Senator apologizes for `macaca' remark

RICHMOND -- Senator George Allen apologized yesterday for remarks that offended a man of Indian descent who was tracking the Republican's reelection campaign for Democratic challenger Jim Webb. S.R. Sidarth said he felt Allen was singling him out because of his race when the senator called him ``Macaca" during a GOP rally Friday at Breaks, Va. Allen said he did not know that macaca is a genus of monkeys . (AP)

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Federal agents arrested more than 130 alleged drug traffickers from coast-to-coast yesterday who US officials said smuggled heroin from Mexico and offered phone-up home delivery like a takeout pizza shop. The investigation, known as Operation Black Gold Rush, produced 131 arrests in 15 cities based on 10 federal indictments and state charges, the officials said. (AP)

NASA announced yesterday that it was launching a search for more than 13,000 original tapes of the Apollo moon missions. What's missing are never-before-broadcast clear original videos -- not the grainy converted copies the world saw on television more than three decades ago. (AP)

New Jersey

TRENTON -- New Jersey's attorney general resigned yesterday after a special prosecutor concluded that she violated state ethics laws by intervening in a traffic stop involving her boyfriend. Zulima Farber, who will step down at the end of the month, said she is leaving office ``out of respect for the governor" and not because she had been asked to do so. (AP)

CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES -- Former President Gerald Ford was admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota yesterday for ``testing and evaluation," his office said in a statement. The statement did not give details about why Ford, 93, went to the clinic in Rochester. (AP)