Assassination plot

Assassination plot

MANILA, Philippines — Security officials reported Thursday uncovering plots to kill President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and bomb foreign embassies, just as opposition leaders were calling for more protests urging the unpopular Philippines leader to resign.

Brig. Gen. Romeo Prestoza, head of the Presidential Security Group, said the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf group and its allies were behind the planned attacks.

Few details were announced. That sparked opposition claims the government was using scare tactics in hopes of curtailing an anti-Arroyo demonstration today in Manila’s financial district and a Sunday prayer rally involving the Roman Catholic Church and a democracy icon, former President Corazon Aquino.

Arroyo, a staunch U.S. ally plagued by long-running Islamic and communist insurgencies, has lurched from crisis to crisis since taking over in the country’s second “people power” revolt in 2001, fending off three impeachment bids and four coup plots. She has two years left in her term.

Contempt of Congress

WASHINGTON — The House escalated a constitutional showdown Thursday with President Bush, approving the first contempt of Congress citations against West Wing aides and reigniting last year’s battle over the scope of executive privilege. On a 223-32 vote, the House approved contempt citations against White House Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers for their refusal to cooperate with an investigation into the mass firings of U.S. attorneys and allegations that administration officials sought to politicize the Justice Department.

The vote came after a morning of tense partisan bickering over parliamentary rules, including a GOP call for a vote on a motion to close the chamber that briefly forced lawmakers to leave a memorial service for Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., who died this week. The conflict was capped later in the day when most House Republicans walked off the floor and refused to cast a final vote.

Putin prepares for change

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir V. Putin made it plain Thursday that he plans to maintain power when he leaves office, whatever his next job title may be. During a wide-ranging Kremlin appearance before hundreds of Russian and foreign journalists, Putin reiterated his threats to aim missiles at his European neighbors if they host U.S. missile shield installations. But he also said that, despite hostile rhetoric, Russia and the United States ultimately would cooperate out of necessity.

Banned by the constitution from seeking a third term, Putin has spent months crafting his departure after an eight-year reign. The powerful, popular president is expected to become prime minister in the next government, a job he referred to Thursday as the highest executive power.

Putin has already anointed his hand-picked successor, longtime friend and confidante Dmitry Medvedev, who is expected to coast effortlessly through an election early next month.

Forced to accept help

MELVILLE, N.Y. — In response to three recent deaths of homeless people in the cold, Long Island officials are considering forcing the unsheltered homeless indoors during bad weather, officials from both counties said.

Right now, authorities can only strongly urge the homeless to take shelter. Long Island’s policy would be similar to one in New York City, where unsheltered homeless people who appear to be mentally ill can be brought indoors involuntarily when weather conditions meet set criteria.

Corps blocks plan

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is blocking a plan to build in inflatable dam across the Susquehanna River in Wilkes-Barre.

The corps says it concluded that the dam wasn’t the least environmentally damaging way to control floods in the area. The idea of the dam was pushed for many year by U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski. The congressman said it would spur development along the river’s edge and rejuvenate the old industrial city.

But environmentalists noted that the stretch of the Susquehanna between Scranton and Wilkes-Barre is among the most fouled segments of the river. It contributes much of the pollution that makes its way to the Chesapeake Bay. Raw sewage flows into the river during heavy rainstorms.

Combined dispatches