Border Patrol seizes drugs near Alamagordo
ALAMOGORDO (AP) - Border Patrol agents who searched a car at a checkpoint on U.S. 54 near Alamogordo seized $4.2 million in cocaine.
Agents who stopped the car at the inspection station about 1:30 p.m. Saturday said the driver displayed "unusual mannerisms," so they sought and were given permission for a search.
A drug-sniffing dog pointed agents to the passenger's side door and the rear part of the car.
Agents found several bundles of a powdery substance in a suitcase in the back seat and in additional suitcases in the vehicle trunk.
The Border Patrol said agents seized 56 variously colored bundles totaling 131.6 pounds.
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The vehicle, drugs, $414 in cash and the car's driver and passenger were turned over to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Las Cruces.
Kerry slams 'Wrong war in the wrong place'
WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrat John Kerry accused President Bush on Monday of sending U.S. troops to the "wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time" and said he'd try to bring them all home in four years.
Bush rebuked him for taking "yet another new position" on the war.
Iraq overshadowed the traditional Labor Day kickoff of the fall campaign and its time-honored emphasis on jobs, as Kerry delivered some of his harshest rhetoric against Bush's handling of the war and highlighted its economic costs. The Democrat set, for the first time, a tentative time frame for completing a withdrawal that Republican opponents say is too soon even to begin.
Explosions kill at least 13 in Gaza City
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Five explosions rocked a field in Gaza City used for training by anti-Israeli militants early Tuesday, killing at least 13 Palestinians and wounding 25 others, hospital officials and residents said.
Witnesses could not say for sure what caused the blasts, but many said it was either an Israeli air strike or a tank shell attack. The scene of the explosions is near the border with Israel, and Israeli attack helicopters hovered overhead.
The blasts went off in the Shajaiyeh section of Gaza City, a known stronghold of Hamas.
On Monday, Israel's defense minister Shaul Mofaz said he is moving another planned section of the West Bank separation barrier closer to Israel. Israel says it needs the barrier to keep out suicide bombers.
Clinton has successful surgery, will recover
NEW YORK (AP) - Bill Clinton underwent a successful quadruple heart bypass operation Monday to relieve severely clogged arteries doctors said put the former president at grave risk of suffering a heart attack.
Clinton is expected to make a full recovery, but doctors said he was fortunate to have checked himself into the hospital when he did. The heart disease they repaired was extensive, and blockage in several of Clinton's arteries was "well over 90 percent," said Dr. Craig R. Smith, the surgeon who led the operation.
Doctors say he can leave the hospital in four or five days.
Clinton had planned to campaign for Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic nominee for president, but the recovery from surgery will take him off the stump with just two months left until the election.
Stunned Russian citizens observe day of mourning
BESLAN, Russia (AP) - Funeral processions filled the rainy streets of the southern Russian city Monday, carrying coffins large and small, as townspeople buried scores of victims of a carefully planned school siege prosecutors linked to a Chechen rebel leader.
Desperate families searched for those still missing from the siege at School No. 1, while others buried 120 victims during the first of two days of national mourning across Russia, which has seen more than 400 people killed in violence linked to terrorism in the past two weeks.
Reports emerged that the attackers apparently planned the school seizure months ago, sneaking weapons into the building in advance.
There also were signs some of the militants did not know they were to take children hostage and may have been killed by their comrades when they objected.
