Abduction in Baghdad raises fears about security...Congressman says freed Americans may need some recovery time

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BAGHDAD (AP) — The abduction of three Americans in Baghdad is the latest in a series of brazen high-profile kidnappings undermining confidence in the Iraqi government's ability to control state-sanctioned Shiite militias. Witnesses say men in uniform carried out the kidnapping in broad daylight Saturday. It happened 100 yards from a police station in a neighborhood that is home to both Shiites and Sunnis. No one has claimed responsibility and U.S. officials have not identified the Americans or given any details.

LANDSTUHL, Germany (AP) — A Michigan congressmen says the three Americans being treated in Germany after being released by Iran will return to the United States "as soon as possible." But Dan Kildee says the men might need "a little bit of help" after their long imprisonment. He says his constituent, former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati (ah-MEER' hehk-MAH'-tee), spent much of his time in solitary confinement. The congressman says "re-entering into the world as a free person will take more than just a deep breath." Kildee traveled to Germany with members of Hekmati's family.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Authorities say a Utah police officer who was working overtime to pay for his cancer treatments was shot to death by a fugitive from a drug rehab center for parolees. Douglas Barney had volunteered to work overtime yesterday to help pay for his treatments after surviving bladder cancer. Authorities say the man who shot Barney in the head was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police.

DENVER (AP) — A new report says administrators at a suburban Denver high school dismissed increasingly obvious warning signs that a student was a threat before he killed a classmate and himself two years ago. The report says Arapahoe High School staff poorly gauged the rising threat that 18-year-old Karl Pierson posed months before he stormed the school with a shotgun, a machete and homemade bombs and shot 17-year-old Claire Davis. The report by the University of Colorado's Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence says the shooting might have been prevented if school staff had kept detailed and more widely accessible records documenting concerns about the teen.

NEW YORK (AP) — A new analysis is challenging the idea that smoking marijuana during adolescence can lead to declines in intelligence. The study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says pot smoking may be merely a symptom of something else that's really responsible for a brainpower effect seen in some previous research. The author of the report cautions that the study doesn't say anything about other potential harmful consequences of smoking marijuana in adolescence.