery efforts on more needy species.

“It’s no longer endangered, but it’s still deserving of special protection,” Manson said in an interview.

The birds still would be safeguarded under the federal Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940, which prohibits killing or selling the animals.

New York

Columbine parents say they have no need to be forgiven

In their first interview since the Columbine High School massacre, the parents of one of the killers said they feel no need be forgiven and didn’t realize their son was beyond hope until after he was dead.

“Dylan did not do this because of the way he was raised,” Susan Klebold told columnist David Brooks in Saturday’s editions of The New York Times. “He did it in contradiction to the way he was raised.”

Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris killed 13 people on April 20, 1999, before taking their own lives.

The couple took issue with people who say they forgive them for what happened.

“I haven’t done anything for which I need forgiveness,” Susan Klebold said.

They acknowledged they missed signs that their son was in trouble.

“He was hopeless. We didn’t realize it until after the end,” Tom Klebold said.