■ United Kingdom
Fans vote for Tolkien
J.R.R. Tolkien's epic fantasy tale The Lord of the Rings was named Britain's favorite novel on Saturday in a BBC. poll. The book won 23 percent of around 750,000 votes cast to determine the winner from five finalists. The shortlist had been whittled down over several months from a BBC list of the country's 100 best-loved novels, which was based on votes from 140,000 people. The runner-up to Tolkien's novel was Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, which scooped 135,000 votes. Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy came third, followed by Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
■ Canada
PM to focus on ethics
A day after being sworn in, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin met Saturday with his new Cabinet and said the first order of business would be creating an independent ethics commissioner to monitor his Liberal Party government's behavior. Martin, 65, who served nine years as finance minister for outgoing prime minister Jean Chretien, also rejected a call from the leftist New Democratic Party to cancel several billion dollars in planned tax cuts in order to bolster healthcare and other social programs.
■ United States
Thurmond subject of claim
After a lifetime of public silence, a 78-year-old Los Angeles woman is stepping forward to say she is the daughter of the late senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and a black woman who once worked as the Thurmond family maid. The woman, Essie Mae Washington-Williams, a retired vocational school teacher, says she has incontrovertible evidence, including financial receipts and cashier's checks demonstrating his support for her and personal notes -- showing that Thurmond, once one of the nation's leading segregationists, was her father. Thurmond, a Republican who retired last year as the nation's longest-serving senator after 48 years in office, died in June at the age of 100.
■ Israel
Troops kill militant
Israeli troops shot dead an armed Palestinian militant while on patrol near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank yesterday, an army spokesman said. He said the militant had approached the dawn patrol in a threatening way outside Kfar Neama, north of Ramallah, and an M-16 assault rifle and ammunition were found next to his body after he was shot dead. He was identified as a wanted Islamic Jihad militant and two other members of the group were arrested nearby, the spokesman said.
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