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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The U.S. military is confirming that a former Guantanamo detainee from Kuwait carried out a recent suicide attack in northern Iraq.

 A spokesman for U.S. military’s Central Command told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Abdallah Salih al-Ajmi took part in an attack in Mosul.

U.S. Navy Cmdr. Scott Rye says authorities don’t know the motive for the attack, which was reported last week by Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television. Iraqi security forces were apparently targeted.

The U.S. transferred al-Ajmi to Kuwaiti custody from Guantanamo in 2005. A Kuwaiti court later acquitted him of terrorism charges.

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WASHINGTON - The top U.S. diplomat in Myanmar says 100,000 may have died in the cyclone and that 95 percent of buildings in the affected area are demolished.

Shari Villarosa heads the U.S. embassy in the capital Rangoon. She says food and water are running short in the Myanmar delta area inundated by the storm. She called the situation in that area “increasingly horrendous.”

Villaros told reporters Wednesday: “There is a very real risk of disease outbreaks as long as this continues.”

She said that almost all the deaths are in the delta area. In the capital, some 600-700 people may have died. Villarosa also said she does not think the military rulers in Myanmar are blocking U.S. assistance because of the Bush administration’s past strong criticism of the junta.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military put people and airplanes into position to work on any relief effort for cyclone-hit Myanmar, as officials awaited word on whether the Asian nation would accept American help.

An Air Force C-130 landed in neighboring Thailand and another was on the way, Air Force spokeswoman Megan Orton said Wednesday morning at the Pentagon.

“When they accept, or if they accept — and we know what supplies they need — those planes will be there to transport those,” she said.

A rapid deployment unit designed to be the first people inserted into an operation already works out of Thailand and is at the ready as well. “This is just a positioning of the planes and people,” Orton said.

Three U.S. officials said they understood it was possible the Myanmar government would only accept money from the United States and want to buy its own aid supplies — or that it would only accept U.S. assistance as part of the broader United Nations effort.

Navy and Marine Corps officials said they were in a holding position, awaiting word on whether they would be needed.

The Navy has three ships participating in an exercise in the Gulf of Thailand that could help in any relief effort — the USS Essex, the USS Juneau and the USS Harper’s Ferry.

The Essex is an amphibious assault ship with 23 helicopters aboard, including 19 capable of lifting cargo from ship to shore, as well as more than 1,500 Marines.

One official said that if there is a U.S. relief operation, the Essex group would likely leave some of its assets behind so the multinational exercise can still be held, while moving other equipment forward to help Myanmar.

Because it would take the Essex more than four days to get into position, another official said, the Navy is considering sending some of its helicopters ahead. The aircraft would be able to arrive in a matter of hours, and the Essex could follow, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because that effort was still in the planning stages.

The White House said Tuesday the U.S. will send more than $3 million to help victims of the devastating cyclone in Myanmar, up from an initial emergency contribution of $250,000.

The additional commitment of funds, announced by press secretary Dana Perino, came as Myanmar continued to resist entry for a U.S. disaster assessment team. The Bush administration said permission for such a team to enter the Southeast Asian nation and look at the damage would allow quicker and larger aid contributions.

The State Department said Wednesday it was pressing Myanmar authorities directly in Yangon and Washington to accept the aid and was also asking Myanmar’s neighbors and traditional friends, including China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand to help make the case.

The message is: “Use what leverage you have with the Burmese government to get them to allow in outside assistance teams so they can help make an assessment and provide on-the-gound assistance to help out with what is very clearly a humanitarian disaster of immense scope,” said spokesman Sean McCormack.

In the meantime, the decision was made to funnel $3 million more to the disaster-stricken zone. Perino said the money would be allocated by a USAID disaster response team that is already positioned in Thailand.

The Treasury Department moved to make it easier for relief agencies and religious organizations to provide assistance to cyclone victims by issuing a blanket license for them to receive financial contributions from United States. Under existing U.S. sanctions on Myanmar, such transactions normally require individual licenses.

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On the Net:

State Department: http://www.state.gov

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By Ariel Sabar
Wed May 7, 4:00 AM ET
 WASHINGTON - With the other party still waist-deep in its presidential nomination fight, John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, has been quietly courting the white working-class Democrats who have proved elusive for Barack Obama, his most likely rival in the fall.
In the two weeks since Senator Obama’s loss in Pennsylvania, Senator McCain has visited the struggling steel town of Youngstown, Ohio, to promote programs to retrain workers. He has gone to Allentown, Pa., to push a gas-tax holiday and argue that the Democrats’ healthcare plans gave too much power to the government. And in Appalachian Kentucky, he has pledged to bring new jobs and technology to rural America.

All are the sort of places where Democrats have favored Obama’s rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton. If she loses the Democratic nomination, McCain has every intention of poaching some of her supporters for what is shaping up as a difficult fight against Obama in November.

Obama “may lose some of the traditional Democratic coalition if we run a good campaign and make a good case to some of those folks,” says Charlie Black, McCain’s chief campaign strategist. “If McCain were to get 20 percent nationally of blue-collar Democrats, he wins.”

Some analysts dispute that figure, noting that Obama would probably offset any such deficit with high turnout among young voters and African-Americans. But many agree that a potentially significant number of Senator Clinton’s working-class supporters could stay home or vote for McCain if Obama is the nominee.

Ronald Reagan rode the support of blue-collar Democrats to the White House in 1980, playing to social values and national security concerns and arguing that their own party had been hijacked by elites and special interests. Mr. Black said the McCain campaign was conducting research this year to identify Democrats with similar leanings.

“They don’t like abortion on demand, they do want to keep their guns, and there’s some hostility to big government,” Black said. He signaled that the campaign would appeal to them on the economy and national security, as well as a range of social and cultural issues, from gay rights to gun control.

Likely to resurface in the fall campaign are Obama’s remarks about “bitter” small-town voters who “cling” to guns and faith.

At the same time, McCain has sought to portray himself as a “different kind of Republican” – cut from a different cloth from President Bush. His tour late last month of “forgotten places” included stops in Selma, Ala., and other Democratic strongholds often absent from the GOP campaign map. On a stop in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, McCain called the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina “disgraceful.”

Conservative Democrats are a key group in swing states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, and the weakest part of the ideological spectrum for Obama. Just 62 percent of Democrats who called their political views “conservative” said they would vote for Obama in a race against McCain, compared with 74 percent who said they would vote for Clinton in the same matchup, according to a Gallup poll last month.

“Our numbers show that about 30 percent of Democrats who say they support Clinton say that if it came down to Obama versus McCain in November, they’d vote for McCain,” says Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup Poll. (A smaller number of Obama supporters, some 20 percent, say they’d vote for McCain if Clinton is the nominee, Mr. Newport says.)

Nearly a quarter of Pennsylvania Democrats said they would vote for McCain or stay home if Obama was the nominee, according to exit polls from the April 22 primary.

The high numbers partly reflect emotions stirred up by the nomination battle and are likely to drop by the fall. But analysts say McCain will need to siphon some Clinton supporters to win in November, partly because McCain and Obama are well matched among independents.

“If McCain can only peel a decent percentage of those away,” says Steven Peterson, a political scientist at Penn State Harrisburg, “that might be the difference between winning and losing.”

Race only partly explains Obama’s standing among white working-class Democrats, analysts say. Some see him as culturally aloof. And according to independent pollster Scott Rasmussen, many working-class voters see McCain as more trustworthy than Obama on the economy and national security.

“They’re open to voting for Hillary Clinton because they feel they did better economically under the Clinton administration than under the current administration,” says GOP strategist Whit Ayres, who has conducted focus groups among white-working class voters. “But there’s no way in the world they’re going to vote for Barack Obama. It’s cultural: they feel he’s the kind of guy who plays well in Harvard and Berkeley but not very well most places in between.”

Even so, McCain faces considerable odds. Mr. Bush is suffering from record low approval ratings, and the Iraq war and a string of congressional scandals have cast a pall over the Republican Party. McCain aides acknowledge that the Democratic candidate will enjoy far greater financial resources in the general election. To have any chance of victory, McCain will have to cut into traditional bases of Democratic support, analysts say.

In addition to working-class voters, the campaign is also taking aim at another pillar of Clinton’s base, Hispanics. McCain is likely to spend significant time in Florida, a swing state with a large Latino population and no shortage of Democratic antipathy toward party leaders. The Democratic National Committee has disqualified Florida’s primary – which favored Clinton – because its January date was earlier than party rules allow.

On Monday, Cinco de Mayo, McCain launched a Spanish-language website and vowed to undo the damage he says the GOP inflicted on itself among Hispanics with the debate over immigration reform.

By Tuesday, however, McCain was back to tending his own base. In a speech in Winston-Salem N.C., he sought to assure skeptical Republicans of his conservative bona fides on judicial nominations.

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SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. - Hillary Rodham Clinton says she will remain in the presidential race “until there’s a nominee.” The former first lady declined to say whether that meant through the roll call of the states at the Democratic National Convention this summer.
Clinton also disclosed that she had loaned her campaign an additional $6.4 million in recent weeks, additional evidence that her once front-runner campaign was in deep trouble.

She told reporters the loans were a sign of her commitment to her quest for the White House. She earlier loaned herself $5 million as she struggled to keep up with a better-financed Obama campaign.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama pocketed the support of at least four Democratic convention superdelegates on Wednesday, building on the momentum from a convincing North Carolina primary victory.

Obama, now the front-runner, was home in Chicago during the day as his aides spread word that he would soon begin campaigning in states likely to be pivotal in the fall campaign. They also relayed word of the four endorsements, expected to be made public later in the day.

Both disclosures were meant to signal fresh confidence that the nomination was quickly coming into his possession after a grueling marathon across 15 months and nearly all 50 states.

Clinton’s appearance in Shepherdstown, W.Va., was meant to underscore her determination to stay the course. She also arranged a private meeting later in the day with uncommitted superdelegates.

Clinton won the Indiana primary narrowly early Wednesday, but the overall impact of the night’s two contests was to lengthen Obama’s lead in national convention delegates without fundamentally altering the nature of the race.

Obama has 1,840.5 delegates to 1,688 for Clinton in The Associated Press tally. It takes 2,025 delegates to win the nomination in Denver this summer.

Clinton told reporters it would take 2,209 or 2,210 delegates to win the nomination, not the 2,025 in use by the Democratic National Committee. The higher total would come into play if the delegations were seated from Michigan and Florida, two states that held primaries outside the time frame that party rules required.

The former first lady campaigned for months to have new votes in both states, although lately has said she merely wants the delegations seated.

Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, said on Tuesday night it was possible a compromise could be worked out to seat the Michigan delegates. He did not mention Florida.

Asked at her news conference whether she intended to remain in the race through the convention roll call, Clinton said, “I’m staying in this race until there’s a nominee and obviously I am going to work as hard as I can to become that nominee.”

While Clinton showed no sign of surrender, former Sen. George McGovern, the party’s 1972 presidential candidate, urged her to reconsider.

Obama’s campaign on Wednesday weighed ways to bring the drawn-out Democratic nominating process to a close while mapping out a strategy that will involve campaigning in battleground states where primaries have already been held.

Obama’s drive to nail down the party nod was buoyed with a double-digit win in North Carolina and a stronger-than-expected run in Indiana, where he almost overcame rival Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Obama was expected to compete for the six remaining Democratic contests but to also turn attention to general election states, aides said.

Likely Republican presidential nominee John McCain has “run free for some time now” because of Democratic preoccupation with the ongoing primary fight, said Obama strategist David Axelrod. “I don’t think we’re going to spend time solely in primary states,” he said. “We have multiple tasks here.”

The Illinois senator was enjoying a rare down day in his hometown before returning to Washington, D.C., late Wednesday

He was expected to travel later in the week to Oregon, where he appears to hold the advantage, and then head to the Appalachian coal-states of West Virginia and Kentucky, where Clinton seems to have the edge.

Meanwhile, in an e-mail to supporters soliciting contributions, Obama called his North Carolina showing “a decisive victory.”

As for Indiana, “we did much better than all the pundits predicted, despite Republicans changing parties to support Senator Clinton, believing she would be easier for Senator McCain to defeat,” Obama wrote. “Now is the time for each one of us to step up and do what we can to close out this primary.”

Obama’s campaign made broad suggestions that it was time for the 270 remaining unaligned superdelegates — who will determine the outcome of the race — to get off the fence, claiming the delegate math leaves little path for a Clinton victory.

“We think the Clinton camp has gotten away with a little bit of creating these alternative views of reality,” said Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

Clinton’s loan more than doubled her personal investment in her bid for the Democratic nomination. She gave her campaign $5 million earlier this year.

A campaign aide said Clinton gave her campaign another $5 million on April 11, more than a week before the Pennsylvania primary. She then again dipped into her personal wealth for $1 million last week and $425,000 on Monday, one day before the North Carolina and Indiana primaries.

Clinton’s campaign reported raising $10 million online after her Pennsylvania victory on April 22. Evidently, the money was not enough and her fundraising was unable to keep up with her expenses heading into Tuesday’s contests.

Moreover, Obama has routinely outspent her in primary after primary and has shown little difficulty tapping his vast network of donors. He spent more than $7 million on advertising head of Tuesday’s primaries in North Carolina and Indiana to her nearly $4 million.

According to the latest campaign finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission, Obama began the month of April with $42 million in the bank for the primary to Clinton’s $9.3 million.

But Clinton had debts of $10.3 million at the start of the month, much of it money owed to her main polling, phone banking and advertising consultants.

And in endorsing Obama, former Sen. George McGovern said Wednesday it’s virtually impossible for Clinton to win the nomination. McGovern said he had a call in to former President Clinton to tell him of the decision, adding that he remains close friends with the Clintons.

“I will hold them in affection and admiration all of my days,” he said of the Clintons.

McGovern’s announcement comes a day before Clinton was scheduled to travel to South Dakota to campaign. The state holds its primary June 3 with 15 pledged delegates at stake.

McGovern said he had no regrets about endorsing Hillary Clinton months ago, even before the Iowa caucuses.

“She has run a valiant campaign. And she will remain an influential voice in the American future,” he said.

But Obama has won the nomination “by any practical test” and is very close to a majority of the pledged delegates, said McGovern, who is 85. Obama moved within 200 delegates of clinching the nomination with his split decision on Tuesday of a win in North Carolina and a narrow loss in Indiana.

It’s time to unite the Democratic Party, he said.

“Hillary, of course, will make the decision as to if and when she ends her campaign. But I hope that she reaches that decision soon so that we can concentrate on a unified party capable of winning the White House next November,” he said.

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By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor
Tue May 6, 8:05 PM ET
 
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Suicide victims who were abused as children have clear genetic changes in their brains, Canadian researchers reported on Tuesday in a finding they said shows neglect can cause biological effects.

The findings offer potential ways to find people at high risk of suicide, and perhaps to treat them and prevent future suicides.

And, the researchers said, they also offer insights into how neglect and abuse can perpetuate unhealthy behavior through the generations.

Moshe Szyf of McGill University in Montreal and colleagues studied the brains of 18 men who committed suicide and who were also abused or neglected as children, and compared them to 12 men who also died suddenly but from other causes, and who were not abused, although some had various psychiatric problems such as anxiety disorders.

They found changes in the genetic material of all 18 suicide victims. The changes were not in the genes themselves, but in the ribosomal RNA, which is the genetic material that makes proteins that in turn make cells function.

These changes involved a chemical process called methylation, a so-called epigenetic change involving the processes of turning genes on and off, they reported in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE, available at http://www.plosone.org/doi/pone.0002085 .

“The big remaining questions are whether scientists could detect similar changes in blood DNA — which could lead to diagnostic tests — and whether we could design interventions to erase these differences in epigenetic markings,” Szyf said in a statement.

Dr. Eric Nestler of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas said both drugs and psychotherapy may act to reverse some of these changes.

CHANGING THE BRAIN

“Ultimately we believe that a person who gets better from psychotherapy is inducing changes in the brain,” Nestler Told reporters at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association in Washington where similar research was discussed.

Szyf’s colleague, Michael Meaney, has shown in animals that parental abuse and neglect can affect the brains and behavior of offspring.

He has studied the brains of rats, for whom parental care can be demonstrated in how much the mother grooms her pups.

“You can put two rats on a table and tell which one is raised by a low-licking mother. The one reared by a low-licking mother is more nervous, and fatter,” Meaney said in an interview at the Psychiatric Association meeting.

Images of the brain cells of the rats show the brain cells of low-licking mothers have fewer dendrites. These are the strands that help one neuron communicate with another.

Meaney, who also worked on the suicide study, said the research, taken together, demonstrates how early experiences can cause physical changes in the brain.

He said female rats reared by low-licking mothers reached puberty earlier, meaning they had more offspring.

Similar findings are true of humans, who often have children at younger ages when times are stressful. The best way to pass along genes in uncertain times is to have more children, he said.

(Editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Sandra Maler)
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By JIMMY GOLEN, AP Sports Writer
Tue May 6, 11:42 PM ET
BOSTON - LeBron James couldn’t make a basket down the stretch — or at virtually any other time — and the Boston Celtics eked out a 76-72 victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers on Tuesday night in the opener of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Kevin Garnett scored 28 points to make up for an off night for the rest of Boston’s Big Three. James was held to 12 points on 2-for-18 shooting. He missed three drives and a 3-pointer in the final minute. Game 2 is Thursday night in Boston.

James scored Cleveland’s first basket and then missed his next 10 shots before driving for a layup that cut Boston’s lead to 66-65 with 5:34 left.

He then missed his last six shots, including a potential game-tying finger roll that bounced off the inside of the rim with 8.5 seconds left. James scored just two points in the second half while finishing with nine rebounds, nine assists and 10 turnovers.

Rajon Rondo scored all 15 of his points in the first half, and Kendrick Perkins grabbed 12 rebounds for the Celtics. Paul Pierce drew two charging fouls while guarding James but scored just four points on 2-for-14 shooting, and Ray Allen (0-for-4) didn’t score.

But at least they had Garnett.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas had 22 points and 12 rebounds for the Cavaliers, who shot 31 percent and couldn’t make a basket at the end of the game.

Boston led 68-65 when Daniel Gibson hit a 3-pointer to tie it with 3:18 left.

Ilgauskas made a jumper on a feed from James with 90 seconds left, then Garnett hit a fallaway to make it 70-all. James drove against Pierce and flopped to the court while throwing up a desperation layup that wasn’t close.

Sam Cassell made two free throws to tie it 72-72; James missed again, but this time Ilgauskas was there to tip it in and tie the game. Garnett moved across the lane to give Boston back the lead, 74-72 as Cleveland called a timeout with 22 seconds left.

James dribbled at the point before finding a lane to the basket, but his shot wouldn’t fall and James Posey was fouled after grabbing the rebound. He hit both free throws.

James missed a long but meaningless jumper to punctuate his night.

The Celtics won an NBA-best 66 games in the regular season, and someone will have to beat them at home to derail their hopes of a league-record 17th championship. The Cavaliers managed to stay closed by hitting 22 free throws (to Boston’s 14), and by taking advantage of 21 Celtics turnovers.

The Celtics missed their first seven shots — four by Pierce — while Cleveland opened a 5-0 lead. Then Boston scored the next eight, and 16 of 20 points, en route to a 25-15 lead after one quarter.

Garnett scored 12 points in the first quarter and Rondo had eight while Cleveland made just four of 19 shots — a trend that would continue.

Garnett made the first two free throws of the second half — reaching 20 points a minute into the third quarter — but the Cavaliers scored the next 14 points, eight by Ilgauskas. The Celtics went 5:31 without scoring, turning their 45-37 lead into a 51-45 deficit.

Notes:@ Garnett finished third in the MVP voting announced Tuesday, and James was fourth. “I just thought that LeBron should have been higher,” Celtics coach Doc Rivers said, pausing for effect. “We’re playing Cleveland, right? As a matter of fact, I thought he should have won.” … Cleveland shot 18 of the game’s first 22 free throws. … Cassell was called for a flagrant foul when he kept James from a free throw with 5 1/2 minutes left in the half. The replay seemed to indicate that James enhanced the damage, and the Boston fans let him know they were on to him. … Cleveland’s Wally Szczerbiak missed his first five shots before going to the bench in the first quarter.
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NEW YORK - “American Idol” hopeful Jason Castro became at least the third contestant this season to flub lyrics to a song.
The Dreadlocked One performed the Bob Dylan classic “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and forgot the words to the second verse Tuesday.

Wearing a goofy grin afterward, Castro acknowledged: “I lost some lines in there; that’s kinda bad.”

Judge Simon Cowell thought Castro’s gaffe could mean the end of him. “Jason, I’d pack your suitcase,” Cowell told the 20-year-old folkster from Rockwall, Texas.

The other two judges were less than impressed, too.

Randy Jackson said Castro wasn’t “in the zone.” Paula Abdul was, as usual, gentler.

Earlier in the night, Castro sang Bob Marley’s “I Shot the Sheriff” and got brutal reviews from Jackson and Cowell.

Castro is not the first “Idol” this season to forget the lyrics.

David Archuleta, who’s still in the running, goofed during a Beatles song and castoff Brooke White forgot the words to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “You Must Love Me.”
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By HENRY SANDERSON, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 5 minutes ago
 
BEIJING - New outbreaks in China reported Wednesday put the number of children infected with hand, foot and mouth disease above 15,000 and the death toll has risen to at least 28 across the country.

A 2-year-old girl in the southern province of Hunan died of the disease after being in a coma, the provincial health bureau said on its Web site.

Another death was reported in the neighboring Guangxi region, Guangxi health officials said but did not give any details. The official Xinhua News Agency said the victim was a 3-year-old boy who died May 3.

Two kindergartens in Beijing were temporarily shut down Tuesday after children there showed symptoms of the disease, Xinhua said. There have been 1,482 cases in Beijing, most in kindergartens, it said.

So far, 15,799 outbreaks of the disease have been reported throughout the country this year, Xinhua said.

At least 28 children in China so far have died from the disease. Most of the deaths have been blamed on enterovirus 71, one of several viruses that cause the disease, Xinhua said. EV-71 can result in a more serious form of hand, foot and mouth that can lead to paralysis, brain swelling or death.

Although nearly all the deaths have been blamed on the virus known as EV-71, it was not immediately clear how many of the overall infections were traced to it. Xinhua said in Yunnan only nine of the 113 cases were caused by EV-71.

The hardest-hit areas include the provinces of Anhui, Guangdong, Zhejiang, and the capital Beijing. There have been smaller outbreaks in Hebei, Jiangsu, Hunan, Hubei, Shaanxi, Jiangxi and Henan provinces and in the city of Chongqing.

Xinhua said the jump in cases was due in part to a new regulation from the Ministry of Health classifying hand, foot and mouth disease among those that have to be reported to the central government.

Enterovirus causes a severe form of hand, foot and mouth disease with symptoms including fever, mouth sores and rashes with blisters. It is easily spread by sneezing or coughing. The viruses mainly strike children ages 10 and younger. Some cases can lead to fatal swelling of the brain.

There is no vaccine or specific treatment, but most children affected by mild forms of the disease typically recover quickly without problems.

Vietnam has recorded some 2,000 cases of hand, foot and mouth disease in the first four months of this year, said Nguyen Huy Nga, director of the Ministry of Health’s Department of Preventive Medicine. Between 10 and 20 percent were caused by EV71.

Ten fatalities caused by the virus have been reported in the first four months, he said.

The number of cases represents an increase of 40 percent against the same period of last year, he said.

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Associated Press Medical Writer Margie Mason in Hanoi, Vietnam, contributed to this story.
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By FRANK BAJAK, Associated Press Writer
58 minutes ago
 BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombia extradited one of the country’s most feared paramilitary warlords to the United States early Wednesday to face drug trafficking charges, the government said.
 
Carlos Mario Jimenez was flown to Washington, D.C., via Miami on a Drug Enforcement Administration plane, according to President Alvaro Uribe’s office. The announcement came just hours after Colombia’s top judicial panel overturned a Supreme Court decision that had temporarily blocked the extradition.

The Supreme Court had ruled last month that Jimenez should not leave the country until he has confessed to crimes he committed as the leader of illegal far-right militias and paid reparations to his victims.

On Tuesday, the judiciary’s high council overturned that decision.

Last year, the Colombian government stripped Jimenez of benefits offered during peace negotiations — including protection from extradition — because it said he was continuing to traffic drugs and run paramilitary operations from prison.

Far-right paramilitaries are engaged in a peace process with the government that has seen more than 31,000 fighters lay down their weapons. Commanders must confess to crimes in exchange for reduced sentences.

The 42-year-old Jimenez, better known by his alias “Macaco,” was among the least cooperative warlords, and in August became the first militia leader to lose his benefits under the peace deal.

He is now the first to be extradited to the United States.

In February, the Treasury Department named Jimenez as a specially designated narcotics trafficker, freezing any of his assets in the U.S. and forbidding any American citizen from doing business with him. Along with drug trafficking charges, the U.S. also accuses him of money laundering and financing terrorist groups.

Many victims of the private militias — which killed thousands and stole millions of acres of land — opposed Jimenez’s extradition, arguing that his victims would never be compensated and that many of his partners in crime would escape prosecution.

Alirio Uribe, the lawyer representing the National Victims’ Movement that had sought to halt the extradition, argued that Jimenez’s absence would mean many victims’ families would never find the bodies of disappeared loved ones.

But Judge Angelino Lizcano, speaking for the seven-judge panel Tuesday, said extradition does not mean the reparations cannot be obtained for Jimenez’s victims. He said Colombian prosecutors can still travel to the United States and obtain that information from Jimenez there.

Before surrendering in December 2006, Jimenez was accused of ordering massacres and shipping tons of cocaine to the United States.

Prosecutors said Jimenez became involved in a new gang war in northern Colombia after surrendering under the peace deal.

Emerging drug barons are filling a void in the trafficking business created by the demobilization of about 50 paramilitary warlords.

Colombia’s paramilitaries were organized and funded by wealthy landowners and drug traffickers in an effort to wrest control of the countryside from leftist insurgents.

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Associated Press writer Vivian Sequera contributed to this report.
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By DERRIK J. LANG, AP Entertainment Writer
Tue May 6, 10:38 PM ET
 
LOS ANGELES - It was the 100th episode of “Dancing with the Stars” — but the last for Mario.

The 21-year-old R&B singer and his professional partner, Karina Smirnoff, were eliminated during Tuesday’s results show, which also served as a special celebration of the ABC dancing competition’s 100th episode.

Mario and Smirnoff performed a Viennese waltz and a jive during Monday’s performance show, earning 53 out of 60 points. The judges crowned Mario “a new prince” following his ballroom dance but called his feet “bloody ugly” after his Latin dance. Mario came in third place following the judges’ scores Monday.

Top-scorer Christian De la Fuente dropped partner Cheryl Burke last week when he ruptured a tendon in his biceps. Burke choreographed the couple’s tango and mambo routines this week so that the Chilean actor mostly used his good arm — including the lifts, which were allowed for the first time this round.

De la Fuente, NFL player Jason Taylor, Olympic figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi and Broadway star Marissa Jaret Winokur remain and will compete in next week’s semifinals.

In honor of the popular reality series’ 100th episode, host Tom Bergeron announced there were 100 fans — two from each state — in the audience as well as several former contestants, such as Kelly Monaco, Jane Seymour, Vivica A. Fox, Jerry Springer, Mark Cuban, Drew Lachey, Ian Ziering, Sabrina Ryan and Lisa Rhinna.

Three former contestants returned to the dance floor.

Fourth season winner Apolo Anton Ohno and fifth season runner-up Melanie Brown separately danced with their former professional partners during performances by Rascal Flatts. Third season runner-up Mario Lopez, who’s currently starring in “A Chorus Line” on Broadway, also performed a high-kicking routine with the cast from the musical revival.

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ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.

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On the Net:

ABC:

http://abc.go.com/primetime/dancingwiththestars
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