Washington

The United States Senate on Saturday authorised -billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and nearly -billion for defence programmes in the fiscal year that begins on Sunday. The early morning passage marked the final Bill approved by Congress before a long recess so that lawmakers can campaign for re-election on November 7.

Tarantulas can produce silk from spigots on their feet as well as from their abdominal spinnerets, a finding that could help explain why spiders began to spin silk in the first place, researchers said on Wednesday. The foot silk appears to help keep the spiders from sliding on slippery surfaces, Adam Summers of the University of California at Irvine and colleagues reported.

Bemoaning an election-year leak, President George Bush on Tuesday said he would declassify a secret terrorism document that included a judgement that the Iraq war had spread Islamic extremism. At a news conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Bush said political opponents had disclosed only select parts of the National Intelligence Estimate.

The United States Capitol was shut down briefly on Monday after a man was arrested for racing past security into the building, Capitol police said. The suspect breached security with his car first and then got out and ran past guards into the building, Sergeant Kimberly Schneider said. He was captured just inside the building.

Africa has emerged as a leading front in the United States military campaign against al-Qaeda, which Washington believes would like to create a new safe haven in the continent’s vast, hard-to-govern regions. Small groups of US special forces have begun traversing the hinterlands of more than a dozen countries in the Horn of Africa.

The African Union may keep its forces in Darfur beyond September 30 if Sudan refuses to allow them to become part of a United Nations peacekeeping operation, a senior United States State Department official said on Wednesday. Sudan has so far rejected a UN Security Council resolution calling for the creation of a UN peacekeeping force in Darfur.

Major powers will begin discussing an Iran sanctions resolution at a meeting in Europe next week if Tehran continues to defy a United Nations Security Council demand to halt uranium enrichment, the United States State Department said on Wednesday. But Iranian President Mohammad Ahmadinejad remained unmoved, telling state media: ”Sanctions cannot discourage people from making progress.”

A Comair jet carrying about 50 people crashed on Sunday shortly after take-off in Lexington, Kentucky, CNN reported. There were no immediate reports on survivors. CNN said the plane was leaving Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport, bound for Atlanta, when it went down in woods about a kilometre from the airport.

The Pentagon on Saturday said it transferred five prisoners from Guantanamo Bay to Afghanistan, leaving about 445 detainees at the naval base in Cuba. ”These detainees were all recommended for transfer due to multiple review processes conducted at Guantanamo Bay,” the Pentagon said in a statement posted on its website on Saturday.

The Bush administration has indicated it is prepared to form an independent coalition to freeze Iranian assets and restrict trade if the United Nations Security Council fails to penalise Tehran for its nuclear enrichment programme, The Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday.

Former Olympic champion Marion Jones has said she was ”shocked” over reports that she had failed a drugs test at the United States Championships in June. The statement, issued by her attorney Howard Jacobs, was the American’s first comment on the matter since US media reports on Friday that the American had tested positive for the banned blood booster erythropoietin (EPO).

United States President George Bush warned on Friday that a North Korean nuclear test would be a threat and urged the international community to work toward ensuring Pyongyang cannot jeopardise stability. A media report said US intelligence agencies suspect North Korea is planning an underground detonation of a nuclear device.

A worker slipped into a vat of chocolate in a Wisconsin candy factory and was trapped for hours when the confection hardened around him, according to local media reports on Friday. Other workers tried to pull 21-year-old Darmin Garcia from the chocolate vat, but his clothes were caught on the mixing machinery.

President George Bush will meet with a leader of the Sudan Liberation Army, the main rebel group in the African nation’s troubled western region of Darfur, the White House announced on Monday. The focus of the discussion on Tuesday between Bush and Minni Minnawi ”will be on how to broaden support for the Darfur Peace Agreement”, the announcement said.

Pakistan is building a reactor that could produce enough plutonium for 40 to 50 nuclear weapons in what would be a major expansion of its nuclear programme and an intensified arms race in South Asia. Satellite photos show what appears to be the construction site for a larger nuclear reactor adjacent to Pakistan’s only plutonium production reactor, according to an analysis by nuclear experts.

You don’t have to be an astronaut anymore to experience walking in space. All you need is -million and the willingness to risk your life. A private Virginia firm that already has sent three super-rich men to the International Space Station for -million each announced on Friday it would offer an even rarer adventure: A stroll outside the space station for an extra -million.

The United States is likely to send troops to Lebanon to protect American citizens who are being evacuated there, United States President George Bush said in a letter to Congress on Wednesday. While there are already a small number of US troops in the region to aid in evacuation efforts, the deployment of additional troops is anticipated, Bush wrote in the letter to lawmakers.