IN EGYPT, MOURNERS RALLY AGAINST TERRORISM

In Egypt, mournersrally against terrorism
Relatives and friends of victims light candles by memorial stones that were places at the bombings site in the Sinai seaside city of Dahab, Egypt, during an anti-terrorism rally. Two suicide bombers struck Wednesday just outside a base that houses a multinational peacekeeping force in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, two days after terrorists exploded three bombs at the southern Sinai resort of Dahab that killed at least 24 people. Egyptian Interior Minister Habib el-Adly said all the bombings this week were linked to the terror attacks in the peninsula's resorts of Sharm el-Sheik last year and Taba in 2004.
N.J. student's bodyfound in Pa. landfill
EWING, N.J. -- Searchers at a Pennsylvania landfill found the body of a college student who disappeared more than a month ago, but authorities said Wednesday they don't suspect foul play. John Fiocco Jr., a freshman at The College of New Jersey, was last seen early March 25 when he returned to his campus dormitory after a party. Investigators later found his blood on the dormitory's trash bin, which led them to the landfill in nearby Tullytown, Pa. After more than three weeks of searching, they found the body there Tuesday. Fiocco was identified through dental records, state police and prosecutors said Wednesday.
Songbirds can learngrammar, scientists say
WASHINGTON -- The simplest grammar, long thought to be one of the skills that separate man from beast, can be taught to a common songbird, new research suggests. Starlings learned to differentiate between a regular birdsong "sentence" and one containing a clause or another sentence of warbling, according to a study in today's journal Nature. It took University of California at San Diego psychology researcher Tim Gentner a month and about 15,000 training attempts, with food as a reward, to get the birds to recognize the most basic of grammar in their own bird language. Yet what they learned may shake up the field of linguistics. While many animals can roar, sing, grunt or otherwise make noise, linguists have contended that the key to distinguishing language skills goes back to our elementary school teachers and basic grammar. Sentences that contain an explanatory clause are something that humans can recognize, but not animals, researchers figured.
FEMA is beyondhelp, Senate panel says
WASHINGTON -- The nation's beleaguered disaster response agency should be abolished and rebuilt from scratch to avoid a repeat of multiple government failures exposed by Hurricane Katrina, a Senate inquiry has concluded. Crippled by years of poor leadership and inadequate funding, the Federal Emergency Management Agency cannot be fixed, a bipartisan investigation says in recommendations to be released today. Taken together, the 86 proposed reforms suggest the United States is still woefully unprepared for a disaster such as Katrina with the start of the hurricane season a little more than month away. "The United States was, and is, ill-prepared to respond to a catastrophic event of the magnitude of Hurricane Katrina," the recommendations warn. "Catastrophic events are, by their nature, difficult to imagine and to adequately plan for, and the existing plans and training proved inadequate in Katrina."
Nepal's rebels call3-month cease-fire
KATMANDU, Nepal -- Nepal's communist rebels declared a three-month cease-fire in attacks today, easing a key burden on the new government poised to take control after weeks of bloody protests forced the king to reinstate Parliament. The parliament was scheduled to reconvene in Katmandu on Friday and was expected to elect a new prime minister and initiate the process for electing a special assembly that would write a new constitution. The elusive leader of the Himalayan country's Maoist rebels, Prachanda, said in a statement that his group's fighters would refrain from any assaults to give the country a chance for peace.
Associated Press