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■ United States
Bush headed for `dark night'
Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev said that US President George W. Bush is leading the US toward a "dark night." "America is intoxicated by its position as the world's only superpower," Gorbachev said in an interview in yesterday's Time magazine. "It wants to impose its will. But America needs to get over that. It has responsibilities as well as power. I say this as a good friend of America," he said. The 75-year old former leader, in Washington to deliver a speech, said he thought "some people may be pushing President Bush in the wrong direction." But he exempted US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whom he called a "cultured person," as one of the culprits.
■ United States
General blasts Rumsfeld
For the second time in two weeks, a retired general has called for the resignation of US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld over what both generals described as serious mistakes made in the war in Iraq. In remarks on Sunday on the NBC program Meet the Press, General Anthony Zinni of the Marines, a former commander of Central Command for the Middle East, said Rumsfeld, among others, should be held accountable for tactical mistakes in Iraq. Asked who should resign, Zinni said, "Secretary of defense, to begin with," adding that resignations should also come from others responsible for planning the war effort. On March 19, similar sentiments were expressed by General Paul Eaton, a retired Army major general in charge of training the Iraqi military from 2003 to 2004, in an opinion piece in the New York Times.
■ Canada
Mystery blast rocks shop
A man who walked into a Tim Horton's coffee shop in Toronto on Sunday with a can of gasoline was killed in an explosion in the store's toilet, police spokesman Staff Sergeant Don Cole said. "We don't know at 100 percent if it was arson or suicide," he said. Police sealed off the coffee shop and exploded a suspicious package that was found nearby. But the package only contained rubbish, Cole said.
■ United States
Kids too big for safety seats
Many children in the US are too heavy for standard car-safety seats, according to new research. More than a quarter of a million US children aged one to six are heavier than the weight limits for standard car seats, the study found. Lead author Lara Trifiletti said researchers at a safety center at Johns Hopkins Hospital became interested in the topic because they saw children "who were very obese and our car-seat technicians were having a hard time finding car seats to fit them." The study appears in the journal Pediatrics, published yesterday.
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