■ QatarNew terror tape aired
A man believed to be Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 man in the terrorist network al-Qaeda, warned in an audio tape broadcast on Al Jazeera TV that Americans would be targets "in their own home." The tape, which has yet to be verified, was broadcast on Friday on the Qatar-based satellite channel. Al-Zawahiri also said US forces will suffer great losses in Iraq. Al Jazeera said the tape is believed to have been made last month during Ramadan. The voice said al-Qaeda's pursuit of Americans knew no borders, but was taking place in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and the Arab Peninsula in particular.
■ United States
NASA releases new images
A new space telescope that looks at the cosmos with infrared detectors has lifted the dust veils from newborn stars and a bumptious comet, and revealed detail in the spiral arms of a neighboring galaxy. The first images from the Spitzer Space Telescope were released on Thursday by NASA, showing the nearby galaxy Messier 81, located in the constellation Ursa Major, which includes the Big Dipper. The pictures of the galaxy show its different components in some detail -- including old stars, interstellar dust heated up by star-forming activity and the sites of star formation. Spitzer also captured images of a comet which orbits the sun outside Jupiter, as well as a stellar nursery within the Elephant's Trunk Nebula in the constellation Cepheus.
■ United States
Beauty queen uses gun
A Georgia man allegedly
shot by his beauty-queen girlfriend during an argument over another woman died on Friday from the injuries, police said. Sharron Nicole Redmond, who holds the title of Miss Savannah, was expected to turn herself in yesterday to face a murder charge, Savannah-Chatham County police said. Redmond, 21, was charged with aggravated assault after the Tuesday night shooting of 25-year-old Kevin Shorter. The argument was apparently over Shorter dating another woman at the same time he was seeing Redmond. Police said the two argued outside the home of the father of the second woman, whose name has not been released. Shorter was shot in the lower abdomen, then ran back into the house and collapsed. Redmond probably wouldn't lose her crown as Miss Savannah unless she was convicted, said Tim Strickland, co-chairman of the Miss Savannah pageant.
■ Venezuela
Gunmen use beauty queen
Unidentified gunmen briefly kidnapped Miss Venezuela 1997, Veruzhka Ramirez, stole her pickup and forced her to sign copies of her new nude calendar, her agent said on Friday. Agent Luigi Rattino said Ramirez, 24, was forced to drive the offenders around in her just-paid-off truck in Valencia, before they stole her cellphones, clothes and vehicle. "It was an express kidnapping; they didn't do anything to her," Rattino said. But before the curvaceous brunette was sent on her way, she signed 15 copies of her new calendar. At gunpoint.
■ Iraq
Spanish PM visits troops
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar paid a surprise visit to Iraq yesterday, flying in to inspect Spanish troops deployed in the south of the country, Spanish radio announced. Aznar left Madrid on Friday for Kuwait where he went by helicopter to the Iraqi town of Diwaniyah, the radio correspondent said.
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