Former pro football player Pat Tillman was "probably" killed by friendly fire as he led his team of Army Rangers up a hill during a firefight in Afghanistan last month, the U.S. Army said Saturday.

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"Suddenly the sound of a mine explosion was heard somewhere between the two groups and the Americans in one group started firing," the official said, citing an account given to him by an Afghan fighter who was part of that group, not Tillman's.

"Nobody knew what it was — a mine, a remote-controlled bomb — or what was going on, or if enemy forces were firing. The situation was very confusing," the official said.

"As the result of this firing, that American was killed and three Afghan soldiers were injured. It was a misunderstanding and afterwards they realized that it was a mine that had exploded and there were no enemy forces."

[Kelli] ARENA: Neither John Kerry nor the president has said troops pulled out of Iraq any time soon. But there is some speculation that al Qaeda believes it has a better chance of winning in Iraq if John Kerry is in the White House.

BEN VENZKE, INTELCENTER: Al Qaeda feels that Bush is, even despite casualties, right or wrong for staying there is going to stay much longer than possibly what they might hope a Democratic administration would.

"Republicans fall into two categories at this time: grumbling and despondent," says one former high-ranking administration official. "People are very demoralised. This is the prime problem that the president is seeking to address . . . to show that there is a method to the madness."

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For the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib, the rising death toll and the sense of drift have not only soured public sentiment towards the Iraq war, they have sapped Mr Bush's support on Capitol Hill, among Republican voters and within the conservative "commentariat".

Senators such as Richard Lugar, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican, have personalised the administration's failings in Iraq. Mr Hagel complained that Mr Bush has sealed himself off from outside advice: "To essentially hold himself hostage to two or three key advisers and never reach beyond that is very dangerous for a president."

Suddenly, Democrats in Congress are even beginning to dream out loud of recapturing the Republican-held House, believing that a wave of anti-Iraq, anti-Bush sentiment could deliver them the extra 12 seats they need.

The polls show that as Mr Bush's approval ratings for his handling of Iraq have plummeted, Republicans previously rock-solid in their support for Mr Bush's leadership in Iraq and the war on terrorism are having misgivings: only 75 per cent of Republicans supported Mr Bush's handling of Iraq, down 8 per cent over the past month, according to Tuesday's Washington Post-ABC News Poll. The problems in Iraq are even contaminating Mr Bush's approval ratings on the economy.

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Whatever the conservative commentators complaints are with the Bush administration's handling of Iraq, one of those at the White House gathering points out that none of them would even contemplate voting for Mr Kerry. The same, though, cannot be said for Republicans across the country.

James Carville, the fast-talking Louisiana Democrat who worked for Bill Clinton and has since made a reputation as a partisan pollster and television pundit, says that when he speaks to Republican audiences he asks them whether they have come across many people in bars or supermarkets recently who say: "I voted for Al Gore in 2000, but, you know, I'm so impressed with that George Bush, I think I'm going to vote for him this time."

It is a doubly vicious taunt, as it reminds Republicans not only of the strength of anti-Bush feeling that will propel Democrats to the polls in November but, also, it hints at the increasing number of George W. Bush voters in 2000 who are having second thoughts in 2004.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer with over $256 billion in sales last year, has received more than $19 million from Georgia governments to build stores and distribution centers since 1987, according to a study released Monday.

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Wal-Mart's biggest Georgia subsidy, $10 million, came in 1987 for building a distribution center in Douglas, in southeast Georgia, according to the study. The center employs about 1,600 workers.

A job for a truck loader there is advertised to pay $10.45 an hour, according to the state Department of Labor.

Other Wal-Mart distribution center subsidies were $500,000 in Carrollton in 2001; $1 million in LaGrange in 2000; $1.2 million in Monroe in 2000; and $2 million in Statesboro in 1994, according to the study.

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Retail stores in Americus, Fitzgerald and Walton received local government subsidies of from $1.3 million to $1.9 million each in 1992, according to the study. Mattera said taxpayers should be especially skeptical of government spending to draw these lower-wage retail jobs.

The past few weeks, Rulon Gardner has been as careful as a 264 1/2-pound man can be, especially one who's had misadventures with snowmobiling, motorcycles, basketball and bows and arrows.

"I'm pretty darn safe," said Gardner, who stayed out of jeopardy Sunday to advance to the Athens Olympics, where he'll defend the heavyweight Greco-Roman wrestling gold medal he won in 2000.

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Actually, the weird things have happened all his life, like the time he accidentally punctured his stomach with an arrow during fourth grade show-and-tell. Or the notor- ious snowmobiling accident in 2002 when he was stranded for 17 hours and frostbite cost him a toe. Gardner keeps the toe in formaldehyde in his refrigerator.

Frightening lessons

So, Zell Miller wants to teach again! ("When Miller leaves Senate, he aims to teach," News, May 21) What will he teach?

After telling the Georgia electorate that he wanted only one term as governor, will he teach a course in honesty or after living off the Democratic party for years will he enlighten us with a course on loyalty? Or as a good Marine will he tell us what Semper Fi means?

Q: I would like to go back to the first incident, when the survivor asked why did you kill his brother. Was that the incident that pushed you over the edge, as you put it?

A: Oh, yeah. Later on I found out that was a typical day. I talked with my commanding officer after the incident. He came up to me and says: "Are you OK?" I said: "No, today is not a good day. We killed a bunch of civilians." He goes: "No, today was a good day." And when he said that, I said "Oh, my goodness, what the hell am I into?"

I made these banners because I'm tired of being expected to feel ashamed because I don't want to help right-wing assholes turn this country into a shitkicker theme park. I'm tired of having my patriotism questioned by people who think Thomas Jefferson was a sitcom character. I'm smarter, better educated and more informed than these people -- why the fuck should I be forced to treat their opinions as if they were equally as valid as my own? You wouldn't ask a six year old how to tune a Lamborghini's engine...so why should you care about the political opinions of people who can't point out their own goddamn country on a map? I've lived in the Middle East and spent time with Kurdish insurgents; I don't give a shit what some semi-literate Midwestern retard who's never been more than two hundred miles from home and whose idea of intellectual exercise is watching "Jeopardy" thinks about the intricacies of Islamic theology as it relates to the metaphysical notion of jihad. Fuck him.

Am I an elitist? If by "elitism" you mean "expecting people to actually know what the fuck they're talking about before they start talking about it," then yes, I'm an elitist. Fine. These banners are for other "elitists" who are proud of actually being smart and, y'know, knowing something about the world they didn't get from Fox News or the cover of the goddamn Reader's Digest.

"The emperor has no clothes," Pelosi, D-California, told reporters on Thursday. "When are people going to face the reality? Pull this curtain back."

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"The situation in Iraq and the reckless economic policies in the United States speak to one issue for me, and that is the competence of our leader," Pelosi said. "These policies are not working. But speaking specifically to Iraq, we have a situation where -- without adequate evidence -- we put our young people in harm's way."

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"I believe that the president's leadership in the actions taken in Iraq demonstrate an incompetence in terms of knowledge, judgment and experience in making the decisions that would have been necessary to truly accomplish the mission without the deaths to our troops and the cost to our taxpayers."

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"Rocket-propelled grenades, not rose petals, greeted them," Pelosi said of U.S. troops. "Instead ... of Iraq being a country that would readily pay for its own reconstruction ... we're up to over $200 billion in cost to the American people."

"Yeah, it makes me sad. But some of these people who are my critics should walk a mile in my shoes. They should sit in the caucus meetings and hear what I heard, and then they would know Zell Miller."

"Dad, can we still go to Wal-Mart?"

"She shopped till she dropped," he once wisenheimered about a comely corpse in a chichi boutique.

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After being told a killing was the work of the devil: "No, this was done by someone who knows the neighborhood. Satan's not a local."

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Crime scene technician: "Last time we sifted a dumpster, the Investigating Officer got in here himself."
Briscoe: "That's fascinating. I think you missed a spot over there."

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Van Buren: "What about Dr. Hampton? Any man in her life?"
Briscoe: "Yes, but his name is Fluffy and he's been neutered. Other than that, her social calendar is pretty light."

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In one episode, when commenting on a decapitated victim, Briscoe chimed in with, “Hope his parents weren't getting him any hats for Christmas.”

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Green: “Did anyone find any type of weapon in Peter Rubin’s home?”
Briscoe: “Not unless you count the world’s most boring record collection.”

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Rey: “You ever pay for it, Lennie?”
Lennie: “I was married, wasn't I?”

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"New Hampshire. I spent a year there one weekend"

I think there should be no mercy shown to these sub-humans. I believe that a thousand of them should be killed tomorrow. I think a thousand of them held in the Iraqi prison should be given 24 hour[s] -- a trial and executed. I think they need to be shown that we are not going to roll over to them ... Instead of putting joysticks, I would have liked to have seen dynamite put in their orifices and they should be dropped from airplanes ... They should put dynamite in their behinds and drop them from 35,000 feet, the whole pack of scum out of that jail.

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Right now, even people sitting on the fence would like George Bush to drop a nuclear weapon on an Arab country. They don't even care which one it would be. I can guarantee you -- I don't need to go to Mr. Schmuck [pollster John] Zogby and ask him his opinion ... The most -- I tell you right now -- the largest percentage of Americans would like to see a nuclear weapon dropped on a major Arab capital. They don't even care which one...

I think these people need to be forcibly converted to Christianity ... It's the only thing that can probably turn them into human beings."

A 320-year-old missing cello is now back with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association, having possibly avoided becoming one of the most expensive CD racks ever.

A nurse found the $3.5 million instrument made by master craftsman Antonio Stradivari lying by a trash bin — and almost had her boyfriend convert it into a CD holder, police said Tuesday.

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The prospect that the prized instrument could have been turned into a CD holder "is so abominable. I get sick when I hear it," said Robert Cauer, a Los Angeles-based expert instrument restorer.

I was outraged by Cynthia Tucker's comparison of white Southerners gleefully torturing black Southerners during Jim Crow to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

She should apologize for her openly racist and inflammatory remarks.

The moaning and groaning over the so-called torture at Abu Ghraib makes me sick; there was no torture.

Torture is standing in a window 100 stories in the air with a raging inferno behind, a sea of asphalt below and your heart in your throat as you pray for the miracle that isn't coming. Torture is falling for seemingly endless hours, fear permeating your every pore, knowing you are about to die. And for what?

The prisoners, who were hardened terrorists, not average Iraqis, were only made fun of. The only wrongdoing was the stupidity of taking photos.

A man who pleaded guilty to having sex with a 12-year-old received a penalty much lighter than usual — 10 days of sex-offender probation — angering the girl's mother.

A Louisiana state representative wants to make it illegal for people to wear low-slung pants that expose underwear -- or more. But he's having trouble getting some of his colleagues to take him seriously.

When the bill came up for debate earlier this week, Rep. Derrick Shepherd, a Democrat from the New Orleans suburb of Marrero, was met with catcalls on the House floor. The bill would make it a crime to wear clothing in public that "intentionally exposes undergarments or intentionally exposes any portion of the pubic hair, cleft of the buttocks or genitals."

Launching a fiery speech in support of the bill, Shepherd said, "There comes a time in every society where we must draw a line of decency, where we must speak to a group of individuals who would flaunt the laws of our state, who would flaunt the morals of our community."

The hunter's prey darted into the shadows, just out of reach of Henry Demar's gun.

"Come on, stand up and be counted," Demar muttered. "There was a ripple that came out of the weeds. There's something out there."

Dressed in camouflage, gripping his .357 Magnum, Demar was primed to shoot. But this time, no such luck. With a flick of its tail, his quarry -- a slick, silvery fish -- was gone.

Fish shooting is a sport in Vermont, and every spring, hunters break out their artillery -- high-caliber pistols, shotguns, even AK-47s -- and head to the marshes to exercise their right to bear arms against fish.

In the carefully rendered world where Hughes lives, the weapons of mass destruction are not missing; they have only to be discovered. Terrorists hate freedom and liberty and equality, instead of hating Americans. A man who won a Silver Star for shedding blood for his country needs to explain himself, while a young lieutenant who skipped out on an officer's commission and a coveted pilot's slot has "served honorably." On Planet Hughes, life is returning to normal in Iraq, the horrors are diminishing and the casualties of Americans and Iraqis are not that significant. It's a happy place where presidents never make mistakes and there is never anything to be sorry about. One can almost see her in the back of the room, her mouth rounded with expression and secretly moving in unison with the president as he speaks the words "Donald Rumsfeld is a superb secretary of defense."

After all of the troops have come home, a powerful cleric is ruling Iraq with a theocratic government and Bush has been retired to his ranch by an angry electorate, the president's closest friend will be undaunted. Years from now, when historians begin to insist that Iraq was the greatest geopolitical mistake ever made by an American president, she will be there disputing their interpretations.

Karen Hughes will always believe.

Like another writer, I am shocked and dismayed over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by Americans ("Humanity was removed," Letters, May 10).

However, unlike her, I do not consider Iraqis my brothers and sisters. I am a practicing Catholic, and my brothers and sisters do not drag human beings through the streets, dismember them, set them on fire and hang them from a bridge. Neither do they celebrate while others are doing so.

I saw those pictures, too. You cannot strip humanity from someone who has none to strip.

Seven people died when their rented SUV veered out of control and went airborne while passing other cars on Interstate 95. It was one of the deadliest highway crashes in Maine history.

Two women and a child were fatally thrown from the Ford Explorer, while its other four occupants believed to be two children, a woman and possibly a teenager died inside. Three of the dead were children under the age of 10.

The Explorer went out of control Sunday afternoon after clipping one of the cars it was trying to pass, said Stephen McCausland, spokesman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

The man who would likely be Sen. John Kerry's most credible defender against the slings and arrows aimed at him by Republicans unfortunately suffered the fate of too many Vietnam veterans -- an untimely death. That man was Lewis B. Puller Jr., the son of the most decorated Marine in the history of the corps, Lewis "Chesty" Puller Sr.

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Puller recounted his tragic tale in "Fortunate Son," the most compelling piece of literature to come out of the Vietnam War. The book deservedly won the 1992 Pulitzer Prize but is particularly relevant now amidst the controversy over the anti-war activism of Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate. Puller shows us how men who decided to sacrifice their lives for what they believed was a just cause came to actively oppose the war, risking approbation from fellow veterans and the military they respected.

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Puller's transition from a patriotic young officer who cared deeply about the men in his platoon to a critic of the war he eagerly joined seems to parallel Kerry's. Like Kerry, Puller didn't immediately question the cause he fought for while fighting overseas or even upon returning. He abhorred student protesters who burned American flags and demonized veterans for committing atrocities against Vietnamese civilians. His anti-war views took some time and reflection.

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But what eventually turned Puller into a dissenter regarding the policy justifications for the war was the addition of protesting veterans to the anti-war movement around 1971. Here were men like him who "were not starry-eyed intellectuals or malcontents" but "soldiers and Marines, many of whom had paid for their perspectives with shattered lives and limbs." When these anti-war veterans headed to Washington to protest during Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings, Puller was tempted to join them. Instead, Puller chose to stay close to his beloved father, who was dying of a massive stroke at the family home in Virginia.

In a recent interview on the TV program "Dateline NBC," the 35-year-old singer described the incident as a "little spat." He said the two were playfully "slap boxing" and Houston took one of his jabs a "little serious."

"I got big hands, man. I would hurt her, you know? It would be more than just a little cut on the lip," Brown said.

PHOENIX (AP) — School's in for Alice Cooper. The rock star, whose hits include School's Out, is being awarded an honorary doctorate by a Christian liberal arts college. The 56-year-old will receive the honorary degree at Grand Canyon University's commencement ceremony Saturday.

"Mr. President, as a concerned Democrat who served on a same color boat as John Kerry, I would like to know how you answer the charges that you are a much stronger candidate on national security, and that your tax cut plans are the best way to increase employment?"

Tillman's youngest brother, Rich, wore a rumpled white T-shirt, no jacket, no tie, no collar, and immediately swore into the microphone. He hadn't written anything, he said, and with the starkest honesty, he asked mourners to hold their spiritual bromides.

"Pat isn't with God,'' he said. "He's f -- ing dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's f -- ing dead.''

What? This didn't happen for God, as well as country? A professional athlete turned soldier, and we're supposed to believe that he'd have no use for piety? Robbed of a cliche, where does that leave us?

Challenge yourself

His brother-in-law and close friend, Alex Garwood, described how Tillman handled his duties when he became godfather to Garwood's son. He came to the ceremony dressed as a woman. Not as a religious commentary. He was doing a balancing act.

"We had two godfathers, no godmother,'' Garwood explained. And what NFL player turned Army Ranger wouldn't don drag to make that math work?

Who on earth was this guy?

He was the same person who often talked late into the night with his linebackers coach at ASU, prying apart stereotypes about college football players and future soldiers.

"He talked about gays,'' Lyle Setencich, the former ASU assistant said. "He asked me, 'Could you coach gays?' " Setencich told Tillman yes. He could, and he had. He repeated that at the memorial service, televised on ESPN, in front of the sports world, showing another side of a coach, another side of an American hero.

Challenge yourself.

"It's shameless commercial opportunism on our part," confesses Terry Jones, shamelessly, referring to the fact that Monty Python's Life of Brian is being rushed into rerelease.

The original plan was to get the newly struck prints out this August - the month that marks the 25th anniversary of the defunct British comedy troupe's merrily blasphemous tale of an accidental messiah unknowingly rousing the rabble of Judea, circa A.D. 33. But then a wee thing called The Passion of the Christ by some guy named Mel Gibson came along, and suddenly crucifixions, Roman despots and virgin birthing were in the news.

"We just saw the opportunity and thought we'd take it," Jones says. "We're definitely trying to cash in on Mel's enormous success."