Lawyer edges out Nader for Green Party support

Lawyer edges out Naderfor Green Party support
MILWAUKEE -- David Cobb fended off the ghost of Ralph Nader Saturday to become the Green Party's nominee for president.
The selection of Cobb thwarted Nader's opportunity to gain immediate access to the ballot in 22 states and Washington, D.C.
Now the consumer advocate -- whose 2000 Green Party candidacy is considered by many Democrats to have cost them the White House -- will have to run solely as an independent or cobble together ballot access from other minor parties. He plans to run on the Reform Party line in some states.
And Cobb, a northern California lawyer, becomes the new face of the fledgling Green Party as it tries to create a lasting progressive movement. "We all come out of here winners," Cobb, a Houston native, said after delegates from Texas gave him the votes needed to seize the nomination on the second round of voting.
Israelis kill 8 militants,including key fugitive
NABLUS, West Bank -- Acting on a tip, Israeli troops ambushed Palestinian militants holed up in an underground tunnel Saturday, killing seven fugitives including the most-wanted man in the West Bank.
Army commanders said the killing of the fugitives was the main goal of a three-day operation to root out militants in the West Bank city of Nablus. Troops began withdrawing from the center of the city soon after the raid.
Soldiers also killed an eighth militant during an earlier raid in Nablus, the largest West Bank city.
Among the dead was Nayef Abu Sharkh, a leader in the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Palestinian and Israeli security sources said Abu Sharkh was Israel's most-wanted militant in the West Bank.
Military officials said Abu Sharkh was responsible for a January 2003 double suicide bombing that killed 23 people in Tel Aviv and another in November 2002 that killed two people.
Bomb kills 2 women
KABUL, Afghanistan -- A bomb tore through a bus carrying female election workers Saturday on their way to register women for the country's first post-Taliban vote, killing two of them and injuring 13 others.
It was the bloodiest attack yet in a string of violence targeting election workers, aimed at sabotaging the September vote. A spokesman for the Taliban claimed responsibility for the bombing.
The killings add to the pressure on NATO leaders meeting in Turkey this week to send more peacekeepers ahead of the polls, amid warnings from the United Nations that security must improve.
U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai condemned the bombing and blamed "enemies of peace and prosperity" in Afghanistan.
Settlement remembered
ST. CROIX ISLAND, Maine -- Delegates from three nations gathered Saturday on a rain-swept outcropping to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first French colony in North America.
The tiny island settlement lasted only about a year at the confluence of two rivers that form a cross, giving it the name St. Croix.
Explorers Pierre Dugua and Samuel Champlain founded the settlement in 1604, joined by 77 other men. They abandoned it the following year after nearly half of the colonists died during a harsh winter.
"We have to remember that this is one of the places where it all started. There's a huge French presence in North America," said Paul Cellucci, U.S. ambassador to Canada. "A lot of citizens in the United States can trace their roots back to this very island."
During a rain-soaked ceremony, Cellucci and representatives of Canada, France and the Passamaquoddy Indian tribe remembered the arrival of the French on two galleons in Passamaquoddy Bay.
No help from Army
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. -- Since 1995, Bob Parker has sent nearly 2,000 honorary medallions to survivors of soldiers, police officers and firefighters killed in the line of duty.
But the Army recently told Parker that it won't help him distribute the medals any more because they include a reference to a Bible verse.
"The denial is based upon the religious content on the medallion. There are some next of kin that may find the inscription offensive to their personal religious beliefs," Lt. Col. Kevin Logan, chief of the casualty operations division, wrote in one of two letters Parker received from the Army.
The Marines, Navy and Air Force have continued to provide Parker with names -- but only after asking the families if they want to receive the medallions.
The gold-colored medallion is inscribed with words "A Fallen Friend," the service member's name and "John 15:13," for the Bible verse "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."
Combined dispatches