Former French President Chirac to stand trial

PARIS – After years of claiming presidential immunity to avoid legal proceedings, Jacques Chirac is finally facing a court.

The former president, a bugaboo for George W. Bush during his rush to war in Iraq, on Monday becomes France's first former head of state to go on trial since its Nazi-era leader was exiled

That is, if the whole case isn't derailed by a last-minute protest by another defendant.

If the trial goes ahead as planned, Chirac, 78, faces a month in court on charges that he masterminded a scheme to have Paris City Hall pay for work that benefited his political party when he was mayor — before he became president in 1995.

A prison term is seen as highly unlikely, but in principle if convicted, Chirac could be jailed for up to 10 years and fined euro150,000 ($210,000).

France's restive political circles are gearing up for next year's presidential race, but the fallout from this trial is unlikely to hit anyone other than Chirac and the nine other defendants including a grandson of Gen. Charles de Gaulle and a former left-wing labor union leader.

Still, the trial looms as an embarrassing coda to Chirac's 12-year presidential term, potentially denting his legacy, recent philanthropic work and image as one of France's most popular personalities since he left office.

The trial will also shine a spotlight on the underside of high-level politics that could be uncomfortable background noise for Chirac's successor and one-time protege, President Nicolas Sarkozy, who wants to rebuild his depleted poll numbers before a possible re-election bid.

The trial fuses two separate but similar cases.

One of the other defendants, former Chirac aide Remy Chardon, says the two cases shouldn't be combined. His lawyer told The Associated Press he will ask the judges Monday to decide whether the decision was constitutional, which could throw the whole trial into disarray.

In the first case, investigating magistrate Xaviere Simeoni in Paris has focused on claims that Chirac had City Hall pay for 21 contract hires who never worked for the city but instead worked for his party, then called RPR. He faces charges of embezzlement and breach of trust.

Simeoni, in her order for Chirac to stand trial, wrote that he was the "conceiver, author and beneficiary" of that system.

The other case, led by investigating judge Jacques Gazeaux in the western Paris suburb of Nanterre, centers on seven jobs at Chirac's former party said to be improperly paid for by City Hall. Chirac is accused of illegal conflict of interest in that case.

That case netted a conviction and temporary ban from political office in 2004 for Chirac's longtime political ally Alain Juppe, a former prime minister who recently returned in a big way to political life — and is now foreign minister.

Chirac will answer for only a fraction of the scandals that have hounded him over the years: the others were either thrown out for a lack of evidence or had exceeded the statute of limitations. Even for those going to court, he will answer for just 21 total jobs out of 481 turned up in the investigation by Simeoni's team: Those before 1992 are too old to warrant prosecution.

Plus, under one of the unusual aspects of France's legal system, the Paris prosecutor, Jean-Claude Marin, will actually argue against a conviction. He argues there's not enough evidence. It's up to the judges to determine now whether there is.

Additionally, while not acknowledging wrongdoing, Chirac and his party struck a deal last year with City Hall — now run by the opposition Socialists — to pay back an $2.2 million calculated to be the amount paid in the jobs in question. As a result, the city won't be among Chirac's accusers in court.

For years, investigating magistrates had sought to prosecute Chirac, who hid behind his presidential immunity during his term from 1995 to 2007.

Chirac has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing, insisting that France had no judicial rules laying out a framework for party financing at the time, and that the expenses were approved by the city council.

The behavior smacks of an era when France's economy was fresh off a 30-year post-war boom and political largesse was commonplace, both on left and right. Chirac ran Paris like a fiefdom, and made it his power base.

The trial, while focusing on his pre-presidency years, will inevitably raise the hypothetical question: Would Chirac have become head of state had he not — if as alleged — dabbled in corruption to build his political machine?

He will be the first former French head of state to stand trial since Marshal Philippe Petain, the leader of France's Nazi collaborationist regime, was convicted of treason and shipped into exile after World War II.

The debonair Chirac has been one of France's most towering political figures for at least 35 years: president for 12 years, prime minister twice, four-time presidential candidate, mayor of its biggest city for 18 years, Cabinet minister, National Assembly lawmaker and regional councilor.

Some say the case amounts to a test for the French judicial system as well as muscle-flexing by France's independent-minded investigative judges, who have often run afoul of conservative governments in recent years.

Chirac's five-lawyer legal team has grown increasingly silent about the case as the trial nears, and Chirac wants to keep his comments for the court hearings, scheduled to run through April 8.

His health has been in question. In January, Chirac told a French TV station he was doing "fine" and denied he was too feeble to stand trial, and his wife denied a report saying he might have Alzheimer's disease as "a lie." Chirac was hospitalized for a week in 2005 for a vascular problem that has never been fully explained.

He is also said to not be letting on much about his state of mind ahead of the proceedings. Chirac spokeswoman Benedicte Brissart told The Associated Press only that he views the trial as "an ordeal."

One major question is how much the proceedings — and a possible conviction — could stain his legacy as president.

In his term, Chirac was perhaps best known internationally for vocally opposing Bush's drive to war in Iraq, and earlier, for resuming French nuclear tests in the South Pacific and recognizing the French state's responsibility in the Nazi deportation of Jews during World War II.

Chirac, in recent years, has morphed from his image as a backslapping bon vivant with an uncanny knack for the political game into a more avuncular former president widely appreciated for his service and style.

Jean-Francois Probst, who was a high-ranking Paris City Hall official under Chirac in the 1980s and author of two books on him, said he thought the ex-president was "relatively calm" going into the proceedings.

"He'll explain what he believes in his conscience is the truth," he told the AP. "But it's never fun to go to trial — he's never been there in his life."

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Pierre-Antoine Souchard contributed to this report.

Actor Mickey Rooney tells Congress about abuse

WASHINGTON – Actor Mickey Rooney told Congress on Wednesday that he was left powerless by a family member who took and misused his money.

"I felt trapped, scared, used and frustrated," Rooney told a special Senate committee considering legislation to curb abuses of senior citizens. "But above all, when a man feels helpless, it's terrible."

The 90-year-old film and television star told lawmakers that elder abuse comes in various forms, including physical and emotional. In his case, he described the abuse as financial.

In his testimony, Rooney did not identify the family member he contends abused him. But he has obtained a restraining order from a judge in Los Angeles keeping his stepson, Chris Aber, away from him until an April 5 court hearing.

Rooney has accused Aber in court filings of withholding food and medicine and meddling in his personal finances. Attempts by The Associated Press to find a working phone number for Aber have been unsuccessful.

Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., who chairs the Special Senate Committee on Aging, said the elderly are particularly vulnerable because they are "often fragile" and their abusers usually stand little chance of getting caught.

Rooney began his film career in the 1920s and has appeared in scores of feature films and TV shows, including the musicals "Babes in Arms" (1939) and "Strike Up the Band" (1940) and the Andy Hardy film series. He was nominated for an Academy Award four times, including a supporting actor nomination for his role in "The Black Stallion" (1979). He received an honorary Oscar in 1982.

Committee passes Ohio bill to ban worker strikes

COLUMBUS, Ohio – An Ohio bill that would restrict collective bargaining rights for 350,000 public workers was headed Wednesday to a vote by the GOP-led Senate after leadership ousted from a key committee a fellow-Republican who had expressed his disapproval of the measure.

The chamber was expected to take up the bill Wednesday afternoon after it passed out of the Senate Insurance, Commerce and Labor Committee on a 7-5 vote. All four Democrats and one Republican voted against it.

Lawmakers approved changes to the bill that include banning public workers from striking, and establishing fines and jail time for those who do participate in walkouts. Unionized workers could negotiate wages, hours and safety conditions but not health care, sick time or pension benefits. It would affect teachers, university professors, firefighters, police officers and other public workers.

GOP State Sen. Shannon Jones, who sponsored the bill, had said it "gives power back to the taxpayer and restores flexibility to the management of their hard-earned dollars."

Committee approval came after GOP state Sen. Bill Seitz, a Cincinnati Republican, was replaced on the panel by state Sen. Cliff Hite of Findlay, a move that allowed the party to secure the necessary support to move the bill forward.

In the Cincinnati Enquirer's online edition, Seitz wrote Tuesday that the new version of the Ohio bill was being prepared "in secret."

In an opinion post for the web site, Seitz said he was taking a cue — or as he called it, "tea party lessons" — from the health care debate in Washington, D.C. He wrote that he wouldn't support the bill unless he read it and understood it. "We should expect no less from Republican majorities than we demanded of Democrat ones."

Committee Chairman Kevin Bacon said replacing Seitz on the panel was done "due to vote count" but would not comment further.

Bacon, a Columbus Republican, said the measure has enough support to pass the Senate, where the GOP has a 23-10 advantage. Before becoming law, it would have to go through the Ohio House, where Republicans hold a 59-40 advantage, and be signed by Republican Gov. John Kasich.

Kasich supports the effort and has said restricting collective bargaining also would be part of a package he plans to present March 15 in his budget plan to address the state's $8 billion deficit, joblessness and poverty.

The legislation would set up a new process to settle worker disputes. Either party could request a mediator, but local or state elected officials would have the final say in unresolved contract issues. Binding arbitration, which police officers and firefighters use to resolve contract disputes as an alternative to strikes, would be eliminated.

The lone GOP committee member who voted against the bill, Sen. Jim Hughes, said he was "very concerned" about the new dispute process, and Senate Democratic Leader Capri Cafaro said the bill "turns collective bargaining into a one-sided conversation where management always gets the last word."

Report: Serena Williams has pulmonary embolism

NEW YORK – Tennis star Serena Williams underwent "emergency treatment" Monday, days after doctors discovered a blood clot in her lungs, People magazine reported.

Spokeswoman Nicole Chabot told the magazine that Williams "underwent emergency treatment for a hematoma suffered as a result of treatment for a more critical situation."

Williams suffered from a pulmonary embolism last week, Chabot said. The 29-year-old Williams is being treated at a Los Angeles hospital. "Doctors are continuing to monitor her situation closely to avoid additional complications," Chabot told the magazine.

Williams' mother, Oracene Price, tweeted Wednesday afternoon: "Thank you for your concern. She is fine."

The winner of 13 Grand Slam titles, Williams attended Sunday night's Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Awards Viewing Party.

On Tuesday night, Williams posted on her Twitter account "Tough day." A few minutes later she retweeted Kim Kardashian.

The younger sister of seven-time major champion Venus Williams hasn't played an official match since winning Wimbledon for the fourth time July 3. She cut her right foot on broken glass at a restaurant shortly after the victory, and her comeback has been repeatedly delayed by complications with the injury since.

Williams had surgery after initially hurting her foot and pulled out of the U.S. Open. She resumed practicing in September, but kept pushing back her return and needed an additional operation in October.

Williams missed the Australian Open in January, where she was the two-time defending champion.

Chabot told the magazine the embolism was discovered after Williams returned to Los Angeles from New York "for doctor appointments for the ongoing issues with her foot."

Second-ranked Kim Clijsters tweeted Wednesday: "Just read about Serena!!!! Very scary, hope she is ok!fingers crossed!"

Williams has a wide range of business, fashion and charitable interests that keep her in the public eye even when she's not on the court. Since winning her first Grand Slam title in 1999, she has struggled with injuries on several occasions only to come back to win more championships.

2 US airmen killed in Frankfurt airport shooting

FRANKFURT, Germany – A man armed with a handgun attacked a bus carrying U.S. airmen outside Frankfurt airport Wednesday, killing two Americans and wounding two others before being taken into custody, authorities said.

Boris Rhein, the top security official in the German state of Hesse where the shooting took place, identified the shooter as a 21-year-old from Kosovo.

In Washington, President Barack Obama promised to "spare no effort" in investigating the slayings.

The attack came as the bus sat outside the airport's Terminal 2, according to Frankfurt police spokesman Manfred Fuellhardt. The bus driver and a passenger were killed, one person suffered serious wounds and another light injuries, he said.

The attacker and U.S. military personnel apparently had an altercation in front of the bus just before the man started shooting, Fuellhardt said. The attacker also briefly entered the bus, and was apprehended by police when he tried to escape.

The U.S. has drastically reduced its forces in Germany over the last decade, but still has some 50,000 troops stationed here. It operates several major facilities in the Frankfurt region, including the Ramstein Air Base, which is often used as a logistical hub for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

U.S. Air Force Europe spokeswoman Maj. Beverly Mock said all four victims were airmen. They were based in Britain, a U.S. Air Force spokesman for the Lakenheath airfield in eastern England said.

Lakenheath is home to the 48th Fighter Wing, the only F-15 fighter wing in Europe. It employs some 4,500 active-duty military members, as well as 2,000 British and U.S. civilians.

In Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed sympathy for the victims and their families and pledged that Germany would do everything in its power to investigate the crime.

"It is a terrible event," she said.

The German news agency DAPD quoted Rhein, the security minister who rushed to the scene of the shooting, as saying there were no indications of a terrorist attack.

Still, a member of the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Patrick Meehan, said in Washington that it looked like a terrorist attack. The chairman of the subcommittee that focuses on terrorism and intelligence added he did not have all the facts yet and was still being briefed.

At Frankfurt airport, taxi cab driver Salimi Seraidon was sitting at a stand about 200 yards (meters) away when the attack took place and said it was over quickly as police rushed to the scene.

"We just heard the shots," he said.

Kosovo Interior Minister Bajram Rexhepi identified the suspect as Arif Uka, a Kosovo citizen from the northern town of Mitrovica.

"This is a devastating and a tragic event," Rexhepi said. "We are trying to find out whether this was something that was organized or what was the nature of the attack."

The bus was transporting a Security Forces team assigned to RAF Lakenheath, U.K., from the airport to Ramstein. They were on their way to support overseas military operations.

Kosovo remained part of Serbia amid the collapse of former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, but a struggle for independence by ethnic Albanians there eventually led to the Kosovo war in 1998. The bloodshed was halted only in 1999 when NATO stepped in and bombed Serbia, followed by the deployment of peacekeepers. The NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) still has some 8,700 troops there provided by 32 nations, including the U.S. and Germany.

The northern town of Mitrovca is best known for the ongoing ethnic division between majority ethnic Albanians and minority Serbs. The former mining town, however, has also been the focus of reports that it breeds radical Islamic extremists.

In the past Western intelligence reports have said the region could be an ideal recruitment ground for the so-called "white al-Qaida" — Muslims with Western features who could easily blend into European or U.S. cities and execute terrorist attacks.

The American forces in Germany have been the target of previous terror attacks, including a 1986 bombing at a disco in then-West Berlin that was frequented by U.S. servicemen. Two soldiers and one civilian were killed and 230 others injured in that attack, which a Berlin court in 2001 ruled was organized by the Libyan secret service and aided by the Libyan Embassy in then-communist East Berlin.

A leftist terror group, the Red Army Faction, was also responsible for a string of attacks on Americans in the 1970s and 1980s before the group was disbanded in 1998.

More recently, German police thwarted a plot in 2007 to attack U.S. facilities by members of the extremist Islamic Jihad Union. Four men had planning to attack American soldiers and citizens at facilities including the U.S. Air Force's Ramstein Air Base in Germany but were caught before they could carry out the plot.

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Baetz reported from Berlin. Pauline Jelinek in Washington, Nebi Qena in New Haven, Connecticut, Silvia Hui in London, David Rising, Melissa Eddy and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed to this report.

Senate to send Obama a stopgap GOP spending bill

WASHINGTON – The Democratic Senate is about to send President Barack Obama a Republican measure that cuts $4 billion in spending as the price for keeping the government open for an additional two weeks.

The Senate vote comes a day after the legislation won sweeping bipartisan support in the House.

The bill buys time for difficult negotiations on a follow-up bill to set spending levels through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year.

The $4 billion in savings comes from some of the easiest spending cuts for Congress to make, hitting accounts that Obama already has proposed eliminating and reaping some of the money saved by earlier moves by Republicans to ban lawmakers from "earmarking" pet projects back to their districts and states.

Christina Aguilera arrested for drunkenness

WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. – Fresh from a stumble at the Grammys and muffing the national anthem at the Super Bowl, singer Christina Aguilera was arrested early Tuesday near the Sunset Strip on suspicion of being drunk in public but will not be prosecuted, authorities said.

Aguilera, 30, was "extremely intoxicated" when a car driven by her boyfriend was stopped at about 2:45 a.m. on Clark Street, Los Angeles County sheriff's Deputy Bill McSweeney said.

The car was stopped just off the Sunset Strip, not far from such famous nightspots as Whiskey A Go-Go and the Viper Room.

The driver, Matthew Rutler, 25, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and jailed on $5,000 bail, sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

Aguilera was arrested on suspicion of being drunk in public so that she could be held at the West Hollywood sheriff's station, Whitmore said.

"She was cooperative. She was not belligerent in any way whatsoever," Whitmore said.

He did not know much the 5-foot-2, 100-pound Aguilera may have been drinking.

"She was booked, she was fingerprinted and she was put in a cell," he said. "And then she's monitored, and as she gets better, she begins to fend for herself, her head clears up and when she passes the sobriety test within the jail facility ... that's why we take them into custody, to protect them as well as others."

Whitmore said that as Aguilera got better she stated that she wanted to leave.

"When she was able to navigate and think on her own ... she was released," he said.

Aguilera was released from the back of the station at about 7:30 a.m., avoiding a cluster of paparazzi out front. A friend drove her home, Whitmore said.

Aguilera was arrested because she appeared too drunk to care for herself and had no driver to take her home, McSweeney said.

The law allows deputies to detain intoxicated people for their own welfare until they sober up but there is no intention to prosecute them, he said.

"You're sitting in a car drunk. You have every legal right to be there but when we come across you we say you can't drive and we're not going to put you on the sidewalk," he explained.

Aguilera won't be charged with a crime, although the misdemeanor arrest will remain on her record, Whitmore said. "Technically it's an arrest, but from the very beginning there was never an intention to prosecute," he said.

Calls to Aguilera's agent, Tracy Brennan, and her publicist, Nicole Perez, weren't returned Tuesday.

Aguilera recently split from music executive Jordan Bratman, the father of her 3-year-old son. She filed for divorce in October and their split becomes official April 15.

Aguilera lost her footing at the Feb. 13 Grammy Awards during a tribute medley to singer Aretha Franklin. She also made headlines by botching a line while singing the national anthem at the Feb. 6 Super Bowl.