United States

A U.S. military judge at Fort Hood, in Texas, has thrown out a guilty plea agreement for U.S. Army Private First Class Lynndie England, who appeared in many of the most graphic photographs of prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison last year. The case is now under review.

Italy is to publish its own conclusions on the killing of intelligence officer Nicola Calipari, who died under American fire at a checkpoint in Baghdad on March Fourth. The United States released its report Saturday, clearing American soldiers of responsibility in the killing.

Italy and the United States have not been able to reach an agreement on a joint investigation into the killing of an Italian agent shot by U.S. forces in Baghdad. The two governments issued a joint statement saying the investigation was over but there were no shared final conclusions.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday it is the historic duty of the world's democracies to eliminate political tyranny. She addressed officials from more than 100 countries at the Community of Democracies meeting in Santiago.

VOA's Deborah Block spoke with prominent members of various faiths in the United States to find out where they stood on the Schiavo case and the right to life.

After days of often noisy demonstrations, supporters of Terri Schiavo, the 41-one-year-old brain-damaged Florida woman, reacted to her death early Thursday with silence. Ms. Schiavo was at the center of a legal and political controversy in the United States and her death came nearly 14 days after she was disconnected from a feeding tube that had been keeping her alive for years.

The case of Terri Schiavo, the American woman who died Thursday, 13 days after her feeding tube was removed, drew worldwide attention to the issues of the right to live and the right to die.

A U.S. federal appeals court has turned down an emergency appeal by the parents of brain-damaged Terri Schiavo to have her feeding tube re-attached. Wednesday's decision marks the fourth time the appeals court has ruled against Ms. Schiavo's parents.

The French Ambassador to the United States, His Excellency Jean-David Levitte, believes U.S.-French relations have improved considerably since the first term of President George W. Bush.

Democrat Jane Harman says the findings of the joint investigation with the Senate never supported a notion that there was any actual cooperation between Iraq and al-Qaida. She adds, however, that in her view Iraq has since become a center for terrorist activity.

The U.S. stock market, shut down by the terror attack in lower Manhattan Tuesday, is expected to be back in operation no later than next Monday.

The attack on the World Trade Center Tuesday was not the first on the 110-story twin towers.

The United States is reeling from a horrifying round of terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Suicide aircraft attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have left untold numbers injured or dead and thrown the cities into chaos.