Arkansas

Clinton rips media, Starr after opening library

In a prime-time television outburst, Bill Clinton ripped old nemesis Kenneth Starr and what the former president portrayed as a gullible media eager to report every “sleazy thing” leaked from a prosecutor bent on bringing him down.

The exchange came in an interview with ABC news anchor Peter Jennings that aired Thursday night, hours after Clinton opened his $165 million presidential library. Clinton blasted Starr and spoke disdainfully of a national media that he suggested was complicit in a scheme to ruin his presidency.

“No other president ever had to endure someone like Ken Starr,” Clinton said. “No one ever had to try to save people from ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, and people in Haiti from a military dictator that was murdering them, and all the other problems I dealt with, while every day an entire apparatus was devoted to destroying him.”

Houston

Settlement reached in bonfire tragedy lawsuit

Families of seven students killed or injured when a massive stack of bonfire logs collapsed at Texas A&M have reached a $4.25 million partial settlement of a lawsuit, attorneys said Friday.

The settlement resolves claims against 25 of 35 student leaders who oversaw construction of the 59-foot-high bonfire, which tumbled down five years ago this week, killing 12 and injuring 27.

“Justice will not be served until full damages are assessed against all of the defendants,” said Darrell Keith, an attorney for four victims’ families.

The lawsuit is scheduled for trial next year against three dozen other defendants, including Texas A&M University, former school president Ray Bowen, the Texas Aggie Bonfire Committee, H.B. Zachry Co. and Zachry Construction Corp.

Georgia

Judge releases one girl in poisoned cake case

One of two 13-year-old girls accused of serving poisoned cake to classmates was allowed to go home Friday, but a judge ordered the other girl to remain in custody while she awaits trial.

A judge freed one of the girls after hearing testimony that she was an honor student and cheerleader with no history of discipline problems. Authorities believe she took part in baking the cake but not in giving it to classmates.

Cobb County Juvenile Court Judge J. Stephen Schuster ordered the other girl returned to a youth-detention center where she has been since her arrest Wednesday.

The two face charges including aggravated assault with intent to commit murder for allegedly baking a cornbread cake that contained bleach, glue and hot-pepper sauce and giving it to students at East Cobb Middle School on Tuesday.

Washington, D.C.

House OKs update of special education policy

The House on Friday approved an update of special education requirements and pledged less pressure on teachers and more enforcement of high standards for the disabled.

The bill, approved 397-3, would be the first major revision to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in seven years.

The Senate was to approve the bill Friday, and President Bush was expected to sign it.

In a key provision, the bill aims to boost discipline, giving schools more freedom to remove disruptive children if their behavior is not a result of their disability.

It also targets more accurate identification of which children have disabilities, earlier intervention for struggling students, and stronger enforcement of how states comply.

Salt Lake City

Comatose boy dies after leaving hospital

A 6-year-old brain-dead boy whose parents fought to remove him from hospital care died Friday.

Jesse Koochin, of Clearwater, Fla., was declared brain-dead by doctors but was ordered kept on life support by a judge after the parents insisted he could recover.

The boy had been in a coma after suffering complications from brain cancer. Doctors at Primary Children’s Medical Center said he was dead, but his parents maintained that he was alive and capable of recovery. After winning a restraining order Oct. 13 that kept Jesse on life support, Steve and Gayle Koochin took him home two days later.

His father maintained that Jesse had previously fallen into a coma and was given about a week to live, but then responded to treatment in Mexico.

North Carolina

Teacher suspended for showing Moore film

A community college instructor who was suspended for showing “Fahrenheit 9/11” in class the week before the presidential election is offering no apologies and says he was unfairly punished.

Davis March showed the Michael Moore documentary critical of President Bush to his film class. Administrators pulled the plug on the movie with about 20 minutes left when March tried to show it to English composition students.

“This story is now about academic freedom … the movie is ancient history,” said March, who served a four-day suspension and returned Nov. 2 to Rowan-Cabarrus Community College, about 45 miles northeast of Charlotte.

School officials said March disobeyed orders by refusing to meet with administrators before showing the film, but March said no edict to seek permission had been issued.

Los Angeles

Rap artist arrested in stabbing at awards

A rap artist suspected of stabbing a man at this week’s Vibe awards surrendered to Santa Monica police detectives Friday.

David Darnell Brown, 23, who records under the name Young Buck, faces assault and attempted murder charges for stabbing Jimmy James Johnson, 26. Authorities believe Brown stabbed Johnson during a melee that broke out just before rap star Dr. Dre was to receive an award at Monday’s ceremony.

Washington, D.C.

Negotiators seek action on 9-11 panel’s advice

Negotiators planned to work until Congress’ final moments to get a breakthrough on legislation implementing the Sept. 11 commission’s recommendations to protect the nation from terrorism.

Congressional aides kept saying Friday that a deal was reachable, but the House and Senate expected to leave for the year as early as today, and that would kill any chance to get a bill approved and sent to the president.

“If that happens, it means members of Congress have shamefully abdicated their responsibility to the citizens who elected them,” said a statement from the 9/11 Family Steering Committee.

Lawmakers have been working since August to try to find a way to turn the commission’s 41 recommendations on how to make the country safer from terrorists into legislation.

Washington, D.C.

Daschle bids farewell

Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle bade a poignant farewell Friday to a career in Congress, a soft-spoken appeal for “the politics of common ground” after a historic re-election defeat engineered by Republicans casting him as a relentless obstructionist.

“The politics of common ground will not be found on the far right or on the far left. That is not where most Americans live,” said the South Dakotan, the first Senate leader of either party to lose a race for re-election in more than a half-century.

“We will only find it in the firm middle ground based on common sense and shared values,” he said, in a speech that scarcely referred to the pitched legislative battles over taxes, Medicare, health care, court appointments and more that he and Republicans have waged.

Washington, D.C.

12 million U.S. families went hungry in 2003

More than 12 million American families either didn’t have enough food or worried about someone in the family going hungry last year, the Agriculture Department said Friday.

Hunger-relief advocates said the figure, about the same as the previous year, showed a lack of progress. A department spokeswoman pointed to government efforts to sign up more people for food and nutrition assistance programs.

About 12.6 million families, or 11.2 percent of all U.S. households, had at least one member who went hungry or worried about hunger at some time last year, said the department’s “food security” report, which was released as millions of people made plans for next week’s Thanksgiving holiday feast.

Washington, D.C.

Leaders: DeLay ethics complaint exaggerated

House ethics committee leaders say the complaint that led to a rebuke of Republican leader Tom DeLay in October was filled with exaggerations. They warned lawmakers of possible discipline if it happens again.

The complaint against DeLay by Rep. Chris Bell, D-Texas, violated a committee rule barring use of “innuendo, speculative assertions or conclusory statements,” ethics Chairman Joel Hefley and senior Democrat Alan Mollohan wrote Bell.

Hefley, of Colorado, and Mollohan, of West Virginia, also used the four-page letter to place all House members on notice that future use of exaggerations and innuendoes could result in dismissal of the complaint in addition to disciplinary action.

New Orleans

Rove is highlight of GOP governors meeting

Republican governors wrapped up a low-key, two-day conference Friday listening to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge laud the benefits of federal-state cooperation.

But the real star of the show slipped in and out of the meeting at a New Orleans hotel unannounced, without talking to reporters: top White House political strategist Karl Rove.

The architect of President Bush’s re-election addressed the governors at a closed dinner Thursday night, providing a detailed, statistical explanation about how Bush won, according to some who were there, including Missouri Gov.-elect Matt Blunt and Ohio Gov. Bob Taft.

Some who attended said that Rove emphasized Bush’s increased margins among distinct segments of the electorate — Hispanics, women, evangelicals and others.

New York

World’s oldest man dies

Fred Hale Sr., documented as the world’s oldest man, died Friday. He was 113 years old.

Hale died in his sleep Friday at The Nottingham in suburban Syracuse, while trying to recover from a bout of pneumonia, said his grandson, Fred Hale III. He was 12 days shy of his 114th birthday.

Born Dec. 1, 1890, Hale last month watched his lifelong favorite baseball team, the Boston Red Sox, win the World Series again after 86 years.

Hale retired 50 years ago as a railroad postal worker and beekeeper, his grandson said. He enjoyed gardening, canning fruits and vegetables and making homemade applesauce.

“He had a routine and he rarely broke it because anyone else was around,” Hale III told The Post-Standard of Syracuse. “He didn’t need a lot to be happy.”

England

Chirac: Security Council doesn’t represent world

French President Jacques Chirac said Friday that the United Nations Security Council did not represent today’s world and should be expanded to include Germany, Japan and developing nations such as Brazil and India as permanent members.

Speaking to about 200 students and faculty at Oxford University, Chirac laid out his vision of a “multipolar” world, balanced among various blocs and alliances rather than dominated by the United States.

Chirac, at the end of a two-day visit to Britain designed in part to heal the two countries’ rift over Iraq, said his world view was shared by Prime Minister Tony Blair.

“When it comes to multilateralism, we share the same vision,” the French president added. “When it comes to new rules of law or U.N. reform, we are speaking with one voice.”

Venezuela

President vows to find killers of top prosecutor

President Hugo Chavez vowed Friday that Venezuela’s intelligence services would identify the assassins of a state attorney who intended to prosecute backers of Venezuela’s 2002 coup.

Danilo Anderson, known to many Venezuelans as the “super prosecutor,” was killed Thursday night by two explosions that ripped through his SUV in the capital. The assassination shook this oil-rich South American nation, renewing the specter of further violence just as years of political upheaval appeared to be ending.

“The attack against Danilo Anderson is an attack against all of us,” Chavez said in a televised address to the nation, adding that it was also an attack on Venezuelans’ dreams of democracy.

PARIS

Arafat’s widow retrieves his medical records

Yasser Arafat’s widow took possession of his widely sought medical records on Friday, and was deciding whether to release the information publicly, her lawyer said.

Suha Arafat obtained the file from the Percy military hospital in suburban Paris in mid-afternoon, attorney Jean-Marie Burguburu told The Associated Press by telephone.

Earlier, Palestinian leaders dispatched an emissary to Paris to pick up the records and had promised to make public the cause of Arafat’s death,

It wasn’t immediately clear how the latest development would affect the mission of the emissary — Nasser al-Kidwa, Arafat’s nephew and also the Palestinian representative to the United Nations. He had confirmed to the The AP late Thursday that he would be traveling to France.

Egypt

Egyptians pour anger at Israel after killings

Egyptians enraged at Israel’s mistaken killing of three border policemen protested after Friday prayers at Cairo’s main mosque under a banner that read: “The pigs’ apology doesn’t quench our rage.”

Israel’s army chief promised a swift investigation.

About 600 people protested the killings after prayers at the millennium-old Al-Azhar mosque, carrying banners: “Don’t forget Oct. 6, 1973,” the day Egypt initiated its last war with Israel, and “The pigs’ apology doesn’t quench our rage.”

Police in both riot gear and plainclothes kept a close watch on the crowd as speakers denounced the shooting and trouble elsewhere in the Middle East, chiefly the chaos in Iraq following the U.S.-led invasion.

UNITED NATIONS

U.N. gives up on worldwide cloning treaty

Both sides in the human cloning debate claimed victory Friday after the United Nations shelved competing proposals for a treaty to ban the procedure and agreed to meet again in February to try to find consensus.

The compromise means that the U.N. General Assembly will not vote on rival resolutions that would have started the ball rolling on drafting a worldwide treaty — either to ban all human cloning or just ban reproductive cloning and allow some for stem cell and other research.

Instead, they will step back and negotiate. The sides agreed to meet again in February and work for a less powerful declaration that would convey the 191 U.N. members’ stance. Whether consensus will be found, however, is by no means certain.

Nations had argued for months over two draft proposals for a treaty.