National briefs 7A

CIA: N. Korea can validate nukes without test

WASHINGTON -- The CIA has concluded that North Korea has been able to validate its nuclear weapons designs without a nuclear test, the agency disclosed to Congress.

The intelligence service believes that conventional explosives tests, conducted since the 1980s, have allowed the North Koreans to verify their nuclear designs would work. The agency believes North Korea has one or two nuclear weapons similar to what the United States dropped on Nagasaki during World War II; a minority of U.S. analysts believe the communist country may already have made more.

The relatively simple fission weapons that North Korea may have would presumably detonate a precisely built shell of conventional high explosives around a plutonium core, and the tests may have involved the designs of that shell.

North Korea has suggested it may conduct a nuclear test to demonstrate it is a nuclear power. But U.S. officials are not sure that the North Koreans would expend a nuclear weapon if they have only a few.

Wars leave shortage for Veterans Day parades

MIAMI -- Even as thousands of U.S. troops are stationed in war zones abroad, plans for Veterans Day parades across the country are being scaled back or scrapped.

The problem: Not enough troops, tanks and HumVees to wow the patriotic crowds.

Some cities are depending on boy scouts and other nonmilitary marchers to fill the gaps. In California, several small towns have joined the bigger San Jose parade, said Lee Harris, a spokesman for the American Legion in Indianapolis.

The military has 131,600 troops deployed in Iraq, in addition to troops serving in Afghanistan. War equipment usually available from state armories and military bases has been shipped out with troops.

Woman charged in hoax wanted to go to prison

ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- A woman charged with addressing a letter marked "anthrax" to the White House told federal investigators she did it because she thought she could get better medical care in prison.

Rhonda Kay Smith told a Secret Service agent that she "decided to make a plan to commit crimes until she was arrested in September in order to receive better medical treatment," according to documents filed in federal court.

Smith was indicted last month on charges of using the mail to threaten the president and of threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction against the U.S. Postal Service.

Smith suffers from diabetes and lung problems. Her lawyer, Stephen Lindsay, said his client requires oxygen and takes various medications.

In an interview Smith told a Secret Service agent that she had seen a news report in which a doctor said "there are people who fall through the cracks in medical treatment and that prisoners receive better treatment than many people on the streets."

-- From wire reports