Prosecutor apologizes 12 years after bogus rape verdict ---- HOUSTON,
Texas -- A man who spent a dozen years in prison for a rape he didn't
commit was freed Tuesday, the third inmate to be released because of
problems with the Houston Police Department's crime lab. Wearing dark
clothes and carrying a red mesh gym bag and a paper sack containing his
belongings, Ronald Taylor greeted his family with warm embraces outside
the Harris County Jail. "It hasn't really sunk in. I'm just glad to see
my family," he said. His plans included eating shrimp, a delicacy he
missed in prison, and moving to Atlanta to marry Jeannette Brown, the
fiancee who has waited for him since the mid-1990s.

Putin: U.S. in Iraq is 'pointless' ------ MOSCOW, Russia -- President
Vladimir Putin said Thursday that the U.S. war in Iraq was a "pointless"
battle against the Iraqi people, the latest jab at Washington from the
increasingly confrontational Russian leader. Speaking during an annual
televised question-and-answer session, Putin was asked by a mechanic
from the Siberian city of Novosibirsk for his thoughts on comments made
several years ago by former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,
who suggested that Siberia had too many natural resources to belong to
one country. "I know that some politicians play with such ideas in their
heads. This, in my view, is the sort of political erotica that might
satisfy a person but hardly leads to a positive result," Putin responded.