Kucinich used Panama firm

Kucinich used Panama firm

CLEVELAND — A finance report shows an Ohio congressman who staunchly advocates that people “Buy American” used a company in Panama to host the Web site for his re-election campaign.

U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Cleveland says the servers used to host the site are in Texas and he thought provider Siteground.com was based there. The Democrat says he didn’t realize it had ties to Panama until The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer asked about it.

Kucinich says he’ll switch to a U.S. provider if his congressional campaign finds that the company moved to Panama.

Seeking Cleopatra’s tomb

CAIRO — Archaeologists will begin excavating sites in Egypt next week in an attempt to solve a mystery that has stymied historians for hundreds of years: Where is the final resting place of doomed lovers Cleopatra and Mark Antony?

Archaeologists looking for the tombs of the celebrated queen of Egypt and the Roman general will begin excavating three sites at a temple where tombs may be located, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement Wednesday.

Cleopatra and Mark Antony, whose relationship was later immortalized by William Shakespeare and then in a movie with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, could have been buried in a deep shaft in a temple near the Mediterranean Sea, the council said.

Church abuse of Indians

TORONTO — Pope Benedict XVI is expected to acknowledge abuse of aboriginals at Christian-run schools when he meets with survivors later this month at the Vatican, a spokesman for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops said Wednesday.

From the 19th century until the 1970s, more than 150,000 Indian children were made to attend state-funded Christian schools as an effort to assimilate them into Canadian society. Nearly 75 percent of the 130 schools were run by Catholic missionary congregations.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologized in Parliament last year, calling the physical and sexual abuse of children at the schools a sad chapter in the country’s history.

Leaked Homeland report

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano responded Wednesday to widespread criticism of a leaked domestic-intelligence report warning local law-enforcement agencies to be on guard for right-wing extremist groups seeking new recruits amid the nation’s economic troubles.

“Let me be very clear: we monitor the risks of violent extremism taking root here in the United States,” Napolitano said in a written statement issued by her department. “We don’t have the luxury of focusing our efforts on one group; we must protect the country from terrorism whether foreign or homegrown, and regardless of the ideology that motivates its violence.”

The report drew sharp criticism from Republican lawmakers, conservatives and veterans groups, who said it unfairly targeted returning military veterans and gun-rights advocates without citing specific threats.

Executions in Iraq

BAGHDAD — Execution-style killings, not headline-grabbing bombings, have been the leading cause of death among civilians in the Iraq war, a study released Wednesday shows.

The findings, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, point to the brutal sectarian nature of the conflict, where death squads once roamed the streets hunting down members of rival Muslim sects.

The authors concede the data are not comprehensive but maintain that the study provides a reliable gauge of how Iraqis have died in the six-year conflict.

The findings also provide further evidence of the brutal sectarian cleansing and retaliatory violence between Shiites and Sunnis that pushed the country to the brink of civil war before easing a year and a half ago.

Accused Marine returning

JACKSONVILLE, N.C. — A North Carolina district attorney says a Marine accused of killing a pregnant colleague is expected back in the United States from Mexico by the end of the week.

Onslow County District Attorney Dewey Hudson said Wednesday that authorities told him that 22-year-old Cpl. Cesar Laurean had run out of appeals as he fought extradition.

Laurean was arrested in Mexico last April. He is charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of 20-year-old Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach of Vandalia, Ohio.

Lauterbach’s charred remains were found buried in the backyard of Laurean’s home near Camp Lejeune in southeastern North Carolina in January 2008. She had accused Laurean of rape, and was pregnant when she was killed.

Combined dispatches