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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Agriculture Department is investigating a possible case of mad cow disease, the agency's chief veterinarian said Saturday. A routine test indicated the possible presence of mad cow disease, said John Clifford, the USDA official. The department is conducting more detailed tests at its laboratory in Ames, Iowa, and should have results in four to seven days. "This inco ...

NEW YORK (AP) -- Justice Department lawyers warned eight months ago that a nefarious element had infiltrated important East Coast ports, but they weren't talking about terrorists or Arab shipping companies. They were talking about the mafia. In a civil suit filed in July, prosecutors accused the International Longshoremen's Association, the 65,000-member union that supplies labor to ports from Florida to Maine, of being a "vehicle for organized crime" on the waterfront. Packed with ...

By Nicola Leske THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Slobodan Milosevic, branded the "butcher of the Balkans" for conflicts that tore Yugoslavia apart in the 1990s, was found dead in his cell on Saturday, only months before a verdict was due in his war crimes trial. "Milosevic was found lifeless on his bed in his cell," the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague said in a statement. The court said a prison medical officer confirmed the 64-year-old former Yugoslav president, who suffered from a heart conditio ...

By Fredrik Dahl LONDON (Reuters) - Foes of Slobodan Milosevic said on Saturday the unexpected death in prison of the man they blamed for the bloodshed in the Balkans in the 1990s meant justice had been cheated. "The death of Slobodan Milosevic, a few weeks before the completion of his trial, will prevent justice to be done in his case," said Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the United Nation ...

By Tim Hepher and Dominique Rodriguez PARIS (Reuters) - Riot police stood guard at Paris's Sorbonne university after breaking up a three-day sit-in there on Saturday and a clean-up operation began as France tried to quell student protests over job reforms. Education Minister Gilles de Robien visited ransacked offices and held up torn books at the birthplace of France's May 1968 student protest movement, hours after police in riot gear stormed the building and ejected about 200 students and oth ...

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ireland kept their triple crown and Six Nations hopes alive by grinding out a 15-9 win over Scotland with five Ronan O'Gara penalties at a rain-drenched Lansdowne Road on Saturday. The Munster flyhalf delivered all the points with five out of seven attempts while Edinburgh winger Chris Paterson did all Scotland's scoring in the last Six Nations match at Lansdowne Road before redevelopment begins on the stadium next year. The home side dominated territory and possession for m ...

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic feared he was being poisoned in his detention cell in The Hague, his lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic said on Saturday hours after the tribunal announced Milosevic's death. "Today, I have filed an official request to the tribunal to have the autopsy carried out in Moscow, having in mind his claims yesterday that he was being poisoned in the jail," Tomanovic told reporters in The Hague. Acting on a request from Milosevic, Tomanovic said he h ...

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic feared he was poisoned in his detention cell in The Hague, his lawyer Zdenko Tomanovic said on Saturday hours after the tribunal announced Milosevic's death. "Today I have filed an official request to the tribunal to have the autopsy carried out in Moscow, having in mind his claims yesterday that he was being poisoned in the jail," Tomanovic told Serbia's B-92 television from The Hague.

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Two schoolchildren laid a wreath Saturday in a Madrid park while victims of the Madrid train bombings looked on in a silent ceremony as the nation marked the second anniversary of the terrorist attacks that killed 191 people and wounded 1,741 others. Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Madrid's mayor were also present at the wreath-laying ceremony in the Retiro Park's "Forest of Remembrance," where one tree was planted last year for each of those kil ...

By Boris Groendahl and Ingrid Melander SALZBURG, Austria (Reuters) - The European Union boosted western Balkan states' hopes of joining the bloc on Saturday but warned Belgrade it must still deal with the legacy of Slobodan Milosevic, who died overnight in The Hague. EU foreign ministers meeting their Balkan counterparts in the Austrian city of Salzburg declared that EU membership was the ultimate goal -- provided the bloc had the capacity to absorb the new members. When news broke that forme ...