NPR 2010-10-24

Angering the US government, the whistleblowing website Wikileaks has published hundreds of thousands of military documents which show as many as 15,000 more Iraqi civilians 2 were killed than previously 3 knowledged. Larry Miller 4 reports Wikileaks defended the release of the classified files at a London news conference.

Wikileaks founder 5 Julian Assange sums up the nearly 400,000 pages of the US military files this way.

"Iraq was a bloodbath on every corner."

The US maintains the leak puts Iraqi lives in danger, but Wikileaks Kristin Hrafnsson denies that.

"Documents in the highly reducted form contain no information that could be harmful to individuals."

Wikileaks cautions that even all the files shed new light on the Iraq War, the information comes from US military personnel who may have had a reason to cover up the truth about civilian 1 deaths. For NPR News, I'm Larry Miller in London.

There's been another massacre 6 in the Mexican border city of Juarez. Authorities say gunmen stormed two homes last night and shot and killed 13 young partygoers. Fifteen others were wounded, including a nine-year-old boy.

Haiti's cholera 7 outbreak is spreading. Some cases have been confirmed outside of the rural area where the epidemic 8 began and dozens of inmates 9 at a prison outside Port-au-Prince are sick.

FEMA says federal funds will be available to help pay for infrastructure 10 repairs in nine flood-ravaged Wisconsin counties. Now, Wisconsin Public Radio's Steve Roisum reports community leaders are trying to find money to pay for hundreds of water-damaged homes and businesses.

When the state of Wisconsin asked FEMA to inspect damage from September's floods, it did request aid for individual homes and businesses, because so few were majorly damaged. In the small western Wisconsin city of Arcadia, over 300 people voluntarily evacuated 11 their homes when floodwaters hit. The downtown was waterlogged as well. Mayor John Kimmel says the city is trying to find outside funding for homes and businesses too.

"We will be forgotten about and I'm just claiming there to keep to fare to organize what’s available out there."

According to Wisconsin Emergency Managements in Trempealeau County where Arcadia is located, around 40 homes and eight businesses suffered some degree of flood damage. For NPR News, I'm Steve Roisum in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

A 26-year-old swimmer on the US national team died during a competition in the United Arab Emirates today. Fran Crippen had told his coach he wasn't feeling well late into an open water race and failed to finish. Swimming World says he was found underwater two hours later.

Three men are in custody 12 in Washington, DC on suspicion of creating a drug lab in a dorm at Georgetown University. Police found the lab where chemicals could create a hallucinogenic drug. Two of those arrested are students.

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The al-Qaeda spokesman who was born in the US has surfaced in a new Internet video. In the unauthenticated message, Adam Gadahn urged Muslim immigrants to carry out attacks in the US and Europe. He singles out what he calls "the miserable 13 suburbs" of Detroit, London and Paris.

In Ottawa, there's word that the US and Canadians have discussed a plea deal for Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr. Dan Karpenchuk reports Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called her Canadian counterpart to discuss the case.

According to officials in Ottawa and Washington, the call went to Lawrence Cannon 14, the foreign affairs minister, but they would not comment on the topics of the discussion. However, sources in Ottawa say the call was about Omar Khadr, who has spent the past eight years in Guantanamo awaiting trial for the killing 15 of a US soldier in Afghanistan in 2002. Earlier reports suggested Clinton had been trying to arrange a deal in which Khadr would plead guilty to murder and would then serve one year in a US prison, followed by another seven years in a Canadian institution. The high-level talks come as lawyers, officials and politicians try to work out a deal that would avoid a trial in Khadr's long-running legal saga 16. That trial is set to begin on Monday at Guantanamo. There's still no word whether Khadr himself would accept such a deal. For NPR News, I'm Dan Karpenchuk in Toronto.

There are many things on the ballot 17 for the upcoming election. In North Dakota, voters will decide whether to allow big game hunting in fenced-in preserves. Supporters of a ban say it's not sporting to hunt animals who can't escape. Operators of the preserves say a ban would violate their property rights. About a dozen of the state's game preserves offer hunting for a fee, in some cases more than $10,000.