■ United States
911 vigils press for reform
With time running out in the 108th session of the US Congress, lawmakers have been gathering at ground zero this week with a handful of relatives of Sept. 11 victims to urge the passage of a bill restructuring the national intelligence system. "It's time to move. It's time to vote," said US Senator Jon S. Corzine. The bill would carry out recommendations of the 9/11 commission and create a national intelligence director at the cabinet level. It has stalled in Congress, despite the support of President Bush and lawmakers' assertions that, if put to a vote, it will pass both houses. Simultaneous gatherings were held in Boston and Los Angeles, with a final one planned for Monday on the steps of the White House.
■ Guatemala
21 evangelicals killed
Two buses collided head-on along a mountain highway in western Guatemala late Friday and one toppled into a nearby ravine, killing 21 people and injuring at least 20 others, authorities said. A former US school bus converted for long-distance travel and loaded down with Protestant evangelicals left San Pedro, 200km southeast of Guatemala City, the capital, in the afternoon and was headed to the city of Retalhuleu when it slammed into another converted school bus along a two-lane highway, said Ottoniel Rivera, a spokesman for the fire department in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala's second-largest city. Rivera said the bus carrying the evangelicals lost control while heading down a hill and smashed into a bus running from the community of Mazatenango to Quetzaltenango that was climbing the incline.
■ Nicaragua
Missing hikers likely found
Nicaraguan police found two bodies on Friday on a volcanic island and said they were likely the remains of an American and a Briton who went missing last month. The police and US volunteers, aided by dozens of civilians, had been searching for Briton Nicholas Roth, 28, of north London and American Jordan Ressler, 23, from San Diego, on the slopes of the Maderas volcano in Lake Nicaragua after they disappeared on Nov. 17. "Near the volcano two bodies were found in a state of decomposition. We cannot confirm they are the bodies of the two disappeared foreigners, we only presume so," said police spokeswoman Geraldine Gonzalez. The alarm was raised when the two failed to return to their hotel after heading off to climb the 1,394m volcano. Police combing the area found the bodies in a ravine.
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