NEW YORK (Reuters) – Barely clinging to power, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh arrived in the United States on Saturday, apparently to treat burns and other wounds suffered in an assassination attempt in June.

U.S. and Yemeni officials confirmed his arrival for a private, short-term medical visit but withheld details. An aide said he was headed to New York but his whereabouts could not be confirmed.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Barely clinging to power, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh arrived in the United States on Saturday, apparently to treat burns and other wounds suffered in an assassination attempt in June.

U.S. and Yemeni officials confirmed his arrival for a private, short-term medical visit but withheld details. An aide said he was headed to New York but his whereabouts could not be confirmed.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York state authorities denied parole on Tuesday to the man convicted of the crime that generated one of the most famous headlines in U.S. journalism: the New York Post’s “Headless body in topless bar.”

The parole board denied early release for Charles Dingle, 53, convicted of the 1983 rampage in which he fatally shot the owner of a topless bar, took hostages, raped a woman and forced another to cut off the dead man’s head in order to prevent police from linking the bullet to his gun.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A “humbled” Archbishop Timothy Dolan said on Friday his elevation to cardinal by Pope Benedict is more of an honor for New York than for himself.

One of 22 newly named cardinals from around the world, Dolan was the only one representing an Archdiocese in the United States. One other American, the former archbishop of Baltimore, Edwin O’Brien, who heads the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, was also promoted.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – New York police are investigating as bias crimes four Molotov cocktail attacks on Sunday night including one against a mosque with 75 people inside and another against a Hindu place of worship.

No injuries were reported.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday assigned state law enforcement officials to assist the New York City investigation, saying the attacks “go against everything we stand for as New Yorkers and Americans,” and the Council on American-Islamic Relations condemned the attacks.

KABUL/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. Army has charged eight soldiers deployed to Afghanistan in the death of Private Danny Chen, a 19-year-old Chinese-American who was bullied and taunted by fellow troops over his heritage.

Chen was found in a guard tower in southern Afghanistan after apparently shooting himself, the Army in Washington and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan said on Wednesday.

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (Reuters)- As he surged from also-ran to a front-runner in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, Newt Gingrich put a 29-year-old newcomer in charge of his New Hampshire campaign.

It was October 21, when the former House of Representatives speaker was way behind in the race for the state’s January 10 primary and few believed he had a chance to win the Republican nomination to challenge President Barack Obama next November.

AMHERST, New Hampshire (Reuters) – Republican presidential hopeful Ron Paul declared on Wednesday his campaign was “peaking at the right time” as polls show him closing in on the two perceived front-runners.

The libertarian congressman from Texas with a passionate core of followers complained that pundits were dismissing his longshot campaign prematurely and sounded optimistic about catching former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former House of Representatives speaker Newt Gingrich.

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol has been named to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, the 12th oil or gas company to be admitted, an indication of its commitment to mitigate the impact of drilling for and burning petroleum.

Among the environmental measures taken by Ecopetrol:

OVERALL STRATEGY

Ecopetrol says its strategy is to comply with all environmental laws; reduce spills, emissions and solid waste; reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and promote biodiversity.

PUERTO GAITAN, Colombia, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Protesting oil
workers have yet to buy into Colombia’s grand vision for its
oil industry, staging strikes that have shut the country’s
largest oil field and threatening further unrest.

The government says oil can help lift Colombia out of
poverty but workers complain of depressed wages and of police
and army complicity in thwarting attempts to organize unions.