■ UNITED STATES
First lady undergoes surgery
First lady Laura Bush underwent surgery to relieve pain from pinched nerves in her neck. The White House said the procedure on Saturday was successful. The problem kept her from joining President George W. Bush on a trip to Australia this week for the annual meeting of the APEC forum in Sydney. Laura Bush underwent the procedure at The George Washington University Hospital. She returned to the White House on Saturday afternoon and was said to be resting comfortably.
■ UNITED STATES
Whale shot by machine gun
A California gray whale was killed after a group of people harpooned it and shot it with a machine gun, officials said. Coast Guard Petty Officer Kelly Parker said five people believed to be members of the Makah Tribe of Neah Bay, Washington State, shot and harpooned the whale on Saturday morning. Petty Officer Shawn Eggert said the whale disappeared beneath the surface in the evening and did not resurface. Tribe members were being held by the Coast Guard but had not been charged, said Mark Oswell, a spokesman for the law enforcement arm of the National Marine Fisheries Service. The tribe has subsistence fishing rights to kill whales, but it is possible that the whale was shot illegally.
■ UNITED STATES
Storm to clip North Carolina
Tropical Storm Gabrielle swirled toward North Carolina, but its promised rain and high winds were not enough to scare residents and vacationers away from the beach. "When people hear about tropical storms, they assume houses are going to fall in the ocean," said Margot Jolly, a lifeguard with Nags Heads Ocean Rescue. "They shouldn't overreact like that. Just relax, stay inside, and have a little hurricane party." Forecasters said the storm was likely to strengthen before clipping the state's Outer Banks, a chain of barrier islands popular with tourists, yesterday afternoon.
■ UNITED STATES
Rumpus over statue's arms
The swashbuckling sea captain who helped found America's first permanent English settlement lost his right arm in battle nearly two decades earlier -- but you would not know it to look at the two-armed statue on the campus of the Christopher Newport University in Virginia. Some annoyed and angry alumni and history buffs want the monument to get the hook that Christopher Newport is believed to have used 400 years ago. The pair of arms on the 7.3m bronze statue shows a lack of respect for history, said Andy Kiser of Winchester, a student of colonial Virginia history. That is especially galling, Kiser said, in a part of Virginia filled with historic attractions such as Colonial Williamsburg. "In the middle of a community that tries so hard to get it right, here's a 4 tonne `Oops, we got it wrong,'" he said.
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