Rice denies she was warned

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she cannot recall then-CIA chief George Tenet warning her of an impending al-Qaida attack in the United States, as a new book claims he did two months before the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

“What I am quite certain of is that I would remember if I was told, as this account apparently says, that there was about to be an attack in the United States, and the idea that I would somehow have ignored that I find incomprehensible,” Rice said.

Rice was President Bush’s national security adviser in 2001, when Bob Woodward’s book “State of Denial” outlines the July 10 meeting in which Tenet said he warned Rice. Cofer Black, the CIA’s top counterterror officer, was also present.

“I don’t know that this meeting took place, but what I really don’t know, what I’m quite certain of, is that it was not a meeting in which I was told there was an impending attack and I refused to respond,” Rice said, speaking to reporters en route to Saudi Arabia and other stops in the Middle East.

Washington

New park service boss confirmed

Mary A. Bomar, a British native and career Interior Department employee, has been confirmed as director of the National Park Service.

She was one of four Interior Department officials confirmed by the Senate at 2 a.m. Saturday as lawmakers rushed to finish work before leaving for recess. She succeeds Fran Mainella.

Bomar, who became a U.S. citizen in 1977, has worked at the park service for 17 years, including posts as acting superintendent at Rocky Mountain National Park and superintendent at the Oklahoma City National Memorial. She has been the Park Service’s Northeast regional director since 2005.

NEWARK, Ohio

Buses trashed; school canceled

The city’s school district took the unusual step of canceling Monday’s classes for all 6,700 students because vandals trashed the city’s school bus fleet twice during the weekend.

The shutdown was intended to give police time to investigate all 50 buses for damage and evidence that could lead to the perpetrators, district spokeswoman Karen Truett said. She said the vandals had discharged fire extinguishers, dumped trash in the buses and stuffed paper in the gas tanks.

“By not trying to rush getting some of those buses out of there, we’re able to let them get every single little piece of evidence they can get,” Truett said. The bus compound also has surveillance video, she said.

About 20 of the central Ohio district’s buses were hit in two rounds of vandalism.

The bus compound is surrounded by an 8-foot chain link fence topped by barbed wire. District officials believe the vandal or vandals likely squeezed through a gate opening, Truett said.

Columbia, S.C.

Study finds third of youth unfit

A third of U.S. adolescents are unfit, according to a landmark analysis of health data. Russell Pate, professor of exercise science at the University of South Carolina, and colleagues based their conclusion on the number of kids who wear out quickly on a basic treadmill test.

The researchers also found that overweight teens are more likely to fail a cardiovascular fitness test than those at a normal weight, and males are slightly more likely to meet the fitness standard than females.

The team examined data on 3,287 boys and girls, ages 12 to 19, taken from a large government survey.

Compiled from news wires