Ahmadinejad asks to lay wreath at ground zero

Ahmadinejad asks to lay
wreath at ground zero

NEW YORK — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked permission to lay a wreath at the World Trade Center site when he comes to New York City next week, but the request was denied, a police official said Wednesday.

The U.S. also has denied a visa to Iran’s United Nations ambassador in Geneva to attend next week’s General Assembly meeting because he was involved in the 1979 U.S. hostage crisis, a U.N. official said.

Ahmadinejad, who is arriving Sunday to address the United Nations’ General Assembly, had asked this month for permission to visit the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, police spokesman Paul Browne said.

The request to enter the fenced-in site was rejected because of ongoing construction there, Browne said.

“Requests for the Iranian president to visit the immediate area would also be opposed by the NYPD on security grounds,” Browne said.

Taliban accused of using
children as human shields

KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters carrying machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades used children as human shields during a battle in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday, forcing U.S.-led coalition soldiers to hold their fire for a time, the coalition said.

The clash in Uruzgan province began when more than 20 insurgents attacked a joint Afghan and coalition patrol, the coalition said in a statement.

As aircraft prepared to bomb the site, “coalition forces as well as the aircraft identified several insurgents in one compound using children as human shields,” the statement said. Ground troops and the aircraft withheld fire to avoid injuring the children, it said.

The soldiers did fight the insurgents when they tried to flee the compound, and more than a dozen suspected militants were killed, the coalition said. The report, which was impossible to verify independently, did not list any casualties among troops or civilians.

900-pound man removed
from home with forklift

LANSING, Mich. — Firefighters cut a hole in the side of a house and used a forklift to extricate a 900-pound man from his second-floor bedroom after a visiting nurse became worried about his health.

Rescue workers were called in Tuesday by the nurse, who determined that the 33-year-old man needed medical help, Fire Chief Tom Cochran said.

Cochran said the man had not left his home since 2003.

The man’s brother, who lives with him, said he suffers from Prader-Willi Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that creates a chronic hunger feeling that can lead to overeating and life-threatening obesity.

Rescue workers brought in a forklift, high enough to raise a platform to a hole cut into the wall of the house. They covered the man with a blue tarp to shield him from onlookers and slid the platform onto a flatbed truck for a trip to Sparrow Hospital.

Crews scale back search
for adventurer Fossett

MINDEN, Nev. — Leaders of the search for Steve Fossett further scaled back the aerial operation Wednesday but insisted they were not giving up on finding the millionaire adventurer, who has now been missing for 17 days.

Following the lead of the Nevada Civil Air Patrol on Monday, the Nevada National Guard on Wednesday sent its helicopters back to their home bases, where they will remain on standby to respond to any new leads. The search has stretched across a section of western Nevada and California twice the size of New Jersey.

“This is not a stand-down. We are not giving up,” Civil Air Patrol Maj. Cynthia Ryan said Wednesday. “It’s a scale-down. No one is abandoning anything.”

Judge allows Winkler
to visit her daughters

HUNTINGDON, Tenn. — A judge ruled Wednesday that a woman who killed her minister-husband with a shotgun can begin supervised visits with her three young daughters, but did not decide whether she can have custody of them.

Mary Winkler, who said she needs to help her children heal emotionally from the loss of their father, can visit with them starting Sept. 29, Judge Ron Harmon ruled.

The visits will be supervised because of worries about Winkler’s mental health, the judge said, and physical security for the children will also be provided if needed.

Harmon said he will draw up rules and locations for the visits and she can phone her children every other day. Winkler, currently on probation after serving several months in jail, refused to comment after leaving the courthouse.

Associated Press