WASHINGTON — President Bush is warning Democratic leaders that any attempt to weaken federal policies that restrict abortion will be met with a veto.

White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto said Friday that the warning, issued in letters to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, was intended to stop abortion amendments from being added to spending bills and other legislation that Congress will be considering in the coming weeks.

"There's nothing specific pending right now," Fratto said.

The Republicans who held power in past sessions of Congress ensured that spending bills included language prohibiting federal funding for abortion except to save the life of the mother or in cases of rape or incest, and restricting funding for international family planning groups that might give advice on or provide abortions.

Now in the minority, House and Senate Republicans recently wrote the president urging him to make clear that any weakening of those restrictions would be unacceptable.

Mental health study surveys battlefield ethics in Iraq

WASHINGTON — A new Pentagon survey of troops in Iraq found that only 40 percent of Marines and 55 percent of Army soldiers would report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian.

In the first internal military study of battlefield ethics in Iraq, officials said Friday they also found that only a third of Marines and roughly half of soldiers said they believed that noncombatants should be treated with dignity.

The study also found that long and repeated deployments were increasing troop mental health problems. And it showed that more than 40 percent of Marines and soldiers said torture should be allowed to save the lives of troops.

The study was the fourth since 2003. Previous studies were more generally aimed at assessing the mental health and well-being of forces deployed in the war.

In the latest study, a mental health team visited Iraq last fall and surveyed troops, health care providers and chaplains.

Giuliani says Saddam paid the price for his offenses

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani said Friday that former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is paying an eternal and deserved punishment for his brutal life's work.

"You sure wouldn't want to be where Saddam Hussein is, where we helped put him," Giuliani said during a campaign stop in eastern Iowa in which he praised President Bush's war on terrorism but acknowledged that mistakes have been made in Iraq.

During a town-hall meeting with some 100 people, the former New York city mayor was asked to compare what Saddam and former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld did in the war. Giuliani paused before answering.

"Where is Donald Rumsfeld?" Giuliani said. "He's alive, writing a book and living the good life with his family."

He compared that to Saddam, who was hanged.

Iraq wins promise from Arab nations to stop militants

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt — Iraq emerged from a vital conference Friday with a promise from Arab countries to stop foreign militants from joining Iraq's insurgency. But Baghdad didn't get the debt relief it wanted, and its Sunni Arab neighbors demand Iraq's Shiite-led government enact tough political reforms.

The two-day gathering of top diplomats from the region, the United States and around the world was the warmest yet between Iraq and Arab countries, but suspicions remained between the two sides.

"We will see the extent of the seriousness and commitment among these nations to what they signed today," Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told reporters. "If these promises are not kept, we will watch it, and there will be no reason to hold any further conferences."

Baghdad also did not achieve another goal — progress in easing tensions between the United States and Iran, whose disputes Iraqis say are fueling the chaos in their country. Despite urging from the Iraqis, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki did not hold talks — only exchanged wary pleasantries over lunch.

But Rice met with another regional rival of the U.S., Syria. She held a half hour of talks Thursday with its foreign minister, urging Damascus to do more to control its notoriously porous border with Iraq.

NRA says banning gun sales to terror suspects infringes on civil liberties

WASHINGTON — The National Rifle Association is urging the Bush administration to withdraw its support of a bill that would prohibit suspected terrorists from buying firearms. Backed by the Justice Department, the measure would give the attorney general the discretion to block gun sales, licenses or permits to terror suspects.

In a letter this week to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, NRA executive director Chris Cox said the bill, offered last week by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., "would allow arbitrary denial of Second Amendment rights based on mere 'suspicions' of a terrorist threat."

"As many of our friends in law enforcement have rightly pointed out, the word 'suspect' has no legal meaning, particularly when it comes to denying constitutional liberties," Cox wrote.

In a letter supporting the measure, Acting Assistant Attorney General Richard Hertling said the bill would not automatically prevent a gun sale to a suspected terrorist. In some cases, federal agents may want to let a sale go forward to avoid compromising an ongoing investigation.

Hertling also notes there is a process to challenge denial of a sale.

Children riding to school on aging buses with brew of pollutants

Day in and day out, children across the U.S. are riding to school on aging buses, breathing what some activists say is a dangerous brew of pollutants up to five times dirtier than the air outside. It is a situation that Congress and many states have sought to fix in recent years. In fact, in 2005 federal lawmakers passed a measure to replace or retrofit the dirtiest diesel engines across the nation.

But little has been done.

Around the country, state officials are struggling to find the money to carry out clean school bus initiatives. And Congress has yet to deliver on the $1 billion it promised over five years to help states clean up diesel fleets, including school buses.

"I think at one time or another all our kids are going to be on a bus breathing that harmful air, and that should bother everybody," said Karen Slay, a Lubbock, Texas, mother of four boys who have ridden buses. "In the big scheme of things, it doesn't seem to be that expensive, to me, to retrofit these."

Breathing high concentrations of diesel emissions — known as particulates — can cause minor ailments such as headaches, wheezing and dizziness. But studies have also found the contaminants can do more serious damage. Recent studies by the Environmental Protection Agency and other groups link the emissions to asthma and lung cancer.

Activists want chimpanzee to be declared a 'person'

VIENNA, Austria — In some ways, Hiasl is like any other Viennese: He indulges a weakness for pastry, likes to paint and enjoys chilling out watching TV. But he doesn't care for coffee, and he isn't actually a person — at least not yet.

In a case that could set a global legal precedent for granting basic rights to apes, animal rights advocates are seeking to get the 26-year-old male chimpanzee legally declared a "person."

Hiasl's supporters argue he needs that status to become a legal entity that can receive donations and get a guardian to look out for his interests.

"Our main argument is that Hiasl is a person and has basic legal rights," said Eberhart Theuer, a lawyer leading the challenge on behalf of the Association Against Animal Factories, a Vienna animal rights group.

"We mean the right to life, the right to not be tortured, the right to freedom under certain conditions," Theuer said.

Paris Hilton arrives late for probation violation hearing

LOS ANGELES — Paris Hilton arrived at court 10 minutes late Friday for a probation violation hearing at which a jail sentence was a possibility.

The heiress arrived in the back of a black Cadillac Escalade and swept into the Metropolitan Courthouse with several men in suits, ignoring screams of photographers lining the route into a rear entrance. Her parents, Rick and Kathy Hilton, also came with her.

Wearing a gray jacket and white shirt over black slacks and with a black headband on, she said nothing and appeared serious.

Prosecutors announced earlier they were asking the judge to sentence Hilton to 45 days in jail for allegedly violating the terms of her probation for an alcohol-related reckless driving conviction.

Prosecutors also were seeking to have Hilton ordered to avoid alcohol for 90 days, wear a monitoring device that would chart whether she complies, and have the suspension of her drivers license extended for an additional four months.