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SAN DIEGO - Mike Cameron, the Padres’ Gold Glove center fielder, was suspended for the first 25 games of next season on Wednesday after testing positive a second time for a banned stimulant.
Cameron, who plans to file for free agency, said he believes he took a tainted supplement.
“The one thing I wanted to make sure was explained is, no steroids,” Cameron told AM 1090, the Padres’ flagship radio station. “I never took nothing like that before in my life. That would be 50 games, and that would affect me a whole lot more.”
Cameron issued a statement through his agent, saying doctors for the players’ association helped him narrow down what triggered the positive test.
“After all of the analysis and testing, I can only conclude that a nutritional supplement I was taking was tainted,” he said. “Unfortunately, the actual supplement is gone, and therefore cannot be tested. Without the actual supplement in hand, the rules are clear, and I must accept the suspension.”
Players who initially test positive for a stimulant receive counseling. Suspensions begin only with a second positive test.
“Mike has been a valuable member of the Padres over the last two seasons who has been respected for his contributions on the field, his stature in the clubhouse and his involvement in the San Diego community,” Padres CEO Sandy Alderson said in a statement. “Accordingly, the Padres are extremely disappointed that Mike has tested positive for a stimulant banned by MLB’s drug policy. Nonetheless, the Padres staunchly support that policy and hope that Mike’s suspension serves as a reminder that performance-enhancing drugs have no place in professional sports.”
Cameron missed almost the entire final week of the season after fellow outfielder Milton Bradley inadvertently stepped on his right hand while the two pursued an inside-the-park home run by Colorado’s Garrett Atkins on Sept. 23. Cameron made a pinch-running appearance in San Diego’s 13-inning loss at Colorado on Oct. 1 in the wild-card tiebreaker game.
In his second season with the Padres, Cameron’s offensive numbers fell off this season, as he hit just .242 and struck out 160 times. He hit 21 homers.
Cameron is best-known for hitting four home runs in a game in 2002 and for a frightening collision in Petco Park’s outfield three seasons later.
On May 2, 2002, while with Seattle, Cameron became the 13th player in big league history to hit four home runs in a game. On Aug. 11, 2005, he was seriously injured when he collided face-to-face with Mets teammate Carlos Beltran in a game against the Padres. The Padres obtained Cameron in a trade with the Mets that offseason.
The only other player suspended for testing positive for stimulants under Major League Baseball’s drug plan was Detroit infielder Neifi Perez, who received a 25-game suspension on July 6 following his second positive test, and an 80-game suspension on Aug. 3 following his third positive test.

Seattle’s year-old “2200″ Westlake Avenue development, one of the first finished pieces in Paul Allen’s vision for South Lake Union, sustains its first retail casualty today with the closing of Koots Green Tea.

The store didn’t get enough foot traffic for such a new concept, said R.J. Selfridge, who headed Koots USA until May and is helping to close the store.

Koots’ only other U.S. store, at Lincoln Square in Bellevue, will stay open. The company operates about 10 tea stores in Japan and is sending a new executive from Japan to work on the concept in Bellevue before the chain tries to expand again, Selfridge said.

Koots is a green-tea version of Starbucks, with made-to-order drinks and a pastry case with sweets to match.

It is owned by Kouta Matsuda, who made a success of Tully’s 300-some stores in Japan and in 2005 paid $17.5 million for the trademarks and intellectual-property rights of Tully’s Japan.

“It’s a shame Koots couldn’t hold on a bit longer,” said Lori Mason Curran, a spokeswoman for Allen’s Vulcan Real Estate, which developed 2200.

“They were in 2200 on the early end and were a little pioneering.”

Koots opened in February, a few months after Whole Foods made its downtown Seattle debut in the same development. Since then, more retailers have arrived, including Starbucks, the gift boutique Clover House, and - with a soft opening this week - Tutta Bella Neapolitan Pizzeria.

The South Lake Union streetcar, which begins service in mid-December, is expected to bring more shoppers with a stop at 2200.

“This place is going to be like the epicenter of Seattle,” said Dave Figueroa, co-owner of Scraps Dog Bakery, which is next door to Koots.

He said the store has done well selling natural dog food and canine accessories to locals and to guests of the Pan Pacific hotel across a small parking lot.

Curran confirms the hotel has done well, with more than 70 percent occupancy over the summer and in October.

Only four owners backed out of agreements to buy all 261 condominiums at 2200, she said; those condos are on the market.

The development’s retail space is 90 percent leased, she said, although not every store has opened.

Vulcan is working to find a retailer to fill the 1,364 square feet Koots is vacating.

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312

MOSCOW - A powerful bomb ripped through a bus in central Russia Wednesday morning, killing eight people and wounding at least 53 in what one official called a terror attack.

Investigators were trying to determine whether the explosive device was carried by a passenger or had been planted somewhere on the bus in the city of Togliatti, according to Russian news agencies.

The explosion occurred near a bus stop in the city center as people were going to work. A group of college students had gotten off at the stop just seconds before the blast, and about 20 students were among the wounded, NTV reported.

Windows were blown out of the long green bus, and its roof partially detached from the force of the explosion, which shattered windows of nearby buildings.

Valery Matkovsky, a local emergency official, said that eight people died and at least 53 were injured, mainly from burns and shrapnel wounds. Russian media said that one child was among the dead.

There is a month before crucial parliamentary elections and similar violence has occurred before other votes.

“Due to (the blast’s) character, its consequences, the main version being considered is a terrorist attack,” Yuri Rozhin, director of the regional division of the Federal Security Service, said in televised comments.

In 1999, just three months before national elections, several residential buildings in Moscow and other Russian towns exploded, killing hundreds. The government blamed militants from Chechnya, where two wars have been fought against separatist rebels.

Opposition activists and Kremlin critics said the government used the blasts to justify sending federal troops back into Chechnya, launching the second war in a decade in the region.

The Volga River city of Togliatti is home to Russia’s largest carmaker, AvtoVAZ and has long had a reputation for gang violence as various groups competed for control over the lucrative factory, now state-owned. A factory spokesman could not say whether there were factory workers among the victims.

Vadim Blagodarny, a local 20-year-old photographer, said people walked around in shock in the minutes after the blast, as investigators picked through the carnage.

“If it had gone off just a minute earlier, it would have been much, much worse,” he said.

Security at the scene was tight, and some local photographers were either detained or had their equipment confiscated.

The head of the country’s main security agency recently warned of the potential for pre-election violence and said police would bolster security and surveillance nationwide before the Dec. 2 vote.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Khun Sa, a drug lord once described by the U.S. government as the world’s largest producer of heroin, has died, an associate and a Myanmar official said Tuesday. He was 74.

The cause of his death on Friday was not immediately known, but Khun Sa had long suffered from diabetes, partial paralysis and high blood pressure.

Khun Sa once headed a guerrilla army and called himself a freedom fighter. For nearly four decades, the charismatic warlord claimed to be fighting for autonomy for the Shan, one of many ethnic minorities who have long battled the central government of Myanmar, also known as Burma.

But narcotics agents around the world used terms like the “Prince of Death” to describe him, saying his organization relied on violence, murder, assassinations and bribery. At one point, the U.S. estimated that up to 60 percent of the heroin in the United States was refined from opium in his area and the U.S. once offered a $2 million reward for his arrest.

“They say I have horns and fangs. Actually, I am a king without a crown,” he once told an Associated Press reporter, who visited his remote headquarters of Ho Mong - an idyllic valley near the Thai frontier inside Myanmar - after an 11-hour mule ride.

At the height of his notoriety, Khun Sa presided over a veritable narcotics kingdom complete with satellite television, schools and surface-to-air missiles in the drug-producing Golden Triangle region where Myanmar, Thailand and Laos meet.

He preferred to paint himself as a liberation fighter for the Shan, heading up the Shan United Army - later the Mong Tai Army - in Myanmar’s northeastern Shan State.

He had lived in seclusion in Yangon since 1996, when he surrendered to the country’s ruling military junta who allowed him to run a string of businesses behind a veil of secrecy.

Born of a Chinese father and Shan mother on Feb. 17, 1933, Khun Sa received little education but learned the ways of battle and opium from the Kuomintang, remnants of forces defeated by China’s communists and forced to flee into Myanmar.

By the early 1960s Khun Sa, also known as Chang Chi-fu, had become a major player in the Golden Triangle, then the world’s major source for opium and its derivative, heroin.

He suffered a near knockout blow in the so-called 1967 Opium War, fighting a pitched battle with the Kuomintang in Laos. Laotian troops intervened by bombing both sides and making off with the opium.

For a time he served in the Myanmar government militia, but was jailed in 1969 after allying himself with the Shan cause. He was freed five years later in exchange for two Russian doctors kidnapped by his followers.

The wily operator sought a less hostile environment in Thailand, setting up a hilltop base protected by his sizable Shan United Army. But the Thais were embarrassed by having a drug kingpin on their soil and he was driven out in 1982 and lodged himself in Ho Mong.

There, the chain-smoking warlord entertained visitors with Taiwanese pop songs, grew orchids and strawberries, and directed a flow of heroin to addicts around the world.

Khun Sa claimed he only used the drug trade to finance his Shan struggle. He argued that only economic development in the impoverished Shan State, still one of the major sources of the world’s heroin, could stop opium growing and its smuggling to the “drug-crazed West.”

“My people grow opium. And they are not doing it for fun. They do it because they need to buy rice to eat and clothes to wear,” he once said.

If the proverb “like mother, like daughter” holds true, Woodinville is a vivacious, compassionate and humble community.

Carol Edwards, known to many as the “Mother of Woodinville,” took a small town under her wing when she moved there in 1976. By creating The Woodinville Weekly, organizing the first All Fool’s Day Parade and founding the Woodinville Community Band, she helped rear what is now a full-grown city.

Ms. Edwards also co-founded the city’s chamber of commerce, farmers market and wine festival as well as Teen Northshore, a nonprofit organization supporting youth activities.

“She was the community; and I don’t just say that out of love, I say that out of absolute historic practicality,” said Barbara Grube, advertising director for The Woodinville Weekly. “Carol started, encouraged and empowered this community.”

Ms. Edwards died Saturday (Oct. 27) of complications related to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease. She was 65.

Her death came just hours after a dedication ceremony to open the new Carol Edwards Center, named in her honor.

“It seems kind of appropriate that she was going out while this center that’s going to serve the community is coming on,” said Lane Youngblood, director of Woodinville Parks and Recreation. “She was such a force in this community. … She was everywhere - the ubiquitous Carol Edwards.”

She was born Sept. 18, 1942, in Pasco to Dorothy and Earl Dahlin. When she was in second grade, the family moved to Seattle, where she attended Hawthorne Elementary School and, later, Sharples Junior High, Franklin High School and the University of Washington.

In June 1963 she married Ed Boselly. Two months later she graduated from the UW with a degree in political science with an emphasis in international relations and a minor in secondary education.

Ms. Edwards taught social studies at Rainier Beach Junior-Senior High School in South Seattle for four years until she and her husband moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, and, later, to Biloxi, Miss. They had three children before they divorced.

In 1975 she married Bill Edwards, with whom she had her fourth child. The family moved from Riverside, Calif., to Woodinville in June 1976. After having trouble finding information on local activities and events in the small town, the community activist began The Woodinville Weekly in November of the same year with a press she bought at a garage sale.

“We grew up partially at The Woodinville Weekly,” said Wendy Usher, her youngest daughter. “I think she just wanted everybody to be involved [in the community], so she made sure her kids were an example.”

In 1978, Ms. Edwards began Woodinville’s All Fool’s Day Parade, a yearly event that celebrates the community. She divorced in 1980 and continued organizing area activities as a single mother.

She formed the Woodinville Community Band in 1993 after placing a call to musicians in her newspaper. Although she enjoyed all instruments, “she wasn’t musical,” Usher said.

For Ms. Edwards, community activities were a way for residents to have fun together. “She didn’t set out to change anything; that was never her goal,” Grube said. “It was to make them more fun for all different kinds of people.”

Shortly after her ALS diagnosis in 2004, Ms. Edwards handed off The Woodinville Weekly’s day-to-day operations to her daughter Julie Boselly, who now has the title of associate publisher.

Despite her various accomplishments, Ms. Edwards preferred to stay behind the scenes.

“Underneath her gregariousness, she was shy,” Grube said. “She didn’t want you to tell her how great she was because she didn’t do it for her, she did it for you.”

The community saw a way to honor Ms. Edwards when the new community center was named after her.

She is survived by her partner Rex Knight; daughter Jennifer Noyd, son-in-law Michael Noyd and grandchildren Vivian, Cassandra, Olivia and Zachary Noyd, all of Wenatchee; son Jeffrey Boselly, daughter-in-law Angela Berg and grandson Benjamin Boselly, all of Woodinville; daughter Julie Boselly and grandchildren Jackson and Katherine Unruh, all of Woodinville; daughter Wendy Usher, son-in-law Brent Usher and granddaughter Ellie Usher, all of Portland.

A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Hollywood Schoolhouse, 14810 N.E. 145th St., Woodinville. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the ALS Association Evergreen Chapter or another charity.

Meghan Peters: 206-464-8305 or mpeters@seattletimes.com

NEW YORK - Wall Street pulled back today as investors, uneasy after a drop in consumer confidence numbers, traded cautiously ahead of the Federal Reserve’s rate decision.

The Dow Jones industrial average fell 77.79 to 13,792.47.

Microsoft, one of the 30 Dow stocks, gained $1 to close at $35.57 a share. Boeing, also a Dow stock, added 34 cents to $97.33.

Broader stock indicators slipped. The S&P 500 index fell 9.96 to 1,531.02, while the Nasdaq composite index fell 0.73 to 2,816.71.

After the Fed’s half-point rate reduction in September, most investors expect the central bank to deliver a quarter-point cut at the conclusion of its two-day meeting Wednesday.

But inflation remains a threat. Crude oil prices fell today, but only after hitting a record a day earlier, and meanwhile, the dollar has been tumbling. So a rate cut - much less additional decreases in the coming months - is not a given.

Some on Wall Street fear economic growth could be halted if rates aren’t lowered, given the troubles in housing and credit. The statement the Fed issues alongside its rate decision will be closely read for clues about future moves.

“We don’t think the economy’s about to slip into recession. The corporate portion of the economy is still in pretty good shape,” said Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors. “However, should the Fed choose not to cut anymore, and the economy continue to slip, that potentially could raise some concerns for us.”

Most earnings have been coming in better than expected over the past few weeks, particularly in the technology sector. But consumers, the key drivers of the economy, appear to be flagging.

After last week’s news of a significant decline in existing-home sales and Standard & Poor’s report today of home prices sinking further, the Conference Board said its index of consumer confidence fell to its lowest level in two years in October. The index came in at 95.6, below the consensus estimate of 99.5 and down from a revised reading of 99.5 in September.

Treasury bond prices were little changed ahead of the Fed decision. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to its price, was at 4.38 percent, flat with late Monday.

The market remains nervous that even if the Fed decreases the target fed funds rate by a quarter-point or half-point, the move may not end up helping the credit and housing markets. It’s not the price of borrowing that’s deterring investors, many say; demand has waned because of worries about the quality of the underlying assets.

Furthermore, the central bank must walk a narrow line between keeping investors calm and acknowledging the problems out there - particularly for the banks and brokerages that could see more big losses if portions of the credit market, like asset-backed commercial paper, don’t improve.

“Providing the superficial image of stability when everybody realizes things aren’t normal just doesn’t work,” said Axel Merk, manager of the Merk Hard Currency Fund.

Some disappointing financial reports from Procter & Gamble and Qwest, as well as a management shake-up at Merrill Lynch, gave the market little reason to buy ahead of the Fed meeting. Merrill Lynch fell $1.86, or 2.8 percent, to $65.56.

Procter & Gamble was the biggest loser among the 30 Dow components after cautioning that higher commodity costs will squeeze second-quarter margins. P&G fell $2.88, or 4 percent, to $68.95.

Although Qwest reported a third-quarter profit jump, its shares tumbled $1.12, or 13.7 percent, to $7.06. Overall revenue dipped, and the telecommunications company provided few details about its outlook.

The technology-dominated Nasdaq performed better than the other indexes, helped by ongoing strength in such bellwethers as Microsoft, Apple and Google. Apple rose $1.91 to $187; and Google rose $15.54, or 2.3 percent, to $694.77.

Crude oil prices retreated $3.15 to settle at $90.13 a barrel, after hitting a record on Monday above $93 a barrel. Gold also fell.

NEW YORK - The FBI used mob muscle to solve the 1964 disappearance of three civil-rights volunteers in Mississippi, a gangster’s ex-girlfriend testified Monday, becoming the first witness to repeat in open court a story that has been underworld lore for years.

Linda Schiro said that her boyfriend, Mafia tough guy Gregory Scarpa Sr., was recruited by the FBI to help find the volunteers’ bodies. She said Scarpa later told her he put a gun in a Ku Klux Klansman’s mouth and forced him to reveal the whereabouts of the victims.

The FBI has never acknowledged that Scarpa, nicknamed “The Grim Reaper,” was involved in the case.

Schiro took the stand as a witness for the prosecution at the trial of former FBI agent R. Lindley DeVecchio, who is charged in state court with four counts of murder in what authorities have called one of the worst law-enforcement corruption cases in U.S. history.

Prosecutors say Scarpa plied DeVecchio with cash, jewelry, liquor and prostitutes in exchange for confidential information on suspected rats and rivals in the late 1980s and early ’90s. Scarpa died behind bars in 1994.

The notion that Scarpa strong-armed a Klan member into giving up information about one of the most notorious crimes of the civil-rights era has been talked about in mob circles for years.

It supposedly happened during the search for civil-rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman, who were beaten and shot by a gang of Klansmen and buried in an earthen dam near Philadelphia, Miss. The case was famously dramatized in the movie “Mississippi Burning.”

Investigators struggled for answers in the early days of the case, stymied by stonewalling Klan members.

Schiro testified Monday that she and Scarpa traveled to Mississippi in 1964 after he was recruited by the FBI. She said Scarpa helped find the volunteers’ bodies by “putting a gun in the guy’s mouth and threatening him.”

The killings galvanized the struggle for equality in the South and helped bring about passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Seven people were convicted at the time, but none served more than six years.

Mississippi later reopened the case, winning a manslaughter conviction against former Klansmen and part-time preacher Edgar Ray Killen two years ago. He is serving a 60-year prison sentence.

Seattle is one of the first major U.S. cities to claim it has cut greenhouse-gas emissions enough to meet the targets of the international Kyoto treaty aimed at combating global warming.

The achievement, at a time when the city has enjoyed a boom in population and jobs, sets Seattle apart both from the nation as a whole and other cities that have seen greenhouse gases soar in recent years.

But keeping a lid on such emissions in the future means confronting one of the city’s most intractable problems: how to get people out of their cars and driving less.

While overall greenhouse-gas emissions fell by 8 percent between 1990 and 2005 - the most recent data available - the amount attributed to transportation rose 3 percent, due largely to more gas slurped up by cars, according to a draft report issued by the city on Monday.

“This is a remarkable milestone that shows how cities can lead the way in the fight against global warming,” Mayor Greg Nickels said. “But it is just the start of our work.”

Although critics say trying to meet the Kyoto targets nationwide would hurt the economy without solving global warming, supporters call it a critical first step toward much deeper reductions needed to slow or even reverse the warming.

Seattle’s reductions were largely the result of energy conservation by households and businesses, and changes in power production at Seattle City Light, the report said.

The announcement was a triumph for Nickels, who has made climate change a cornerstone of his administration and hosts a global-warming conference of U.S. mayors this week.

Nickels has lobbied the nation’s mayors to sign a pledge promising to meet the Kyoto Protocol’s target of cutting greenhouse gases to 7 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. More than 650 mayors have joined the movement, which is aimed partly at pressuring the federal government to join the international treaty.

The Bush administration has opposed the treaty, which doesn’t restrict emissions from developing countries such as China and India that are among major sources of greenhouse gases. In 1999, the U.S. Senate voted 95-0 against the treaty.

The reductions in emissions from homes, cars and factories in Seattle can’t be credited to the citywide climate-change plan, which Nickels unveiled in 2006.

The City Council first passed a resolution adopting the Kyoto goals in 2001, before Nickels took office.

Part of the cuts are due to changes in power production at Seattle City Light, which provides clean-running hydropower to homes and businesses.

“We have the good fortune of owning our own utility,” said Steve Nicholas, head of the city’s Office of Sustainability and Environment.

City Light says its operations now produce no net greenhouse gases. Since 1990, the utility sold its part-ownership in a coal-fired power plant in Centralia and stopped buying power from a natural-gas plant in Klamath Falls, Ore. Both plants produce greenhouse gases.

City Light also has embarked on more aggressive conservation measures and bought greenhouse-gas offsets - essentially paying someone else to stop polluting as much - to make up for emissions from sources such as its utility trucks.

Another share of the drop came from homeowners and businesses switching from fuel oil to cleaner-burning natural gas to heat buildings, something city officials attributed largely to market forces rather than city policies.

The city was helped temporarily by a drop in 2005 emissions from the two cement plants along the Duwamish River. Those plants account for almost a seventh of the city’s greenhouse gases, and their emissions fell by more than 160,000 metric tons.

But that reduction could evaporate, since those plants were expected to boost production after 2005, Nicholas said.

For now, Monday’s report puts Seattle ahead of other U.S. cities leading the push to curb greenhouse gases - notably Portland, which has been working on the issue since 1993.

Portland and Multnomah County have seen a gradual drop in greenhouse-gas emissions since 2000, and levels are hovering near 1990 levels.

Unlike Seattle, Portland gets power from two investor-owned utilities that generate greenhouse gases. The city also doesn’t count offsets, which are controversial because some people question whether the claimed pollution reductions are real.

But Portland has shown more progress on the transportation front, where emissions are at almost the same level as 1990, and have been dropping in recent years.

Seattle has started trying to lure people from their cars. Two tax measures approved by voters in 2006 are aimed at improving bus service, bike lanes and sidewalks.

The city also has passed development rules to encourage people to move downtown, where they will drive less, said Nicholas, with the Office of Sustainability and Environment.

But Nicholas said the city will need to do more if it wants to keep greenhouse gases from creeping up, particularly as Seattle’s population grows.

Outgoing City Councilman Peter Steinbrueck said Monday’s report is welcome news.

But he said the city also needs to take more aggressive steps to stem the growth of car traffic.

He mentioned the proposed replacement of the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a similar structure, or an underground roadway, as an example of continued emphasis on cars.

“My concern here is that while the news is good, it shouldn’t put us at ease in any way. We are working against time,” he said.

Warren Cornwall: 206-464-2311 or wcornwall@seattletimes.com

CAIRO, Egypt - Egypt’s president announced plans Monday to build several nuclear-power plants - the latest in a string of ambitious such proposals from moderate Arab countries. The United States immediately welcomed the plan, in a sharp contrast to what it called nuclear “cheating” by Iran.

President Hosni Mubarak said the aim was to diversify Egypt’s energy resources and preserve its oil and gas reserves for future generations. In a televised speech, he pledged Egypt would work with the U.N. nuclear-watchdog agency at all times and would not seek a nuclear bomb.

But Mubarak also made clear there were strategic reasons for the program, calling secure sources of energy “an integral part of Egypt’s national-security system.”

In Washington, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the United States would not object to the program as long as Egypt adhered to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines.

“The problem has arisen, specifically in the case of Iran, where you have a country that has made certain commitments, and in our view and the shared view of many … [is] cheating on those obligations,” he said.

The United States accuses Iran of using the cover of a peaceful nuclear program to secretly work toward building a bomb, an allegation Iran denies. Iran asserts it has a right to peaceful nuclear power and needs it to meet its economy’s voracious energy needs.

Iran’s program has prompted a slew of Mideast countries to announce plans of their own - in part simply to blunt Tehran’s rising regional influence.

Jordan, Turkey and several Gulf Arab countries have announced in recent months that they are interested in developing nuclear-power programs, and Yemen’s government signed a deal with a U.S. company in September to build civilian nuclear plants over the next 10 years.

Algeria also signed a cooperation accord with the United States on civil nuclear energy in June, and Morocco announced a deal last week under which France will help develop nuclear reactors there.

Despite the declarations of peaceful intentions, there are worries the countries could be taking the first steps toward a dangerous proliferation in the volatile Mideast.

Such fears intensified when Israel launched a Sept. 6 airstrike against Syria, a country allied with Iran that the United States accuses of supporting terrorism.

U.S. officials have been quoted in news reports as saying the strike targeted a North Korean-style structure that could have been used for the start of a nuclear reactor.

Syria denies that it has a secret nuclear program and says the building was an unused military facility.

Israel has not officially commented on the raid or acknowledged carrying it out.

Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at an Israeli nuclear plant, spent 18 years in prison after giving details of the country’s atomic program to a British newspaper in 1986. His information led many outside experts to conclude that Israel has the world’s sixth-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Egypt first announced a year ago that it was seeking to restart a nuclear program that was publicly shelved in the aftermath of the 1986 accident at the Soviet nuclear plant in Chernobyl.

Mubarak offered no timetable Monday, but a year ago, Hassan Yunis, the minister of electricity and energy, said Egypt could have an operational nuclear-power plant within 10 years.

LAS VEGAS - A man whose lawyer says he can testify that O.J. Simpson asked him to bring guns to a confrontation with two sports-memorabilia dealers told a judge Monday that he’ll accept a plea deal and testify against Simpson and two other men.

Michael McClinton, 49, of Las Vegas, became the third man to agree to plead guilty to reduced charges in return for his testimony. He could end up being the star witness.

McClinton’s lawyer said he can testify that Simpson asked him to bring guns to a room at a Las Vegas casino hotel to get items Simpson said were his. That would contradict Simpson’s claim that no guns were involved.

McClinton wielded a gun and acted like a police officer Sept. 13 when Simpson and the others allegedly robbed two collectibles dealers, according to police reports. McClinton’s lawyer said his client worked as a security guard and had a concealed-weapons permit.

Authorities say memorabilia taken included football game balls signed by Simpson, Joe Montana lithographs, baseballs autographed by Pete Rose and Duke Snider, photos of Simpson with the Heisman Trophy, and framed awards and plaques, together valued at as much as $100,000, according to police reports.

Cutting deals with co-defendants to testify against Simpson could undercut prosecutors if they ever need to convince a jury that the former football star is guilty of serious crimes, legal experts said Monday.

But that could happen only if the case makes it past a preliminary hearing next week before a judge whose main concern will be what the evidence is rather than where it came from.

“This is a basic prosecution tactic that is very effective,” said Jody Armour, a law professor at the University of Southern California. “Its greatest weakness is that the jury is going to hear from the defense that the only reason they’re testifying is because they cut a deal that can benefit them.”

McClinton’s agreement to enter a plea was not a surprise, said Simpson lawyer Yale Galanter, who said he believed McClinton will be the final cooperating witness.

Walter Alexander, 46, a Simpson golfing buddy from Mesa, Ariz., has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit robbery, and Charles Cashmore, 40, a union laborer from Las Vegas, has pleaded guilty to felony accessory to robbery.

“What this comes down to is the real bad guys are pointing a finger at O.J., and the prosecution is giving away the courthouse to try to shore up their case,” Galanter said. “We look forward to cross-examining these witnesses.”

Simpson and co-defendants Clarence Stewart and Charles Ehrlich each face 12 criminal charges in the preliminary hearing beginning Nov. 8, including kidnapping, armed robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy and coercion.