Gerald Ford laid to rest
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Former U.S. President Gerald R. Ford Wednesday was laid to rest on a grassy slope overlooking his museum in his home town of Grand Rapids, Mich.
The last in a series of services was held for the nation's 38th president at Grace Episcopal Church in East Grand Rapids.
Ford was eulogized by former President Jimmy Carter and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Thousands of mourners lined the route between the church and the Gerald R. Ford Museum, where thousands more braved freezing temperatures Tuesday night and early Wednesday to file past Ford's casket.
Vice President Dick Cheney was given the honor of folding the flag draping Ford's casket and handing it to former first lady Betty Ford.
Before the public viewing began, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm spoke at a private ceremony at the museum for the 88-year-old former first lady, the couple's four children, other family members and guests.
She spoke of how Ford represented the area in Congress beginning in 1948, and how he ultimately became the 38th president in 1974.
"Mr. President, welcome home," Granholm said. "We are proud that we will lay you down in our Michigan earth right here."
Maliki regrets becoming Iraqi PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki says he regrets accepting the job and wishes he could get out of it before the end of his term.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal conducted in December and published Wednesday, Maliki said he wouldn't even consider a second term.
"I didn't want to take this position. I only agreed because I thought it would serve the national interest, and I will not accept it again," he said. "I wish it could be done with even before the end of this term."
Maliki, a Shiite, was sworn in for a 4-year term last spring as the head of a coalition of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, with a goal of reining in sectarian violence. However, the fighting has increased, and a leaked White House memo in November questioned his ability to govern.
However, Maliki said he still would want be involved in reconstruction efforts.
"I would like to serve my people from outside the circle of senior officials, maybe through the parliament, or through working directly with the people," he said.
Bush seeks appropriations line-item veto
WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- In his first meeting of the year with his Cabinet, U.S. President George Bush asked to be given line-item veto authority for spending bills.
"One important message we all should take from the (Nov. 7) elections is that people want to end the secretive process by which Washington insiders are able to get billions of dollars directed to projects, many of them pork barrel projects that have never been reviewed or voted on by the Congress," Bush said. "To help rein in wasteful spending and restore fiscal discipline in Washington, I call on Congress to give the President the tool that 43 governors have -- a line-item veto."
One day before the 110th Congress convenes with a Democratic majority, Bush said the 5-year budget proposal he will release next month will call for continued tax cuts and better control of domestic spending and that the federal budget can be balanced by 2012, well after he leaves office.
Bush made no reference to Iraq, but in an item on the op-ed page of Wednesday's Wall Street Journal, said he would announce a new strategy in coming days.
"Ultimately, Iraqis must resolve the most pressing issues facing them. We can't do it for them," he wrote.
Baghdad arrest in Saddam's death video
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- An Iraqi prison guard was arrested for illegally videotaping the Baghdad execution of deposed leader Saddam Hussein and posting it on the Internet.
"This mistake was investigated and now the person who took this video and released it has been identified and arrested (Tuesday) night," Sadiq al-Rikabi, political adviser to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, told The Times of London.
Rikabi said Maliki had been clear in his instructions prior to Saddam's hanging Saturday that all phones and cameras were forbidden in the gallows chamber. However, the grainy video shows Saddam being taunted just before his death, the hanging and the former dictator's lifeless face on a twisted, broken neck.
Rikabi told The Times the investigation wasn't over with the arrest of the unidentified guard.
"Now we will try to find out whether he did this on purpose, whether anyone asked him to take the footage or did he do this not recognizing the consequences," he said.
The video caused sectarian animosity to soar in Iraq, with Sunni Muslims, of which Saddam was one, incensed by the taunts of Shiite guards before his death.
Student shot at Tacoma high school
TACOMA, Wash, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- Police in Tacoma, Wash., Wednesday arrested a suspect in the early morning shooting death of a student at Foss High School.
No other injuries were reported. Identities of the victim and the shooter were not released.
KING-TV, Seattle, said the arrest was made near the school.
The shooting occurred about 7:20 a.m. as students returned to class for the first time since the holiday break. Witnesses reported hearing three shots in a school hallway shortly before the first bell.
"A friend of mine came running into the classroom saying someone had been shot and there was blood on the lockers," Cameron, a 10th grade student, told KING.
The Tacoma News Tribune reported the suspect was believed to be a Tacoma high school student but it was unclear whether he attended Foss.
Police initially locked down the school but then allowed students to leave. Those without their own transportation were taken to Wilson High School for pickup by their parents, the News Tribune said.
"I turned around and ran," Steven Stone, a 17-year-old senior, told the newspaper. "I was scared. I didn't know what else might happen."
School was canceled for the day.
Foiled Ford assassin sorry about his death
DUBLIN, Calif., Jan. 3 (UPI) -- One of two women who tried to assassinate former U.S. President Gerald Ford in 1975, Sara Jane Moore, says from her California prison cell she's sorry he died.
Moore, 76, spoke with KGO-TV, San Francisco, about her radical political motivation in the San Francisco attack, and her feelings about Ford's death from natural causes last week at the age of 93.
"I was functioning I think purely on adrenalin and not thinking clearly," Moore said. "I have often said that I had put blinders on and I was only listening to what I wanted to hear."
She said she never wished for Ford's death, which could possibly help gain early parole in her life sentence at a federal women's prison in Dublin, Calif.
"People kept saying he would have to die before I could be released and I did not want my release from prison to be dependent on somebody, on something happening to somebody else, so I wanted him to live to be 100," she said.
Moore's attempt on Ford came just 17 days after Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme tried to gun down Ford in Sacramento. She too is serving a life sentence.
