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World & Nation
Compiled from USA Today
Tornadoes kill three in Illinois
UTICA, Ill. (AP) — Rescue workers used heavy equipment and shovels Wednesday to dig for people feared trapped in the basement of a tornado-flattened tavern where at least three others were killed.
State officials said a fourth person also died in north-central Illinois but no details were available. More tornadoes damaged towns in central Indiana, injuring at least five people, as thunderstorms rolled through the Midwest.
Five people were pulled alive from the rubble of Utica’s Milestone Tap tavern, and authorities believed as many as five others could still be inside. They said workers were frustrated by the century-old building’s crumbling, unstable sandstone walls.
“We haven’t had any communication with anyone for several hours, but we’re still holding out some hope that we can find some people alive,” LaSalle County Sheriff Tom Templeton said at a news conference early Wednesday.
Greenspan: Interest rates will rise as economy improves
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Wednesday the U.S. economy has entered a period of more vigorous expansion that may require higher interest rates to keep inflation from rearing its head.
“As I have noted previously, the Federal funds rate must rise at some point to prevent pressures on price inflation from eventually emerging,” Greenspan said in testimony prepared for Congress’s Joint Economic Committee.
“As yet, the protracted period of monetary accommodation has not fostered an environment in which broad-based inflation pressures appear to be building,” he said. “But the Federal Reserve recognizes that sustained prosperity requires the maintenance of price stability and will act, as necessary, to ensure that outcome.”
Greenspan said a period of disinflation, or slowing inflation rates, seems to be over but high rates of labor productivity growth and unused economic capacity were restraining upward prices pressures “and should continue to do so for a time.”
N. Korea’s Kim agrees to nuclear talks
BEIJING (AP) — North Korean leader Kim Jong Il said during a visit to Beijing that he wants to end the standoff over the North’s nuclear program though dialogue and is committed to a “nuclear weapon-free goal,” China announced Wednesday.
Kim and Chinese leaders agreed to “jointly pushing forward” six-nation talks on the North’s nuclear program, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The report, issued after the secretive Kim left the Chinese capital on Wednesday, was China’s first public confirmation of his three-day visit.
Kim’s visit came just days after Vice President Dick Cheney traveled to Beijing last week and urged Chinese leaders to press the North to reach a settlement.
Scissors left in woman after surgery
SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — Eighteen months after colon surgery, a 69-year-old woman in Sydney discovered that surgeons left a pair of scissors in her abdomen.
Pat Skinner told reporters Tuesday that she suffered months of pain after doctors at Sydney’s St. George Hospital removed part of her colon in May 2001.
Only after insisting on an X-ray 18 months after the operation did she find a 6.7-inch pair of surgical scissors inside her abdomen.
“I was just devastated. I could not believe what I was seeing. It was like a nightmare seeing those scissors up on the screen,” Skinner told Sky News television Tuesday.
The scissors were removed in October 2002, said the hospital. Although the mishap was reported, the operating team was not disciplined, said the hospital’s chief executive, David Pearce.
Skinner was seeking legal action, local media reported late Monday, though it wasn’t immediately clear why she had waited so long to press her case.
Kerry campaign provides some military records
WASHINGTON — Under pressure to answer questions about his Vietnam service, John Kerry’s presidential campaign began releasing his Navy records Tuesday, beginning with documentation for the medals he received.
“John Kerry has a record from the military that he’s running on, not running from,” campaign spokesman Michael Meehan said.
The issue arose during Kerry’s appearance Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press, when the Democratic candidate agreed to release the files. The promise was similar to one President Bush made in February, when he was under pressure to prove he had completed his Vietnam-era service in the Texas Air National Guard. Bush did not serve in combat, and his records did not answer questions about how he fulfilled his service obligation or why he missed a physical and stopped flying F-102 fighter jets.
With questions raised about the three Purple Heart medals that allowed Kerry to leave Vietnam after four months, the campaign said it would post on its Web site all the records it has from his service from 1966-70. Kerry asked the Navy for the records in March and received about 150 pages last week, Meehan said.
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