Washington Dc

About 100,000 antiwar protesters from around the country converged Saturday on the National Mall, galvanized by opposition to President Bush's plan to increase the number of troops in Iraq. Protests attended by several thousand people also were held in Los Angeles, San Francisco and other cities. But the demonstration in the nation's capital was among the biggest since the war began.

Federal aviation officials expect on Monday to begin introducing a proposal to finance a new air-traffic control system that they say will be needed to keep pace with increasing air travel over the next two decades. The next-generation network could cost $69 billion to $76 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service. The Federal Aviation Administration and other government agencies want the system completed by 2025. They have not said how much it would cost.

Hollywood plans to show the nation's capital today that it's more than just a pretty face, with the help of some of its most recognizable ones. In what amounts to a Hollywood 101 course, the Motion Picture Assn. of America trade group is holding a daylong primer on movie industry economics that will include cameos by two household names and current Oscar nominees: actor Will Smith and director Clint Eastwood.

A master sculptor from China was chosen Thursday to carve the image of Martin Luther King Jr. for a memorial to the slain civil rights leader to be built on the National Mall. Lei Yixin, one of nine sculptors considered national treasures in China, will carve King's likeness in the memorial's 28-foot granite "Stone of Hope," officials said. The figure will be sculpted from a light beige variety of granite stone found in China's Fujian province. Earlier Thursday, the U.S.

Automated speed and red-light cameras might be catching traffic scofflaws, but they're also busting police rushing to respond to emergencies, a union representing District of Columbia officers says. The officers are spending months writing letters in an attempt to get out of the tickets from the cameras, which snap pictures of speeders and those running red lights, said Kristopher Baumann, chairman of the D.C. chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police.

An expert on Russian intelligence was critically injured in a shooting in the driveway of his suburban Washington home. The shooting of Paul Joyal, 53, came days after he accused the Russian government of involvement in the poisoning of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. The FBI was assisting in the investigation. The motive for Thursday's attack is unknown.

A U.S. appeals court on Friday struck down a strict ban on owning firearms in the nation's capital, setting the stage for the Supreme Court to rule on the scope of the 2nd Amendment and whether it expressly protects a person's right to own a gun. Lawyers on both sides of the gun-control debate called the decision significant: It was the first time a federal appeals court has voided a gun law on the basis of the 2nd Amendment, they said.

In Hollywood, the website TMZ.com has already transformed celebrity culture, putting stars on notice that cellphone-toting tattlers and aggressive paparazzi are ready to splash their indiscretions all over cyberspace. Now, the site that first disclosed Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic rant and the medications stored in Anna Nicole Smith's refrigerator is coming to the nation's capital. And local denizens are wondering why.

They started turning out before daybreak in the bitter cold. The antiwar demonstrators amassed on the north side of the Lincoln Memorial chanting demands for peace now. The counterprotesters, fewer in number but no less vocal, gathered on the east side of the Vietnam Wall and shouted political taunts -- many laced with obscenities. "I got called a commie. A lot of middle fingers are going up.

When Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa travels to Washington on Monday to lobby for federal money, he won't be in any danger of feeling lonely: He's packing a gaggle of aides. Santa Monica Mayor Richard Bloom and Councilwoman Pam O'Connor will make the trip, too -- but with just one city staff member between them. Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle is traveling solo.