Explosion kills five at northern Iraq checkpoint

GERDIGO, Iraq -- An apparent car bomb killed at least five people, including an Australian cameraman, at a road checkpoint Saturday near a camp of the al-Qaida-linked militant group Ansar al-Islam. At least eight people were injured.

The group's base in northeastern Iraq was attacked overnight by U.S. cruise missiles.

The death -- along with the wounding and disappearance of several other journalists in southern Iraq -- prompted the Pentagon to urge journalists not positioned with U.S. military units to "exercise restraint" while covering the fighting.

Britain's ITN television news reported Saturday that three members of an ITN news crew were missing after coming under fire en route to Basra in southern Iraq.

Jittery schools cancel trips amid war in Iraq

Middle and high school students across Illinois are being forced to shelve planned trips to the nation's capital and abroad because of the war in Iraq.

From Chicago and its suburbs to Jamaica in central Illinois, administrators and teachers broke the news in recent days that safety concerns had put school-sponsored trips on hold.

At Percy Julian Middle School in Oak Park, 98 eighth graders had signed up for a trip to Washington that was due to leave on Friday. But Al Gilliam, a social studies teacher who coordinated the trip, said it seemed too risky in light of the war.

Tomahawk cruise missile malfunctions, falls in sea

ABOARD THE USS JOHN S. McCAIN -- A Tomahawk cruise missile malfunctioned as it was fired during U.S.-led strikes on Baghdad, spiraling above the Navy ship before plunging into the sea and spitting burning fuel across the water. No one was injured.

The missile was fired Friday from the destroyer USS John S. McCain. At least 320 Tomahawks were launched from Navy ships and submarines in the Persian Gulf, the east Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea at targets in and around the Iraqi capital.

Lt. Cmdr. Mike Brown, a spokesman for the USS Kitty Hawk battle group to which the McCain usually belongs, said 12 Tomahawks were fired from the ship.

Iraqi scientists sought for details on weapons

NEW YORK -- The United States will soon be hunting down and interrogating hundreds of Iraqi scientists, technicians and others who were involved in Iraq's clandestine weapons programs, hoping they will help in the search for chemical, biological or nuclear materials.

The Americans "may well get a lot more out of interviews than we did," said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the U.N. inspectors. "If there was something hidden, there was no way that people under the old environment would have told us where to look," he said.

--From wire reports