hPresidential pardon

hPresidential pardon
President Bush pets Katie as Ron Prestage, left, of the National Turkey Federation, looks on during the ceremonial pardoning of the Thanksgiving turkey in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. The ceremony took place Tuesday. Katie will be sent to a petting farm in Virginia.
Sniper reward payoutwon't be made soon
ROCKVILLE, Md. -- Maryland officials warned the public not to expect any payout soon of the $500,000 reward following the capture of the Washington-area sniper suspects, fearing it could appear witnesses were paid before any trial.
"I would beg of you, do not be surprised, do not be upset if the process takes a while, if it does not take place immediately," said Montgomery County Police Chief Charles Moose, who will head the team that decides who gets the reward.
John Muhammad, 41, and John Lee Malvo, 17, are awaiting trial in Virginia on murder charges. They have been accused of shooting 18 people, killing 13 and wounding five in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Montgomery County, Md., Executive Doug Duncan said Tuesday the sniper task force is sorting through about 60,000 tips that were received during the search for the snipers.
Of the $580,244.77 that was raised, $500,000 will be given out as a reward. The remainder will be given to shooting victims and their families. The money was donated by more than 900 contributors.
Chretien aide resignsover Bush remark
TORONTO -- An aide to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien quit Tuesday, saying that an outcry prompted by reports that she privately called President Bush a "moron" made it impossible for her to continue in her job.
Francoise Ducros, who was Chretien's director of communications, applied the term to Bush last Wednesday during a conversation at the NATO summit in Prague, Canadian newspapers have widely reported.
Ducros said last week that she didn't remember making the comment and never used the word in her official capacity. She offered to resign last week, but Chretien defended her and refused to accept her resignation.
Chretien had told reporters in Prague that Bush "is a friend of mine. He's not a moron at all."
Ducros's remark about Bush, reportedly made in a news briefing room, touched off a debate in Canada about the state of U.S.-Canadian relations and was cited as a gauge of the strength of anti-American sentiment in this country.
Chretien acknowledged Tuesday to reporters in Ottawa, the capital, that the remarks had generated controversy and mentioned a debate among Americans on the CNN show "Crossfire." "Some said they love Canadians. Some said they don't love us," Chretien said.
Call for writer's death
LAGOS, Nigeria -- The deputy governor of a largely Islamic state in northern Nigeria called on Muslims to kill the Nigerian woman who wrote a newspaper article about the Miss World beauty pageant that sparked deadly religious riots.
"Just like the blasphemous Indian writer Salman Rushdie, the blood of Isioma Daniel can be shed," Zamfara Deputy Governor Mahamoud Shinkafi told a gathering of Muslim groups in the state capital, Gusau, on Monday.
Rushdie, an Indian-born Briton, went into hiding after Iran's late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a 1989 fatwa -- or religious edict -- against him for reportedly insulting Islam in his best-selling novel "The Satanic Verses."
While state officials in Nigeria cannot issue fatwas, the deputy governor, "like all Muslims," considers the death sentence against Daniel as "a reality based on the teachings of the Koran," Zamfara state Information Commissioner Tukur Umar Dangaladima said Tuesday.
Combined dispatches