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Car bomb kills 30 in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- In another bloody day in Iraq Saturday, a car bomb killed at least 30 people in Baghdad, and the bodies of nine men were found shot and tortured in the city.

Elsewhere in the country, an Iraqi soldier was killed in Baquba, CNN reported, and U.S. forces shot two insurgents when a patrol was attacked in Tal Afar.

About 250 people have been killed in a wave of violence that began Wednesday when a powerful bomb killed 114 men seeking work as day laborers. They were ambushed by a suicide bomber posing as a potential employer.

The car bombing occurred Saturday evening in Nahrawan, a Shiite industrial area on the eastern edge of Baghdad, destroying six cars and wounding at least 38 people. Investigators were trying to determine if it was a suicide attack or the bomb was set off remotely.

The bodies were discovered in three neighborhoods. All the men had been shot execution-style in the head.

Hurricane cleanup work pays $9 to $10

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- Many of those left homeless and jobless in Louisiana are working for $9 to $10 an hour cleaning up from Hurricane Katrina.

For example 44-year-old Craig Lock leaves an American Red Cross shelter in Lafayette, La., at 6 a.m. on a workers' bus and works cleaning hotel rooms and hauling debris in New Orleans for about $10 an hour, until he returns to the shelter at 10 p.m., the Washington Post reported Saturday.

"This is a lot of work for a little pay," Lock said, who shovels bricks, broken glass and tree limbs outside the hotel. "It's a job, I know, but this is a lot of work for a little money."

Those hoping to work as a result of $4 billion of federal contracts awarded to private firms for hurricane cleanup will also work for about $9 to $10 an hour.

The typical wage for federal construction projects was $9 an hour, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Senator hunts for 'death tax' dead

WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- A leading proponent of abolishing the federal estate tax reportedly looked into using Hurricane Katrina victims to promote the cause.

Time magazine reports U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., called his old law professor to discuss the prospect. The professor, Harold Apolinsky, is also a co-author of federal legislation to repeal the estate tax, Time said.

Sessions called Apolinsky Sept. 9 and left a voicemail indicating the legislation -- which ran into some opposition on Capitol Hill before Katrina struck -- could get a boost if someone who would be affected by the tax were to die during the hurricane.

"(Arizona Sen.) Jon Kyl and I were talking about the estate tax," Sessions reportedly said on the tape. "If we knew anybody that owned a business that lost life in the storm, that would be something we could push back with."

Apolinsky, an estate tax lawyer, got colleagues along the Gulf Coast to look for victims whose stories could be used. But Time said the search has been fruitless because so few people are affected by the estate tax, which opponents call the "death tax."

"But I'm still looking," Apolinsky told the magazine.

2,000 kids still separated from parents

BATON ROUGE, La., Sept. 17 (UPI) -- More than 2,000 children separated from their parents during the rush to escape Hurricane Katrina are still living in shelters and foster homes.

Nancy McBride, national safety director for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, told the New Orleans Times-Picayune getting children to safety during the evacuation was more important than anything else. She said at some shelters rescue workers simply told parents "to pass all the babies forward."

The center reported that as of Friday afternoon 2,800 children had been reported separated from their families and 760 of those had been reunited with parents or other relatives.

Marketa Garner Gautreau of the Louisiana Office of Community Services said the number of missing children could be overstated because children could be with one parent while the other has not been able to locate them.