Thousands Look for 3 GIs Missing in Iraq

BAGHDAD - The U.S. military on Sunday confirmed that an Iraqi interpreter was killed along with four U.S. soldiers in an attack south of Baghdad, leaving three American soldiers missing.

A U.S. statement Saturday said only that a patrol of seven American soldiers and an Iraqi army translator had been attacked and that five people were killed and three were missing. It was unclear whether all the missing were Americans.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, the chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, told reporters Sunday that the interpreter was among the dead.

He also said about 4,000 American forces were involved in the search for the three missing troops in the notorious …

USOC lands new sponsor through 2012

The U.S. Olympic Committee has signed up a new sponsor, the Deloitte tax and financial services company.

The USOC, working hard to retain sponsors in the rough economy, signed one in a new category Monday after not getting renewals from three key companies.

Deloitte signed through 2012 and is the 18th company under …

Snake theory has no leg to stand on

Biologists have assumed that snakes gained an advantage duringevolution by getting rid of their legs. Among biomechanicalresearchers who ponder such things, it was believed energyexpenditure during locomotion is less for limbless animals than fortheir limbed counterparts of equal size. Hence, it was argued,snakes evolved toward the …

Group buys controlling stake in Mexicana airlines

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A group of Mexican investors has bought a controlling stake in Mexicana airlines in a bid to save the debt-ridden company, the consortium announced Saturday.

The group, called Tenedora K, said it acquired a 95 percent stake in Nuevo Grupo Aeronautico SA de CV, the holding company that controls Mexicana de Aviacion and the domestic airlines Mexicana Click and Mexicana Link. It said the pilots' union will hold the remaining 5 percent of shares.

Mexicana officials did not return phone calls seeking comment. The pilots' and flight attendants' unions could not be reached.

The deal was announced in a statement from the consortium released by the private …

Why it takes so long to trace a bad tomato

Food and Drug Administration detectives had a hot lead, narrowing down on a grower who just might have supplied salmonella-tainted tomatoes. Then the patient changed her story: She'd eaten a round tomato, not a Roma one after all.

"We basically had to throw it all out and start over," says Dr. David Acheson, the agency's food safety chief.

Why is it taking so long to find the source of those bad tomatoes? It largely boils down to the frailty of human memory and the mysteries of the tomato bin.

Unlike many other foods, tomatoes don't come with bar codes that let investigators quickly track their supplier. Consumers seldom even know what …

Presenter conquers his fear

BBC Points West presenter David Garmston will be tackling his fearof heights for charity.

David, aged 45, has agreed to do an abseil down the fire brigadetower in Temple Back, Bristol, to raise money for breast cancercharity Bosom Buddies.

He will be joined by many …

Getting elected sheriff: On the Bill of Rights?

Ray Mallow Mielzynski isn't your typical sheriff candidate. Running for the top law enforcement spot in Nye County, Nevada, Mielzynski is running on the Bill of Rights. Mielzynski placed an ad in a local newspaper outlining his platform, which included:

1) Only criminals go to jail and they will go to jail! …