Mrs G's Dawn Patrol

• POPE ?RECEIVES LAST RITES?

  Pople John Paul II is seriously ill and has received the last rites as he battles a high fever, but the 84 year old pontiff's condition appears to have stablised, according to the latest Vatican news reports.

  • UPDATE: Vatican: Pope Has Suffered Heart Failure

    The Vatican said Friday that Pope John Paul II's condition was very serious, hours after he suffered heart failure.

  • UPDATE II Vatican Denies Reports of Pope in Coma

    Pope John Paul II suffered heart failure during treatment for a urinary tract infection and was in "very serious" condition on Friday, the Vatican said. It denied an Italian news report that the pope was in a coma.

• DeLay Targets Legal System in Schiavo Case House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on Thursday blamed Terri Schiavo's death on what he contended was a failed legal system and he raised the possibility of trying to impeach some of the federal judges in the case.

• American abducted with Romanian journalists

  An American was also taken when three Romanian journalists were abducted Monday in Iraq, the US State Department said Wednesday.

• N. Korea still waiting for US apology

  North Korea is waiting for the United States to apologize for calling it an "outpost of tyranny" before the communist state will return to nuclear talks, a senior official said, as the North announced Friday it will convene a rubber-stamp parliament expected to endorse its boycott of the talks.

• Early Results Favor Zimbabwe Opposition

  Election officials at a polling station in Seke, 49 kilometers (30 miles) east of Harare inspect a ballot box at the end of voting Thursday, March, 31, 2005

• Where Even Generals Fear A Military Draft

  A certain amount of panic will take hold of Russia today, when the country begins its annual military draft.

• Intelligence agencies `dead wrong' on Iraq, commission says

  Dramatic changes are needed in a US intelligence community that still knows "disturbingly little" about grave threats to the nation and was "dead wrong" on Iraq, a presidential commission said Thursday.

• Navy secretary picked to replace Wolfowitz as No. 2 at Pentagon

  President Bush nominated Navy Secretary Gordon England as deputy defense secretary Friday, elevating the former aerospace executive into his top echelon of advisers responsible for wartime military strategy.

• Berger Pleads Guilty to Document Theft

  Former Clinton National Security Advisor Samuel Berger has agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of removing classified documents from the National Archives.

• Massachusetts Lawmakers Approve Stem Cell Research

  Legislation authorizing embryonic stem cell research passed in the Massachusetts House of Representatives on Thursday by a margin large enough to override an expected veto by Gov

• Wanted: Border Hoppers. And Some Excitement, Too.

  Walter McCarty, an 82-year-old retired Marine sergeant, says he is looking for adventure on the most porous part of the American border with Mexico. So, on Thursday, he signed up for the Minuteman Project, a volunteer patrol in search of furtive immigrants making the desert crossing into the United States. <...> "People are going to set up their lawn chairs, put on some sunscreen and start looking for suspicious activity," Mr. Simcox said in an interview. "We're doing the job President Bush refuses to do."