hBig brother's back home

hBig brother's back home
YORK, Pa. -- Three-year-old Kaytlyn Skau wears the camouflage jacket of her brother, Sgt. Timothy Skau, as she looks up to him in the York Memorial U.S. Army Reserve Center in York. Skau and other members of the 254th Quartermaster Company returned from Iraq since being deployed there in December 2004. The unit returned home Friday.
Norman Vaughan, famedexplorer, dies at age 100
ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Norman Vaughan, a dog handler and driver in Admiral Richard Byrd's 1928 expedition to the South Pole, died Friday just a few days after turning 100 years old. Vaughan died at Providence Alaska Medical Center surrounded by family and friends, said nursing supervisor Martha George. He was well enough Dec. 17 to enjoy a birthday celebration at the hospital attended by more than 100 friends and hospital workers. His actual birthday was Monday. His exploits included finishing the 1,100 mile-Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race six times after age 70. At age 96, he carried the Olympic torch in Juneau, passing the flame from a wheelchair, 70 years after he competed in the Olympics as a sled dog racer.
College student accusedof stabbing professor
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- A college student upset about a failing grade followed his professor to her Cambridge home and reportedly stabbed her in the neck, police said. Nikhil Dhar, 22, of Lowell, pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of armed assault with intent to murder and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. He was held without bail pending a hearing Wednesday. Mary Elizabeth Hooker, an assistant professor of clinical lab sciences at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell, was hospitalized with a stab wound to her neck. Hooker told police Dhar approached her at her home and wanted to talk about "not obtaining a passing grade in her class," Cambridge police officer Edward Frammartino wrote in his report.
U.N. members reach dealto restrict spending
UNITED NATIONS -- U.N. members agreed Friday night on a two-year budget that seriously restricts spending and applies pressure for management reform -- a top priority for the United States and the European Union. The General Assembly's budget committee was expected to approve the $3.8 billion plan, which includes a spending cap next year of $950 million. U.S. Ambassador John Bolton called the approval a victory for the United States. Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry added it was also a win for the United Nations.
23 die in plane crash
BAKU, Azerbaijan -- An Azerbaijan Airlines passenger plane with 23 people aboard crashed on the Caspian Sea coast and all aboard were believed killed, a police official said early today. The police duty officer in the Sabunchi region north of the capital, Baku, said the wreckage was found along the shore. He declined to give his name because he was not authorized to act as a spokesman. The plane was identified as an An-140, a twin-engine turboprop.
Report on Sharon's health
JERUSALEM -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who suffered a mild stroke less than a week ago, has cholesterol and blood pressure levels that are astonishingly normal for a man of his weight and age, his doctor said Friday. Despite Sharon's love of fatty foods, tests taken three weeks before Sharon's stroke showed his blood pressure at 120 over 80, and his overall cholesterol level at 195 -- both completely normal. The 77-year-old politician has long refused to release his medical records, but a sampling of them appeared Friday in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
Associated Press