Biden visits troops in Iraq

Biden visits troops in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Iraq on Thursday to visit U.S. soldiers, just two days after all American combat troops withdrew from Baghdad and all of Iraq’s cities and towns.

During his visit, Biden will meet with Iraqi leaders, including President Jalal Talabani and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.

A White House statement said Biden will reiterate the U.S. commitment to carry out President Barack Obama’s plan to withdraw combat forces. He also will press Iraqi leaders to make more progress toward political reconciliation. It was his first trip to Iraq as vice president.

Al-Maliki named the day U.S. combat troops withdrew, June 30, as “National Sovereignty Day” and declared it a public holiday.

On that same day, the White House said that Biden will oversee the administration’s Iraq policy and work with its government to overcoming their political differences and achieve reconciliation.

Pathologist agrees with Carradine cause of death

LOS ANGELES — The private pathologist who conducted a second autopsy on David Carradine’s body said Thursday that Thai authorities have determined the actor died of asphyxia and so far, he agrees.

“Thus far, the information we have gathered is consistent with that,” Dr. Michael Baden said. But he noted that is waiting for key details from Thai authorities.

Those include results from toxicology tests, an analysis of items found in Carradine’s room, security surveillance footage and a log of room entries from the hotel’s key card system.

The famed New York pathologist said he cannot yet determine whether Carradine’s death was accidental or a homicide.

Buffett gives $1.25B in stock to Gates Foundation

SEATTLE — Billionaire Warren Buffett has donated $1.25 billion in Berkshire Hathaway Inc. stock to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The gift is the third installment in Buffett’s plan to transfer the majority of his wealth to the Seattle-based foundation run by the Microsoft Corp. chairman and his wife. The foundation is the world’s largest with an endowment of $27.5 billion as of April 2009.

Last year, before the recession depressed Berkshire Hathaway’s stock, Buffett’s gift of a similar number of shares was worth $1.8 billion, or 30 percent more.

OAS chief to demand return of Honduran leader

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — A top diplomat said Thursday he is heading to Honduras to demand the return of the president toppled at gunpoint — a mission he said is likely to meet rejection, bringing diplomatic and economic punishment for the impoverished Central American nation.

The head of the Organization of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza, said he plans to travel to Honduras today to insist on the restoration of President Manuel Zelaya, who was ousted in a coup Sunday.

“I will do everything I can. But I think it will be very hard to turn things around in a couple of days,” Insulza said at a summit of Caribbean leaders in Georgetown, Guyana. “We are not going to Honduras to negotiate. We are going to Honduras to ask them to change what they have been doing.”

The interim government of Roberto Micheletti has so far shown little willingness to do so, arguing that the army acted legally — on orders of Congress and the Supreme Court — when it raided Zelaya’s house amid the rattle of gunfire and deported him, still in his nightshirt.

The OAS says it will suspend Honduras if Zelaya isn’t back in office by Saturday, bringing sanctions that could block international aid to one of the poorest nations in the hemisphere.

Report: Air France plane hit water belly first

LE BOURGET, France — Air France Flight 447 slammed into the Atlantic Ocean, intact and belly first, at such a high speed that the 228 people aboard probably had no time to even inflate their life jackets, French investigators said Thursday in their first report into the June 1 accident.

Likening the investigation to a puzzle with missing pieces, lead investigator Alain Bouillard said that one month after the crash, “we are very far from establishing the causes of the accident.”

Problematic speed sensors on the Airbus A330-200 jet that have been the focus of intense speculation since the crash may have misled the plane’s pilots but were not a direct cause, Bouillard said, while admitting that investigators are still a long way from knowing what did precipitate the disaster.

Associated Press