Fox slams Mexico City mayor in ongoing war of words
Associated Press
MEXICO CITY - President Vicente Fox fired the latest shot in an ongoing war of words with Mexico City mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador this weekend, saying the mayor has done little to combat rampant corruption, crime and unemployment in the hemisphere's largest city.
"It seems to me there's a lot of work to do in the capital of this country," Fox said Saturday in his weekly national radio program."I think its indispensable to recognize that things are bad so that the problems can be corrected."
A Lopez Obrador spokesman said yesterday that the mayor did not listen to the radio address and would not comment on what the president said.
Lopez Obrador, who is expected to vie for the presidency in 2006, first clashed publicly with Fox in March, when he proposed a citywide referendum to do away with daylight-saving time.
The mayor, a leading spokesman for the leftist Revolutionary Democracy Party, called daylight time a symbol of an overly powerful executive branch, saying Fox"does not have the power to change the hour" across the country.
Lopez Obrador was also one of the president's most vocal critics during a summer scandal that saw Fox officials pay seemingly impossibly high prices for sheets, towels, curtains and other household items used in the presidential residence.
In recent weeks the mayor has again gone on the attack, accusing Fox's 9-month-old administration of failing to live up to its sweeping pledges to stamp out nationwide corruption.
Fox, of the conservative National Action Party, took an indirect shot at Lopez Obrador during last week's radio address, when he said Mexico City investigators have been slow to investigate the slaying of outspoken human rights lawyer Digna Ochoa.
"This is a homicide, one more that has occurred in Mexico City, and it is the responsibility of the city's government and its prosecutors to make investigations and accusations," Fox said last week.
Terrorists destroyed secret CIA office in Sept. 11 attacks
Associated Press
NEW YORK - A secret office operated by the CIA was destroyed in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, seriously disrupting intelligence operations.
The undercover station was in 7 World Trade Center, a smaller office tower that fell several hours after the collapse of the twin towers on Sept. 11, a U.S. government official said.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that immediately after the attack, a special CIA team scoured the rubble in search of secret documents and intelligence reports stored in the station, either on paper or in computers. It was not known whether the efforts were successful.
A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the existence of the office, which was first reported in yesterday's editions of The New York Times.
The New York station was behind the false front of another federal organization, which the Times did not identify. The station was a base of operations to spy on and recruit foreign diplomats stationed at the United Nations, while debriefing selected American business executives and others willing to talk to the CIA after returning from overseas.
The agency's officers in New York often work undercover, posing as diplomats and business executives, among other things. They have been deeply involved in counterterrorism efforts in the New York area, working jointly with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies.
The CIA's main New York office was unaffected by the attacks, but agents have been sharing space at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, and have borrowed other federal government offices in the city.
Girl returns to Michigan after heatstroke recovery
Associated Press
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - A 17-year-old Michigan girl who scarcely was expected to survive heat stroke did so and heads home this weekend, two months early.
Kayla Baker collapsed Aug. 16 while hiking on Camelback Mountain in Phoenix. Her temperature was 106.8 degrees when she reached a hospital emergency room.
Health care workers say it was higher before emergency workers lifted her from the mountain with a helicopter, applying ice to cool her.
"She was about as far gone as she could be," said Dr. Kerry Cooper, the kidney specialist who served as Baker's primary intensive-care physician after emergency room workers spent three hours reviving her.
Baker spent eight days in a coma and a month on complete life support.
Cooper said he had talked to the girl's parents, Brad and Marilyn Baker, the next day after they arrived from their home in Clarkston, Mich.
"I had to tell them there was very little chance she would make it," he said."Even if she survived, the chance of neurological normalcy was less than 10 percent."
Today he is certain Kayla is mentally "100 percent with it." Her parents, both of whom took three months off their county jobs to stay at Kayla's bedside, hope she can continue her senior-year studies in January.
Doctors had not expected her to go home sooner than Christmas.
She speaks, and she walks with assistance. However, except for vitamins and an iron supplement, she is off all medication.
She still faces extensive speech, physical and occupational therapy, but her doctors say her extreme farsightedness will resolve itself in six months, Marilyn Baker said.
"She does ask, 'Why did this happen to me?' But she doesn't dwell on it," Marilyn Baker said."Kayla does remember reaching the top of the trail, heading down and feeling hot. She won't talk about it beyond that."
