WASHINGTON -- U.S. President George Bush was expected to call for large cuts in Medicare growth in his new budget, due Monday.The president also was expected to seek major savings in Medicaid again. Healthcare savings are a crucial part of the Bush plan for a budget surplus by 2012.The 2009 budget likely will be the first $3 trillion spending request by a president, The New York Times said Thursday.The White House anticipates higher deficits in ... [full story]

UNITED NATIONS -- UNICEF issued an international appeal for $6.6 million to feed and protect women and children in embattled Kenya.A statement from the U.N. headquarters said there are some 300 displacement camps in the country where tribal fighting has killed at least 900 people since disputed elections on Dec. 27."We've come through several days of some of the most atrocious violence against children and women that Kenya has ever seen," said UNICEF Kenya Chief ... [full story]

TORONTO -- Toronto police were asking for public help Thursday in finding the identity of a man who abandoned an 8-month-old baby girl in a freezing stairwell.The infant was spotted in a mall parking garage midday Wednesday by a woman who said she thought it was a doll until it cried, The Toronto Star reported."She was abandoned there and was not dressed for the elements at all, " said Toronto Police Staff Sgt. Don Cole. ... [full story]

BAGHDAD -- Senior U.S. military commanders in Iraq said they want a one-month freeze in troop cuts this summer to benefit the next U.S. president.They said such a pause would make it more likely the new administration would inherit as many troops in Iraq as there were before U.S. President George Bush announced a "surge" of forces a year ago, The Washington Post reported Thursday.U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- The scramble is on to grab the support of fundraisers of former presidential candidates Democrat John Edwards and the GOP's Rudy Giuliani.Edwards and Giuliani dropped out of the race for president Wednesday, opening the gates for supporters who had helped them raise a combined $100 million last year.Democrats Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., were reported feverishly working to recruit Edwards' supporters going into next week's "Super Tuesday" primary.While the ... [full story]

TEHRAN -- Iran's chief justice banned executing convicts in public unless there are approved "social necessities," state-run Iran Press TV reported.A spokesman for Judiciary Chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi said the decree was issued Tuesday."Based on an order from the judiciary chief on Jan. 29, executions in public will only be carried out with the approval of Ayatollah Shahroudi and based on social necessities," the spokesman said. "Publishing pictures and footage of executions in the media ... [full story]

ISTANBUL, Turkey -- At least 19 people were killed Thursday in an industrial explosion that partially collapsed a five-story building in Istanbul, Turkish media said.Initial reports said 68 people were injured but Turkish television put the number at 117.City Gov. Muammer Guler said there were no immediate indications the blast was linked to a terror attack, the Hurriyet news agency said."It's certain that the explosion was related to a sparkler, torch or fireworks," Guler said.Four ... [full story]

NAIROBI, Kenya -- A Kenyan opposition member of parliament was gunned down Thursday in a western town by traffic police, the party told media.David Too of the Orange Democratic Movement was driving from Nairobi when he encountered a police roadblock at the western town of Eldoret, a party spokesman told the BBC. Few other details were available about the incident, the report said.Tuesday, gunmen killed another ODM member, Mugabe Were, outside his Nairobi home.The country ... [full story]

NEW ORLEANS -- A U.S. judge said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to protect New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina flooding but still dismissed a lawsuit naming the corps.U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval threw out the class-action suit Wednesday, saying the Corps was shielded from liability under the Flood Control Act of 1928, CNN reported from New Orleans.On Aug. 29, 2005, steel and concrete levees designed and built by the corps failed in several ... [full story]

JERUSALEM -- An attempted suicide attack Thursday on an Israeli military post in southern Gaza was repelled by Israeli soldiers who killed a militant, the army said.The army said two men were spotted near the border fence near Kerem Shalom soon after midnight and soldiers who investigated reportedly came under fire, Ynetnews.com reported. The Israelis returned fire, killing one of the men as the other fled.Soldiers said the dead man was wearing a flak jacket ... [full story]