RAY SUAREZ: Good evening. I'm Ray Suarez. Jim Lehrer is away.
On the NewsHour tonight: the news of this Thursday; then, a Newsmaker interview with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; the latest on the criminal charges filed against eight Marines in the deaths of Iraqi civilians in Haditha; a NewsHour report about the struggle to stay in business in New Orleans post-Katrina; and a look at how the Rocky Mountain blizzard has snarled air traffic nationwide.
RAY SUAREZ: A blizzard paralyzed Denver and much of eastern Colorado today. The storm wiped out airline schedules, cut off roads, and stranded thousands of people just days before Christmas. NewsHour correspondent Kwame Holman has our report.
KWAME HOLMAN: Overnight, the Denver area was buried under two feet of snow, with twice that much in the Rockies. The storm also brought heavy snow and ice to New Mexico, Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming.
Wind gusts reached 40 miles per hour across the region. Emergency crews tried to keep up, but the wind piled snow drifts six feet high, making roads nearly impassible in many places.
Long stretches of Colorado's main interstates were closed, leaving motorists stranded for hours.
HOLIDAY TRAVELER: I'm going down to Denver, and I don't think I'm going to make it.
KWAME HOLMAN: Colorado's governor Bill Owens declared a state of emergency and activated the National Guard to help. The Denver International Airport, a major hub for air travel across the country, shut down yesterday. Airlines cancelled more than 1,000 flights and left 4,700 passengers with no place to go.
HOLIDAY TRAVELER: There's no ground transportation. There are no hotel rooms. There are no cars to rent. I'm 45 minutes from my house, and I can't get there.
KWAME HOLMAN: Officials said the airport will not reopen before noon tomorrow. That, in turn, caused ripple effects across the country. There were delays, cancellations, and long lines in airports from Los Angeles to Chicago, forcing travelers to readjust their holiday plans.
HOLIDAY TRAVELER: I have to be there for Christmas. I have to be there by tonight. There's no other way around it. I'm going to get there. I don't know what they're going to have to do, but there's going to be a way.
KWAME HOLMAN: Stores and businesses also shut down across Colorado, leaving retailers worried about the storm's effect on their Christmas bottom line.
RETAILER: This is our big part of the year. This is when we, as they say, get into the black, and every inch of snow costs money.
KWAME HOLMAN: As the day went on, the snow began to taper off in Colorado, but forecasters said more snow is expected to hit the region on Friday.
RAY SUAREZ: There were no reports of any deaths blamed on the storm. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight.
Bad weather also snarled holiday travel on the other side of the Atlantic today. The world's busiest international airport, London Heathrow, was completely fogged in. We have a report from Chris Choi of Independent Television News.
CHRIS CHOI, ITV News Correspondent: Christmas travelers looking more like refugees, complaints, recriminations, and chaos descending with the fog. And somewhere, ghost-like in the gloom, aircraft, but far, far fewer than scheduled.
MARK BULLOCK, Managing Director, Heathrow Airport: Once these weather conditions persist, we will continue to see flight cancellations. What the airlines are doing currently is seeking to re-ticket passengers to try to get them onto alternative flights.
CHRIS CHOI: So far, a total of 40,000 passengers are affected at Heathrow, after 350 out of 1,300 flights were grounded. And these cancellations meant that 500 passengers had to sleep on the floor, including one whose bed was this games machine.
And from the fog-bound air traffic control tower, things don't look any better for tomorrow.
Can you cope with another day of this kind of stress and disruption on your systems?
MARTYN JEFFREY, British Air Traffic Services: In terms of air traffic control, it's a perfectly normal routine procedure. Safety is our priority. The controllers are well trained in operating. We have a very first-class team.
CHRIS CHOI: For now, for thousands, the big Christmas getaway is grounded.
RAY SUAREZ: That London fog is expected to last through the weekend.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates talked with Iraqi officials in Baghdad today about more U.S. military help. He wouldn't say if that includes a short-term increase in U.S. troops. He did say no specific number was discussed.
Earlier, Gates met with a small group of U.S. soldiers at Camp Victory, outside Baghdad. They told him they could use more help.
ROBERT GATES, Secretary of Defense: What I did was asked these sergeants and specialists what advice they might have for the secretary of defense. And I must say that it was characteristic of the quality of the young people in our Armed Services. They were not hesitant about giving. I think, like most people on the front lines in a battle, they'd always like to have more forces.
RAY SUAREZ: Also today, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice played down reported tension between the president and the military over sending more troops. She told the NewsHour Mr. Bush will decide based on a "full assessment," not "reports or rumors." We'll have that interview right after this news summary.
U.S. officials today reported three more Americans killed in Iraq. The total for December is at least 69.
In other developments, at least 15 Iraqis died in a suicide car bombing in Baghdad, and Shiite politicians met in Najaf. They talked with religious leaders there about a national reconciliation plan.
Later, officials close to the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr said he agreed to let his supporters rejoin the government. They began a boycott three weeks ago, when Iraq's prime minister met with President Bush.
Eight U.S. Marines were charged today in the killings of two dozen Iraqi civilians last year. It happened at Haditha in November of 2005. The Iraqis were shot hours after a roadside bomb killed a Marine on patrol.
Today, at Camp Pendleton, California, a military prosecutor said four of the suspects are charged with "un-premeditated murder," under military law.
LT. GEN. DAREN MARGOLIN, U.S. Marine Corps: We don't have a second-degree murder in the military, but in some jurisdictions first-degree murder would be pre-meditated murder. These Marines are not charged with pre-meditated murder. They're charged with murder with the intent to kill, and some specifications pertain to killing another human being by committing an act that's inherently dangerous.
RAY SUAREZ: The others charged are officers who were not present at the killings. They're accused of failing to investigate and report the deaths. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight.
In Iran today, final results from local elections confirmed major setbacks for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Supporters of his hard-line views won less than 20 percent of local council seats. Moderates and reformists took the majority. The vote was widely seen as a referendum on Ahmadinejad's 16 months in power.
The man who held absolute power in Turkmenistan in Central Asia for decades has died. State television announced Saparmurat Niyazov suffered heart failure today. Niyazov had ruled the Central Asian country since 1985, when it was still part of the Soviet Union.
He called himself "Turkmenbashi," or "Head of all Turkmen." His image was everywhere, and he suppressed all dissent. Under his rule, Turkmenistan developed huge natural gas reserves and supported U.S. operations in Afghanistan. Saparmurat Niyazov was 66 years old.
Peace talks in Somalia were in jeopardy today, as the country's Islamic leader announced a state of war. That came amid new fighting in the East African nation. We have a report narrated by Sue Turton of Independent Television News.
SUE TURTON, ITV News Correspondent: Somalia's front line, and the first casualties of escalating violence between the interim government forces and the Islamic militia. They may look like a rag-taggle bunch, but this conflict threatens to destabilize the whole of the Horn of Africa.
These men have mobilized to fight for the Islamic court, not out of ideology, but from a hatred of those said to be protecting Somalia's Western-backed government, their old enemy, the Ethiopians.
SOMALI (through translator): Although I am a prisoner, I would die for the Islamic cause.
SUE TURTON: One of the Islamic leaders, who the West claims has links to al-Qaida, said today Somalia was in a state of war.
HASSAN DAHIR AWAYS, Chair, Islamic Courts Council (through translator): The fighting is not with the transitional federal government, but with the Ethiopian troops.
SUE TURTON: The Islamic militia had moved from its Mogadishu stronghold to clash with government forces southwest of Baidoa, where the government is said to be protected by up to 20,000 Ethiopian troops. Ethiopia denies this.
It's feared the conflict will suck in regional players from East African and Arab neighbors. It's claimed Eritrea has supplied arms to either militia.
The two sides had appeared to have pulled back from the brink yesterday, thanks to some last-minute shuttle diplomacy by the European Union's envoy. Both sides claim ideological grounds for war: the Islamic courts citing aggression from the predominantly Christian Ethiopia; whereas the U.S.-backed interim government paints the Islamic militia here as a new front in the global war on terror.
Tens of thousands of Somalis have already fled the crossfire to end up in refugee camps on the Kenyan border. Aid agencies predict an influx of 80,000 by the end of the year.
Troops from both sides are reported to now be moving further north, in what is feared could be another front in the fighting.
RAY SUAREZ: The United Nations appealed for calm; it said the fighting would halt distributions of food and other aid.
The Supreme Court of Indonesia today threw out a guilty verdict against a top figure in the Bali bombing case. The militant Islamic cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, served more than two years for conspiracy. He was freed last June.
The bombings back in 2002 killed more than 200 people, most of them tourists from Australia and other nations. Bashir denied any involvement. The U.S. and Australia have accused him of being a leader of Jemaah Islamiyah, a terror group linked to al-Qaida.
The California Supreme Court ruled today Indian tribes are subject to state campaign finance laws. California has more than 100 tribes, and many are major political donors, drawing on casino profits. The tribes argued they're sovereign, and therefore immune from state lawsuits. They're expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The governor of New Jersey signed a new law today allowing civil unions for homosexuals. It goes into effect February 19th. The law entitles gay and lesbian couples to adoption, inheritance, and hospital visitation rights, among other things. New Jersey is now the third state to approve civil unions.
In economic news, third-quarter growth was weaker than initial estimates. The Commerce Department reported the gross domestic product advanced at an annual rate of 2 percent from July through September. A second report said investment in new home building fell nearly 19 percent in the third quarter; that was the largest decline in 15 years.
And on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 42 points to close at 12,421. The Nasdaq fell more than 11 points to close below 2,416.
That's it for the news summary tonight.
