McCain outlines healthcare plan
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- Republican presidential hopeful John McCain is proposing a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system, which he says would give people control and choice.
Controlling costs is "the only way to stop the erosion of affordable health insurance," preserve Medicare and Medicaid, safeguard retirees' private health benefits and enable American companies to compete worldwide, McCain said on his Web site.
"While we reform the system and maintain quality, we can and must provide access to healthcare for all our citizens," McCain said, advocating expanding access but not making healthcare coverage mandatory.
Insurance reforms should increase the variety and affordability of insurance coverage available to U.S. families, he said on his Web site.
"We can improve health and spend less, while promoting competition on the cost and quality of care, taking better care of our citizens with chronic illness, and promoting prevention that will keep millions of others from ever developing deadly and debilitating disease," he said on his site.
House committees OK more wiretap oversight
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- The U.S. House Judiciary and Intelligence committees have rejected a Bush administration request to renew the government's eavesdropping authority.
The panels instead voted along party lines to approve a bill that would allow federal judges to exercise more oversight and scrutiny over National Security Agency electronic surveillance, The New York Times reported Thursday.
The bill, sponsored by Reps. John Conyers, D-Mich., chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, goes against the wishes of the Bush administration by refusing to grant legal immunity to telecommunications companies that participate in warrantless surveillance with the NSA.
The bill also expires in two years, despite the White House's request that the program be made permanent.
"What's good is they've put some more protections in place. It's a step in the right direction," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the Washington legislative office of the American Civil Liberties Union. "What's bad is it still contains provisions that let the administration get surveillance for up to a year without individual warrants."
U.S. clamps down on sales to enemies
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- The U.S. Justice Department announced Thursday the creation of new task forces throughout the country to stop the sale of U.S. technology to enemies.
The National Counter-proliferation Initiative will push prosecutors to ferret out middlemen, front companies and black-marketeers supplying U.S. hardware and software that could be used in nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs, the Los Angeles Times reported from Washington.
As well, the initiative will attempt to break down bureaucratic turf battles between various federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies that have been criticized by the Government Accountability Office, the report said.
A senior law enforcement official who asked not be identified told the newspaper any progress was better than the status quo.
"Hopefully it will get everybody playing nice together as opposed to some of the issues that have happened in the past," involving agencies not cooperating or communicating with one another, the official said to the Times.
Bombings rock Baghdad, Kirkuk
BAGHDAD, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- Two separate car bombings in Kirkuk killed at least nine Iraqis, including an Iraqi officer, and injured at least 55 people, it was reported Thursday.
In Baghdad, a mortar attack on U.S. Camp Victory base killed two soldiers and wounded 38 others, the U.S. military said Thursday. The military statement said two third-country nationals were injured in Thursday's attack.
In one Kirkuk explosion, eight Iraqis died and 52 people were injured when a booby-trapped car exploded near a gas station in Kirkuk Thursday, a security source told KUNA.
In the second Kirkuk explosion, which occurred Wednesday, three Iraqi officers and one other person were injured when a bomb-laden car blew up at an army base in the northern Iraqi city, the security source told KUNA. One of the officers later died at a hospital. A third car bomb exploded at another military base, causing only property damage.
Also in Baghdad, the U.S. military said 13 al-Qaida terror suspects were killed Wednesday in a U.S. airstrike in a field west of Baghdad. KUNA quoted the report as saying 10 militants were killed in the initial airstrike and three others died in a second engagement.
Two charged for killing boat crew
MIAMI, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- Two men were charged with killing the entire crew of a boat they chartered and dumping the bodies in the Atlantic Ocean, The Miami Herald reported Thursday.
Kirby Archer, 35, and Guillermo Zarabozo, 20, were accused of killing the four-man crew of the Joe Cool on Sept. 22 as it headed for Bimini.
Zarabozo said the vessel was attacked by pirates who killed the crew and left him and Archer alive. The two suspects were found by authorities floating on a life raft.
Prosecutors said they was enough circumstantial evidence to charge the suspects for the death of all aboard the Joe Cool. Police continued to search fro physical evidence, the Herald report said.
