TEHRAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Monday he welcomed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's invitation for closer ties between the nations. Chavez -- who is in Iran for talks with Ahmadinejad -- invited Iran to join a Latin American initiative that would counter efforts by the United States to forge a free-trade pact in the region, El Universal newspaper reported Monday. The proposed anti-U.S. trade pact for Latin America is headed up by Venezuela and ... [full story]

VANCOUVER, Ontario - A 17-year-old Ontario teen was airlifted off a North Vancouver mountain after slipping into a crevasse while sliding down a slope on a garbage bag. Tim Jones, the senior search manager with North Shore rescue, said the teen and his brother were sliding down the slope between Mount Seymour's second and third peaks when the incident happened, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Monday. Jones said the teen was "hit from behind by ... [full story]

BEIJING - Coal-mining deaths in China have fallen 14.3 percent from last year, leaving the total number of fatalities at 1,792 so far in 2007. Officials with the State Administration of Coal Mine Safety and the State Administration of Work Safety said accidents at coal mines in the first half of 2007 totaled 1,066, down 242 from the same period last year, Xinhua reported Monday. "Though we have made some progress, we should still be ... [full story]

TORONTO - The Ontario fire marshal is investigating seven fires started within 45 minutes of each other in Toronto. It took more than 200 firefighters to put out the blazes, which resulted in the death of one cat, in Toronto's west end, The Toronto Star reported Monday. "Is it suspicious? Absolutely," said Greg Olson, an investigator with the Ontario Fire Marshal's office. "It's too much of a coincidence." Although he could not give a damage ... [full story]

CHICAGO - A game of cops and robbers turned deadly when an 11-year-old Chicago boy fell on a metal fence pole and impaled himself through the chest. Police said Nathan Dombrowski was killed shortly before 10 p.m. Monday in the city's Beverly district, the Chicago Tribune reported Tuesday. Firefighters had to cut the pole to remove the child, whom paramedics declared dead at the scene. The Cook County medical examiner's office said an autopsy on ... [full story]

COFFEYVILLE, Kan. - Thousands of gallons of spilled crude oil and sewage were transported by rising rivers and streams from Kansas into Oklahoma during the weekend. About 42,000 gallons of oil spilled Sunday into the Verdigris River from the Coffeyville Resources refinery on the Kansas-Oklahoma border, The Oklahoman, an Oklahoma City newspaper, reported Monday. Officials said none of the nine public water supplies along the Verdigris and Lake Oologah are in immediate danger, since most ... [full story]

WASHINGTON - CIA Director Michael Hayden issued a memo calling on employees to ignore criticism and remained focused on counter-terrorism. Titled "Staying on Target," the memo said the botched bombings and terror arrests that began last week in England and Scotland "serve as a reminder ... that this remains a dangerous world and that our work in defending America is as important as ever," The Washington Post reported Tuesday. Hayden referred to various criticisms the ... [full story]

NEOLA, Utah - Federal officials were investigating the cause of a Utah wildfire that had burned 33,000 acres and killed three people by Monday. Witnesses said the Neola North Fire started Friday morning at the base of a power pole on Ute tribal land, the Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City reported. A man who offered to fight the fire with his bulldozers when it was a quarter-acre or smaller said he was stopped ... [full story]

MIAMI - A defense attorney for the lead suspect in the federal trial in Miami of three men accused of aiding terror groups abroad asked for a mistrial Monday. Attorney Anthony Natale claimed the jury would be prejudiced by a co-defendant counsel's questioning of a government witness as to whether killing was justified during jihad, or holy war. Natale -- representing U.S-born terror suspect Jose Padilla -- said the cross examination of a prosecution terror ... [full story]

WASHINGTON - U.S. President George Bush Monday commuted the sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former aide to Dick Cheney, to keep him out of prison. Libby was convicted of lying to investigators probing the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison, two years probation and a $250,000 fine. Bush threw out the jail time but left the probation and fine intact. Libby had sought to remain ... [full story]