ISRAELI LEADER APOLOGIZES TO PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT

Israeli leader apologizesto Palestinian president
PETRA, Jordan -- Ehud Olmert , left, and Mahmoud Abbas kissed and embraced Thursday in the first meeting between Israeli and Palestinian leaders in more than a year, and Olmert made a rare apology for Palestinian civilian deaths in recent Israeli airstrikes. Despite the icebreaker, the Israeli prime minister said peace talks are unlikely unless the Palestinians' Hamas-led government changes its stripes, and he pledged to keep up attacks against militants. Thirteen Palestinian civilians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in the past week, including two slain by an errant missile Wednesday at a house in Gaza. "It is against our policy and I am very, very sorry," Olmert said after a breakfast meeting with the Palestinian president in the ancient town of Petra.
Afghan president criticizesU.S. anti-terror campaign
KABUL, Afghanistan -- President Hamid Karzai criticized the U.S.-led coalition's anti-terror campaign Thursday, deploring the deaths of hundreds of Afghans and appealing for more financial help for his government. Karzai's sharp assessment came as Osama bin Laden's deputy urged Afghans to revolt against coalition forces, and four more U.S. soldiers were killed. More than four years after U.S.-led forces toppled the extremist Taliban government, Afghanistan is gripped by its deadliest spate of post-invasion violence. To try to curb the bloodshed, more than 10,000 coalition forces have launched a major offensive against militants across southern Afghanistan.
House votes to cutinherited estate taxes
WASHINGTON -- The House voted Thursday to cut taxes on inherited estates and relieve thousands of heirs from paying tax collectors beginning next decade. The 269-156 vote, just a few months before an election with control of Congress at stake, saw majority Republicans temporarily setting aside their ambition to abolish the tax. Instead, they voted to exempt from taxation individual estates up to $5 million and couple's estates up to $10 million, while also blunting the impact on even richer families. The compromise measure now goes to the Senate. The White House called the bill "a step in the right direction."
Supreme Court sides withworker in retaliation case
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court made it easier Thursday for workers to show they suffered retaliation after accusing employers of discrimination. By a 9-0 vote, the justices said that Sheila White, a railroad forklift operator, was improperly punished when her employer suspended her for 37 days over a Christmas holiday and reassigned her to more physically demanding duties as a yard worker. She had accused a supervisor of sexual harassment. The ruling significantly eases the legal standard for showing retaliation and could lead to more litigation against companies.
Heimlich honors two whosaved each other's lives
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Even the inventor of the Heimlich maneuver was impressed by the story of a 17-year-old who used the move to save a choking nurse -- the same woman who'd saved the teenager's life years earlier. Dr. Henry Heimlich presented Kevin Stephan with the Heimlich Institute's "Save a Life" award Wednesday for his quick thinking in what Heimlich called "a most unusual situation." "It's the first time I have heard of two people, seven years apart, saving each other's lives. It's startling and moving to everyone who hears it," said Heimlich. A volunteer firefighter, Kevin said he was inspired to learn the Heimlich maneuver and CPR at age 12 after coming to realize how perilous his own situation had been the previous summer. Kevin was a batboy for his brother's baseball team in 1999 when a batter accidentally hit him in the chest with his backswing, sending him to the ground in cardiac arrest. Penny Brown rushed from the stands and performed CPR. In January, Brown began choking inside the suburban Depew restaurant where Kevin was working. As others in the dining room tried unsuccessfully to help, Kevin's mother, who also was dining there, shouted back to the kitchen for her son. With two thrusts of his fist beneath Brown's ribcage, Kevin dislodged the food from Brown's airway. Only afterward did Kevin's mother recognize Brown as the woman who had saved her son's life.
Associated Press