Siddiqui refuses plea in US court

NEW YORK - An American-educated Pakistani woman who's been labeled an Al Qaeda supporter refused to appear in federal court yesterday to answer charges that she tried to kill US soldiers and FBI agents after they detained her this summer in Afghanistan. Aafia Siddiqui had been expected to plead not guilty to attempted murder and assault charges contained in an indictment unsealed earlier this week. Prosecutors say that when taken into custody, she was carrying handwritten notes referring to a "mass casualty attack" and listing the Empire State Building and other New York landmarks. In court, Siddiqui's lawyers told a judge their client didn't want to go through the humiliation of a strip-search - a precaution taken with all prisoners when moved between from federal lockups and courthouses. (AP)

CHICAGO - The state senator who led a school boycott to protest underfunded Chicago schools cut it short after two days and said yesterday that he will be talking to Governor Rod Blagojevich soon to discuss solutions. Property taxes make up about 70 percent of school financing in Illinois, so rural and inner-city schools are usually less well-funded than suburban schools. Funding critics said the system constitutes unequal education between poor and rich, and black and white. On Tuesday, when the year started, more than a thousand students boarded buses to suburban Northfield, where they symbolically registered at the affluent New Trier High School. (AP)

CHICAGO - The Rev. Jesse Jackson was hospitalized and undergoing tests yesterday after complaining of severe stomach pains. Jackson told The Associated Press that he entered Northwestern Memorial Hospital on Wednesday after falling ill earlier in the week. Doctors told him he has viral gastroenteritis but were conducting more tests. The 66-year-old civil rights leader said he was feeling much better yesterday morning but wasn't sure when he would be released. (AP)

Tobacco use caused 2.4 million cases of cancer in the United States from 1999 to 2004, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported yesterday. Lung and bronchial cancer accounted for nearly half the cases but cancers of the larynx, mouth and pharynx, esophagus, stomach, pancreas, kidney, bladder, cervix, as well as acute myelogenous leukemia are also caused by tobacco, the CDC found. (Reuters)