Pennsylvania

Armed robber steals Salvation Army kettle

A gun-wielding robber swiped a red Salvation Army kettle from a collector in front of an Allentown supermarket, police said.

Volunteer Jerlene Howard said she was ringing her bell to solicit donations from shoppers Friday night when a man wearing a scarf over his face got out of a car and demanded the kettle. He “had a gun and he told me not to say anything,” she said.

The man then got back into the car, which was driven by an accomplice, police said. Howard was not injured.

Howard said her kettle was “kind of heavy,” but she didn’t know how much money was inside. She has collected up to $135 a day in the past.

The annual Red Kettle drive helps buy food for the homeless and toys for poor children.

Nevada

Thousands grounded in storm at Reno airport

Thousands of passengers were grounded Saturday during a snowstorm at Reno-Tahoe International Airport on its busiest weekend of the year.

At nearby Lake Tahoe and elsewhere in the Sierra Nevada, the storm dumped up to 18 inches of snow and delayed thousands of Thanksgiving holiday motorists heading over mountain passes.

Sixty-nine flights at the airport were canceled or delayed during a seven-hour period Saturday after a malfunction in equipment used to guide pilots when visibility is poor, spokesman Brian Kulpin said.

Travelers were urged to contact their airlines before heading to the airport because delays were expected to continue. Kulpin said some passengers might not be able to get a flight from Reno until Tuesday because flights are booked solid today and Monday.

Denver

Post refuses military’s subpoena of notes

The Denver Post is resisting a military court subpoena for notes taken by one of its reporters about an alleged gang rape of an 18-year-old woman at an Air Force base.

The case is believed to be one of only a handful in which the military has sought a reporter’s unpublished material, the Post said. In most cases, military courts have ruled such material is protected from disclosure.

The reporter, Miles Moffeit, wrote in March that a woman said she was gang-raped in June 2003 by four fellow airmen stationed at Sheppard Air Force Base at Wichita Falls, Texas. Matthew Monroe has been charged in connection with the rape and faces a general court-martial.

The Post refused the subpoena, citing protection under the First Amendment. A hearing in Texas is scheduled for this week.

Iowa

Democrats make appeal for hungry on radio

Growing numbers of Americans were hungry this Thanksgiving, and the nation should do more to help them enjoy its bounty, Democrats said Saturday in their weekly radio address.

“Unfortunately, the blessing of abundant food is not shared by all Americans,” Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack said.

Vilsack said sharing was an American value rooted in the country’s origins when American Indians helped the pilgrims four centuries ago.

“On that day, sharing became an American value,” he said. “Living up to that value requires us to do what we can, and what we must, to stop hunger in America.”

Pakistan

Troops to withdraw from likely bin Laden hideout

The Pakistan army said Saturday it would withdraw hundreds of troops from a tense tribal region near Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden and his top deputy were believed to be hiding.

The withdrawals from the South Waziristan area come after several military operations by thousands of troops against remnants of bin Laden’s al-Qaida organization and its supporters in recent months.

Although the tribal region is considered a possible hiding place for bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, a senior Pakistan general said earlier this month that no sign of bin Laden had been found.

Colombia

Official: Rebels planned assassination of Bush

Colombia’s main rebel group asked followers to mount an assassination attempt against President Bush during his visit to Colombia last week, Defense Minister Jorge Uribe said. There was no evidence Saturday that rebels even tried to organize such an attack.

Uribe told reporters late Friday that informants said the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, told followers to attack Bush during his four-hour visit in the seaside city of Cartagena last Monday, where he met with Colombian President Alvaro Uribe.

The defense minister, who is no relation to the president, said security forces were on full alert during the visit. About 15,000 Colombian troops and police, along with U.S. troops and Secret Service agents provided security. There was no indication Bush’s life was ever in danger.

Beijing

Mom turned in suspect in school slashings case

The mother of a 21-year-old man accused of slashing as many as nine boys to death as they slept in their high school dormitory turned her son in after he attempted to commit suicide, a news report said.

Yan Yanming, 21, was reported to police after he attempted to take his life late Thursday in the city of Ruzhou, the Xinhua News Agency said Saturday. The agency said Yan confessed and said he slashed the students out of hatred.

Xinhua put the death toll in the attack at eight, but another state-run news agency, the China News Service, said nine students were killed.

Yan broke into the central China dormitory at 11:45 p.m. on Thursday and “chopped eight people to death,” Xinhua said.

Moscow

Official blames foreign agency in school seizure

The head of a parliamentary commission investigating the September hostage seizure at a school in southern Russia said there was evidence of involvement by a foreign intelligence agency, the Interfax news agency reported Saturday.

The statement was the latest of several in which Russian officials and politicians have alleged foreigners were involved in the Sept. 1-3 attack on a school in the southern town of Beslan, which ended in bloody chaos and left more than 330 people dead, many of them children.

“For the moment the evidence that we have of this involvement is indirect, so I consider it premature to name exactly which special service it is,” Interfax quoted commission head Alexander Torshin as saying. Russians refer to intelligence and security agencies as special services.

Texas

Bush urges Americans to volunteer, help needy

President Bush issued a holiday-season call on Americans to volunteer and give to charity — “to share our blessings with the least among us.”

He singled out for special praise those who have given time and energy to U.S. troops.

“The greatest challenges of our time have come to the men and women who protect our nation,” Bush said in his weekly radio address Saturday from his ranch in Crawford.

“Like generations before them, today’s armed forces have liberated captive peoples and shown compassion for the suffering and delivered hope to the oppressed,” Bush said. “In the past year, they have fought the terrorists abroad so that we do not have to face those enemies here at home.”

Texas

Couple married 69 years die on Thanksgiving Day

Relatives say Gracie Jackson’s wish was always that she and her husband, J.C., the love of her life for seven decades, would go to heaven holding hands.

On Thanksgiving Day, her wish came true.

J.C. Jackson, 97, died of congestive heart failure about 2:30 a.m. Thursday at a nursing home in Hurst. Twenty hours later, Gracie Jackson, 88, joined her husband of 69 years, dying of pneumonia.

The family insists J.C. Jackson did not go to heaven 20 hours sooner than Gracie.

“No, Daddy waited on her, and they went together,” daughter Cathy Spence, 62, of Hurst said in Saturday’s editions of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

They married on Christmas Day 1934 in Terrell and raised two sons and three daughters.

MOUNT St. HELENS

St. Helens has largest quake since October

A 3.1-magnitude earthquake shook the crater at Mount St. Helens on Saturday, the strongest quake at the volcano since mid-October.

U.S. Geological Survey scientists said they did not believe a major eruption was imminent — just a continuation of the minor ash and steam eruptions that have been occurring since the mountain reawakened this fall.

Saturday’s earthquake appeared to be a larger version of the small earthquakes scientists have registered about once a minute for the past several weeks, the USGS said in a news release. Scientists hoped good weather today and Monday would allow them to get a better look at the volcano.

Pennsylvania

Turnpike officials decide not to waive tolls today

Pennsylvania Turnpike officials have opted against waiving tolls Sunday as a way to cope with an ongoing strike sure to be made worse by heavy holiday travel.

Tolls were waived Wednesday, the first day of the strike by 1,823 toll collectors, maintenance employees and office workers.

Motorists are paying $2 for cars and $15 for commercial vehicles, or less for short trips using the E-ZPass system. In some cases, back-ups have forced the turnpike to waive fees temporarily in some spots, according to a turnpike spokeswoman in Highspire.

The Wednesday before and the Sunday after Thanksgiving are historically the heaviest travel days of the year for the 531-mile turnpike system.

Wisconsin

Father, son hunters laid to rest together

Robert Crotteau and his son Joseph, who worked together and spent much of their free time enjoying the outdoors together, were mourned together Saturday, days after both were killed in a confrontation with a hunter trespassing on their land.

“To say they were two peas in a pod is an understatement, without question,” said Steve Crotteau, Robert’s younger brother, during the funeral at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.

Robert Crotteau, 42, and his 20-year-old son were among six hunters killed and two wounded in a bloody confrontation that shocked neighbors in Rice Lake.

The man accused in the shootings, Chai Vang, 36, of St. Paul, Minn., remained in the Sawyer County Jail in lieu of $2.5 million bail Saturday awaiting formal charges.

Gaza Strip

Palestinian to dismantle infamous security unit

The Palestinian Authority said Saturday it would disband a small security unit tainted by accusations of abuse, an initial step toward reforming its bloated network of overlapping and competing security forces.

Palestinian reformers, as well as Israeli and U.S. officials, have long demanded a major overhaul of the Palestinian security services but faced stiff resistance from Yasser Arafat, who used the bloated security network to maintain his hold on power.

Palestinian Preventive Security chief Brig. Gen. Rashid Abu Shbak said Saturday he would abolish the Gaza Security and Protections unit — nicknamed the “death squad” by Palestinians — in the wake of accusations that some members abused their powers and used intimidation to rule the streets of Gaza.

Austria

Europeans, Iranians try to save nuclear deal

Top European and Iranian officials sought Saturday to save a deal committing Tehran to freezing uranium enrichment programs, which can make nuclear weapons. But Iran’s insistence on exempting key equipment hurt hopes of agreement before a key U.N. meeting reconvenes next week.

The squabble over Iran’s interpretation of its deal with the European Union to freeze all activities linked to uranium enrichment stalled an International Atomic Energy Agency board meeting, which was adjourned Friday until Monday.

That was meant to give the Iranian government time to approve a total freeze of the program and for delegates to decide on further steps in policing Tehran’s nuclear activities.

UNITED NATIONS

U.N. says its workers abuse women in Congo

Sexual exploitation of women and girls by U.N. peacekeepers and bureaucrats in the U.N. mission in Congo “appears to be significant, wide-spread and ongoing,” according to a confidential U.N. report that documents cases of pedophilia, prostitution and rape.

The report by a U.N. peacekeeping official who recently visited Congo says that some U.N. personnel paid $1 to $3, or bartered food or the promise of a job, for sex. In some cases, U.N. officials allegedly raped women and girls and then offered them food or money to make it look as if they had engaged in prostitution.

Senior U.N. officials in New York said they have received 150 allegations of sexual abuse by U.N. personnel in Congo. U.N. officials familiar with the charges said that Tunisian and Uruguayan peacekeepers and a French civilian were among those accused of abuse.