Invitations mailed out for opening of Clinton library

Invitations mailed out foropening of Clinton library
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Two sets of invitations -- one fancier, the other for small donors -- are being sent for the Nov. 18 grand opening of the Clinton presidential library.
One set of between 15,000 and 20,000 cards bearing a gold Clinton Presidential Center seal began going out to foreign dignitaries, former presidents and first ladies this week.
Others receiving the fancy cards include large donors, former Clinton White House staff, some 1,500 construction workers from the $165 million library project, and representatives of other presidential libraries and foundations.
Another 105,000 to 110,000 invitations will be sent to people who have committed smaller donations to Clinton's nonprofit foundation for construction of the Clinton library.
Those invitations -- on lighter-bond paper and without the gold seal -- do not include New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's name as hostess of the event. That's to avoid the appearance of a conflict-of-interest with Senate fund-raising rules.
Building named in honorof Columbia astronauts
PENSACOLA, Fla. -- A former dormitory converted to classrooms at the Pensacola Naval Air Station was dedicated Friday to two Columbia astronauts who were among the seven who died in the shuttle disaster Feb. 1, 2003.
The ceremony for the new Laurel B. Clark and David M. Brown Aerospace Medicine Academic Center was attended by relatives of the pair -- both Navy captains on their first space flight when Columbia broke up trying to return to the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral.
"We dedicate this building to say thank you for their courage, to honor their spirit and to say to every successive generation that these were the greatest of humankind -- the explorers," said Rear Adm. Donald C. Arthur, the Navy's surgeon general.
The colonial-style red brick building with white columns was built in the 1940s as a dormitory for Navy nurses. It later was converted to a classroom building for flight surgeons.
Cult killings in Nigeria
ABUJA, Nigeria -- Investigators have found 33 more bodies in woodlands near where a secretive cult is believed to have carried out ritual killings, police said Friday in raising the death toll in the case to 83.
In last week's initial raids on homes and two forests in southeastern Anambra state, police found 50 bodies -- some without heads -- and about 20 skulls. The bodies, several of which were mummified, had been left unburied in coffins lying in what have been dubbed the two "evil forests."
Police paraded five bedraggled men before journalists Friday in Abuja, the national capital, and lined up 20 skulls that officials said were found hidden in domestic shrines linked to the Alusi Okija cult.
Sunday Ehindero, the deputy inspector general of police, said the men were among 31 priests arrested in connection with the killings.
Royal jewels stolen
LONDON -- Police appealed to the public Friday for help in tracking down stolen jewels once owned by Marie-Antoinette.
The capital's Metropolitan Police said jewelry, including a locket necklace and matching earrings that had belonged to the ill-fated French queen, were taken June 14 from a house in Notting Hill, a trendy, upscale neighborhood in west London.
Police said the jewelry, made of crystal, gold and diamonds, had been in the 65-year-old victim's family for more than 200 years. Police declined to reveal how they authenticated the jewelry's provenance.
Other items, including a laptop computer, also were stolen.
Police said a 15-year-old youth has been charged in connection with the burglary.
Pope still not welcome
MOSCOW -- The leader of the Russian Orthodox Church emphasized Friday that Pope John Paul II is not welcome in Russia, reiterating that an icon the pontiff once hoped to return personally in a conciliatory gesture is a copy of a revered 16th-century work.
Patriarch Alexy II told President Vladimir Putin that the icon -- known as the Mother of God of Kazan -- will be turned over to the Russian Orthodox Church at the Cathedral of the Assumption in the Kremlin later this month, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.
But Alexy noted that the icon, now at the Vatican, previously was determined to be "one of many copies" of the original.
"For that reason there is no need for the pope himself to bring it," ITAR-Tass quoted him as saying.
John Paul had once hoped to return the icon himself and become the first Roman Catholic pontiff to visit Russia, but sour relations with the Russian Orthodox Church have prevented such a trip.
Associated Press