VICTORIA, British Columbia -- The Canadian province of British Columbia has mandated that all automotive antifreeze sold beginning in 2011 have a bitter taste to protect children and pets. Environment Minister Barry Penner said the green fluid that leaks from radiators is hazardous, the National Post reported. "The sweet taste of antifreeze is a major reason for the accidental -- often fatal -- ingestion of toxic antifreeze by pets, wildlife and young children," Penner said. "By making ... [full story]

OTTAWA -- Planning is under way for British Queen Elizabeth to visit Canada and open the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office said. Harper's office made the announcement after the prime minister met with the monarch in London Wednesday as part of his agenda of the Group of 20 summit, The Globe and Mail reported. Plans are being made to have the queen open the Games, which begin Feb. 12, and also commemorate the ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- The founder of a Web site filled with U.S. congressional staffers' salaries and financial disclosures says he doesn't mind being the scourge of Capitol Hill. Jock Friedly, who dubs his LegiStorm.com site "transparency's sidekick," tells The Washington Post he has "never found it to be a problem to be a hated person." "I'm perfectly happy when people are yelling at me," he says. His site, which first provided a database of publicly available but hard-to-find congressional ... [full story]

JERUSALEM -- A manhunt was under way Thursday for a man who attacked and killed a 13-year-old boy with an ax in a West Bank settlement, police said. Israeli military personnel set up roadblocks and increased security throughout communities in the area, Ynetnews.com reported. A 7-year-old boy was slightly injured in the attack at Bat Ayin in Gush Etzion and transported to a Jerusalem hospital, officials said. A passerby wrestled the ax away from the man ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- Blackwater security guards' alleged falsehoods in a Baghdad shooting incident went unpunished because of morale, U.S. State Department records say. Quoting newly released data, USA Today said the top security officer at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq refused to punish the guards for making false statements in a 2005 shooting because he did not want to lower the morale of those contracted to work security. Federal investigators concluded that four guards were not justified in ... [full story]

NEW YORK -- A man's death from a gang shooting 49 years ago has become the oldest reclassified homicide in New York Police Department history, a police official said. William Jenkins, a member of the Viceroy street gang, was 18 when he was shot through the stomach and back by a rival Dragon member in Spanish Harlem Oct. 21, 1960, police records show. The shooting rendered Jenkins a paraplegic, The New York Times said. After Jenkins, who continued ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- Congressional Democrats propose lifting export controls classifying satellite technology as weaponry, a move observers say could revitalize the U.S. industry. House hearings on the controls open Thursday, and proponents of the change say they have the support of President Barack Obama and Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, The New York Times reported. The export revision is not a sure thing, conservatives said, citing national security arguments ... [full story]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan soldiers killed 20 armed militants in the Helmond province of southern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said Thursday. The fight came as dozens of militants wielding small arms and grenades attacked a foot patrol of Afghan troops, CNN reported. In Kandahar province Wednesday, five Taliban militants attacked a provincial council complex in Kandahar city, killing at least 13 people. And, at least 30 militants were killed 17 were wounded this week during a U.S.-Afghan operation ... [full story]

ARLINGTON HEIGHTS, Ill. -- U.S. public libraries increasingly are becoming havens for depressed, unemployed people who say they have nowhere else to go in tough times, librarians say. "I guess I'm not really used to people with tears in their eyes," reference librarian Rosalie Bork of Arlington Heights (Ill.) Memorial Library tells The New York Times. "It has been unexpectedly stressful," she says. "We feel so anxious to help these people and it's been so emotional for ... [full story]

PETALAN, Mexico -- Mexican President Felipe Calderon is rapidly increasing his army's role in fighting drug traffickers, officials say. Calderon has deployed about 45,000 troops, nearly 50 percent of Mexico's combat-ready military personnel, along the U.S. border and throughout the country to deal with the drug cartels, described by officials as a widening narco-insurgency, The Washington Post reports. Meanwhile, retired army officers are taking command of local police forces and the military supplies civilian authorities with automatic ... [full story]