SACRAMENTO, August 31, 2006 - The latest attempt to allow illegal immigrants to obtain California driver's licenses passed the Legislature on Wednesday, but it was doomed as soon as the final vote was taken.

A spokeswoman said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will veto it.

"The governor will not sign any legislation that in any way threatens public safety," spokeswoman Margita Thompson said.

The bill that passed the Senate on a 21-13 vote was lawmakers' eighth attempt at legalizing driver's' licenses for illegal immigrants. It was sent to Schwarzenegger with no debate and the bare majority of votes needed.

The measure by Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, would overturn a 1993 law that prohibits the state from issuing licenses to drivers who cannot prove they are in the country legally.

... Although the deal in California is strongly opposed by Republicans in the Legislature and many business leaders across the state, it ensured that a bill on the restrictions would be passed before the legislative session ended Thursday and would be signed by Schwarzenegger, the leaders said Wednesday.

The first major controls are scheduled to begin in 2012, with the aim of reducing the emissions to their level of 1990. The legislation allows for incentives to businesses to help reach the goals, but opponents warn that the state may be sacrificing its economic interests for a quixotic goal.

"If our manufacturers leave, whether for North Carolina or China, and they take their greenhouse gases with them, we might not have solved the problem but exacerbated it instead," said Allan Zaremberg, president of the state Chamber of Commerce, which led opposition to the measure.

BEIRUT - The leader of Hezbollah, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, has said in a television interview that he would not have ordered the capture of two Israeli soldiers had he known that it would lead to such a war.

Guerrillas from Hezbollah, an Islamic militant group, killed three Israeli soldiers and seized two others in a cross-border raid on July 12, setting off 34 days of fighting that ended with a cease-fire on Aug. 14.

"We did not think, even 1 percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude," Nasrallah told New TV of Lebanon in an interview that was aired Sunday. Asked if he would have ordered the operation if he had known on July 11 that it would lead to such a war, Nasrallah answered: "No, absolutely not."

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Dutch F-16s escorted a Northwest Airlines flight bound for India back to an airport here Wednesday after the pilot radioed for help, and police arrested 12 passengers who had aroused suspicions, authorities said.

[...] While Flight NO0042 was over German airspace shortly after takeoff, the pilot radioed for permission to return to Schiphol Airport and asked for an escort of jet fighters because some of the passengers were acting suspiciously, the Defense Ministry said.

"A number of them behaved, in the opinion of the crew, in a suspicious manner," said the ministry. "As a result, the captain asked to return to Schiphol."

A U.S. government official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, said crew members and air marshals observed the passengers trying to use cell phones and passing them among themselves while the airliner was taking off.

Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11,2001

Were people from all over the world, mostly Americans, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan, across the Potomac from our nation's capitol and in a field in Pennsylvania? Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they?

And I'm supposed to care that a copy of the Koran was "desecrated" when an overworked American soldier kicked it or got it wet? Well, I don't. I don't care at all.

I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11.

I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about the Holy Bible, the mere possession of which is a crime in Saudi Arabia.

I'll care when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi tells the world he is sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling, slashed throat.

I'll care when the cowardly so-called "insurgents" in Iraq come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques.

I'll care when the mindless zealots who blow themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.

I'll care when the American media stops pretending that their First Amendment liberties are somehow derived from international law instead of the United States Constitution's Bill of Rights. In the meantime, when I hear a story about a brave Marine roughing up an Iraqi terrorist to obtain information, know this: I don't care.

When I see a fuzzy photo of a pile of naked Iraqi prisoners who have been humiliated in what amounts to a college hazing incident, rest assured that I don't care.

When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank that I don't care.

When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and fed "special" food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being "mishandled," you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts that I don't care.

And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled "Koran" and other times "Quran." Well, Jimmy Crack Corn and ---- you got it, I DON'T CARE!

NEW YORK — It looks like a comic book and reads like a comic book, but the subject matter is deadly serious: what went wrong before, during and after 9/11.

The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation (Hill and Wang, $16.95 paperback, $30 hardcover), based on the government commission report that became a best seller in 2004, arrives Tuesday.