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• Iran denies interest in nuclear arms.
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Palestinian investigator says Israel is the 'only suspect' in Yasser Arafat's death
• RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Israel is the only suspect in the 2004 death of Yasser Arafat, the chief Palestinian investigator in the case said Friday, a day after Swiss scientists said the Palestinian leader was probably poisoned by radioactive polonium.
• The investigator, Tawfik Tirawi, spoke at a news conference held by the Palestinian team that has been investigating Arafat's death. Tirawi asserted that Arafat did not die a natural death, but was evasive when asked repeatedly whether he believed Arafat was poisoned by polonium.
• "It is not important that I say here that he was killed by polonium," said Tirawi, who heads the Palestinian committee investigating Arafat's mysterious death. "But I say, with all the details available about Yasser Arafat's death, that he was killed, and that Israel killed him."
• At another point, the Palestinian investigator described Israel as the "first, fundamental and only suspect in the assassination of Yasser Arafat."
• Israel has denied any role in Arafat's death, saying it had politically isolated him at the time and had no reason to assassinate him.
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Partial US government shutdown could distort unemployment rate, jobs figure in Oct. report
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- The big question ahead of tomorrow's release of the October employment report: How much did the 16-day partial government shutdown affect hiring last month?
• The shutdown may have caused the unemployment rate to spike and hiring to slow. If so, economists expect those trends will be mostly reversed in November.
• "The government shutdown has created a lot of noise and the numbers are going to be sloppy," said Phil Orlando, chief equity strategist at Federated Investors.
• Economists forecast that employers added 122,000 jobs in October, according to a survey by FactSet. That's sharply lower than the 148,000 added in September. And it would be well below the average job gain of about 180,000 in the first nine months of this year.
• The unemployment rate is projected to rise to 7.3 percent from 7.2 percent, the (Continued on page 35)
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