New SARS-like outbreak gets Canadian attention

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- It looks like SARS and acts like a milder version of the disease that has killed 44 people in Canada, but officials doubt the respiratory illness that swept through a British Columbia nursing home is severe acute respiratory syndrome.

Nearly 150 residents and staff members at Kinsmen Place Lodge in Surrey, a Vancouver suburb, fell ill in recent weeks with sniffles and other symptoms much less severe than the headaches and pneumonia associated with SARS.

Most have completely recovered, but six of the residents died of pneumonia-related illness. The latest death, reported Tuesday, was an elderly woman who had typical pneumonia symptoms rather than the distinct pneumonia symptoms of SARS.

The problem is that tests on an unspecified number of the nursing home cases, including three of six who died of pneumonia, found a coronavirus similar to the one that causes SARS.

Israeli troops enter West Bank towns in tanks

NABLUS, West Bank -- Israeli troops and tanks moved into the West Bank towns of Nablus and Jenin earlier today, searching for Palestinian militants in the wake of a devastating suicide bombing earlier in the week, police and Palestinian officials said.

Shots rang out in Jenin after some 20 tanks, personnel carriers and other vehicles entered, witnesses said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties in either town. A curfew was imposed in central Nablus after more than 30 vehicles -- mostly trucks and a few tanks -- entered the town.

Troops were carrying out searches for bomb laboratories and wanted Palestinians, an Israeli military source said on condition of anonymity. No arrests were made in the latest raids, though on Wednesday night six wanted Palestinians were arrested in the area of Jenin, the source said.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has approved a series of "pinpoint" military strikes in response to a suicide bombing that killed 20 and injured more than 100 in Jerusalem on Tuesday.

Venezuelans marching for presidential recall

CARACAS, Venezuela -- Opponents of Hugo Chavez turned in 2.7 million signatures Wednesday to demand a referendum on ending his tumultuous presidency, but the Venezuelan leader vowed the only recall this year will be in California.

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets in the first large opposition protest since a two-month general strike failed to topple the leftist leader earlier this year -- renewing a power struggle that promises more unrest in the world's No. 5 oil exporter.

In Argentina, a defiant Chavez vowed in an interview with The Associated Press to defeat any bid to remove him.

He insisted the signatures were fake, saying some belonged to dead people and others were taken from bank registries.

The signatures "appear in every light to be illegal. They don't meet constitutional requirements," Chavez said

-- From wire reports