News from the Associated Press

AP Top News at 9:44 p.m. EST

Moderate Dems pivotal in Saturday health care vote

WASHINGTON (AP) - Suitably opaque, Section 2006 takes up only a few dozen lines in a sweeping health care bill that runs to 2,074 pages and mentions neither Sen. Mary Landrieu nor her state of Louisiana. But the section's purpose is indisputable: to deliver $100 million or more in federal funds to the state. And in the process clear the way for one of three moderate Democratic fence-sitters - Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas are the others - to help propel the legislation past its initial hurdle in a crucial Saturday vote.

Levin: May be more troubling emails from Hasan
WASHINGTON (AP) - There may be additional e-mails that could have tipped off law enforcement or military officials to the Fort Hood shooter before he went on his deadly rampage, the chairman of the Senate Armed Forces Committee said Friday. The U.S. government intercepted at least 18 e-mails between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric. They were passed along to two Joint Terrorism Task Force cells led by the FBI, but a senior defense official said no one at the Defense Department knew about the messages until after the shootings. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence procedures.

US to drop shooting case against Blackwater guard

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department intends to drop manslaughter and weapons charges against one of the Blackwater Worldwide security guards involved in a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting, prosecutors said in court documents Friday. The shooting in busy Nisoor Square left 17 Iraqis dead and inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad. It touched off a string of investigations that ultimately led the State Department to cancel the company's lucrative contract to guard diplomats in Iraq.

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Police: NC girl raped, killed on day she was taken

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) - A 5-year-old North Carolina girl was raped and killed the same day she was taken from her home, according to an arrest warrant released Friday. Shaniya Davis was sexually assaulted and asphyxiated Nov. 10, the day her mother reported her missing from the trailer park where she was staying, according to the warrant. Authorities embarked on a nearly weeklong search that ended when the girl's body was found dumped off a rural road. Mario McNeill is charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape of a child in the warrant, which was issued after police said they collected hair and fibers, clothes, and a straw from his 1997 Mitsubishi Galant. He was initially charged only with kidnapping.

GOP: Health test recommendations could affect care

WASHINGTON (AP) - Republicans are seizing on this week's recommendations for fewer Pap smears and mammograms to fuel concern about government-rationed medical care - and to try to chip away support by women for President Barack Obama's proposed health care overhaul. "This is how rationing starts," declared Jon Kyl of Arizona, the party's second-in-command in the Senate, during a news conference. "This is what we're going to expect in the future."

Museum: Galileo's fingers, tooth are found

ROME (AP) - Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei's corpse in a Florentine basilica in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again and will soon be put on display, an Italian museum director said Friday. Three fingers, a vertebra and a tooth were removed from the astronomer's body by admirers in 1737, 95 years after his death, as his corpse was being moved from a storage place to a monumental tomb - opposite that of Michelangelo, in Santa Croce Basilica in Florence.

Researcher: Faint writing seen on Shroud of Turin

ROME (AP) - A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus. Experts say the historian may be reading too much into the markings, and they stand by carbon-dating that points to the shroud being a medieval forgery. Barbara Frale, a researcher at the Vatican archives, says in a new book that she used computer-enhanced images of the shroud to decipher faintly written words in Greek, Latin and Aramaic scattered across the cloth.

Army relents, will allow media at Palin book event

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - The U.S. Army said Friday it would open Sarah Palin's appearance on Fort Bragg to media, a reversal from earlier in the week when the military wanted the event closed out of fears it would prompt political grandstanding against President Barack Obama. The attempt to ban media at the event scheduled for Monday was met with protests from The Associated Press and The Fayetteville Observer. The military then proposed limited media coverage, but lifted that plan Friday.

Officials: Man tied 15 lizards to chest at airport
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Federal officials say they arrested a man who strapped 15 live lizards to his chest to get through customs at Los Angeles International Airport. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Friday that 40-year-old Michael Plank of Lomita, Calif., was returning from Australia when U.S. Customs agents found 11 skinks, two geckos and two monitor lizards fastened to his body Tuesday.

NFL union pans reporting on teammates' concussions

The NFL Players Association opposes commissioner Roger Goodell's call for players to tell their teams' medical staffs if they think a teammate shows symptoms of a concussion, saying that is not an adequate solution. "If every player were a medical doctor that could recognize symptoms of concussions, then that would be a great idea," NFLPA assistant executive director George Atallah said in a telephone interview Friday.




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