DUTCH POLICE, SUSPECTS IN STANDOFF AFTER TERROR RAID

Dutch police, suspects instandoff after terror raid
THE HAGUE, Netherlands -- Dutch police were locked in a standoff with an unknown number of terrorism suspects holed up in a house in The Hague today after three officers were wounded by a hand grenade during a raid on the home, authorities said.
Authorities closed the air space over the city to small planes during the operation.
Hague Chief Prosecutor Han Moraal said the raid was part of a "continuing investigation into terrorism," but would not confirm whether it was related to the Nov. 2 killing of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by an alleged Islamic radical.
Suspects were still inside the building, Hague Police Chief Gerard Bouwman said at a press conference, and confirmed that police and the suspects had exchanged gunfire.
Mayor Wim Deetman said negotiators were trying to end the standoff peacefully.
Study: New England makes more, gives less
HARTFORD, Conn. -- Connecticut ranks first when it comes to making money -- but joins New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island at the bottom of an annual index of charitable giving.
The Catalogue for Philanthropy's 2004 Generosity Index showed Mississippi, for the eighth straight year, as the nation's most giving state. It was followed by Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Alabama and Tennessee.
The survey is based on residents' average adjusted income and itemized charitable donations reported on 2002 federal tax returns, the latest year available.
The index does not take into account non-itemized giving or volunteering, said Carol Schofield of the Connecticut Council for Philanthropy.
10 kids injured in crash
STOCKWELL, Ind. -- A truck slammed into the rear of a school bus that had just picked up a student along a highway Tuesday, injuring 10 children, three seriously.
The last two rows on the driver's side of the bus were smashed in by the crash, where three girls who were the most seriously injured were seated. The accident occurred along four-lane U.S. 52 near Lafayette in western Indiana.
The bus went off the side of the road and struck a van and a car sitting in a church parking lot. The box truck ended up in the highway's median, with much of its cab crushed.
Spiked apple strudel
BATH, N.Y. -- A woman spiked her elderly neighbor's apple strudel cake with medicine after learning the 82-year-old man was going to include her in his will, authorities said.
"Luckily, he noticed the pills in the strudel before he got more than a bite or two of it," said prosecutor Travis J. Barry.
Barry said Jennifer Clark laced the pastry with a nighttime pain reliever to try to hasten her inheritance.
Clark, 26, was originally charged with attempted assault. But under an agreement with prosecutors, she is expected to plead guilty Nov. 22 to reckless endangerment, which carries up to six years in prison.
Home for the winter
ST. LOUIS -- After nearly six months of retracing the expedition of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, members of a living-history group have returned home for a break.
The re-enactors, called the Discovery Expedition of St. Charles, are enjoying things like naps and cold beer at home with their families now that they've paused for the winter. The second leg of their journey commemorating the bicentennial of the expedition took them from Missouri to North Dakota.
A core group of about a dozen re-enactors traveled the bulk of this year's trip, and 200 of the group's 315 members nationwide took turns joining in for part of the travels. The group is based in St. Charles, about 25 miles northwest of St. Louis.
The expedition's 39-year-old captain, Scott Mandrell of Alton, Ill., said he had returned home for one day during the trip to take his daughter to begin kindergarten before coming home on Sunday.
School employees robbed
SAN FRANCISCO -- Students and teachers at a San Francisco middle school were rushed into a gymnasium Tuesday morning after a man armed with a handgun threatened to kill a teacher and robbed two employees.
No one was hurt and the students and teachers were safe in the gym, San Francisco police spokeswoman Maria Oropeza said. The man fled after the encounter and police were searching the surrounding neighborhoods for him.
"He went into the school and said he was going to shoot one of the teachers who had struck his nephew," Oropeza said.
After making the threat, the man, described as in his 20s, produced a handgun and robbed two employees, she said. She did not know what he took.
Associated Press