KUWAIT CITY - The Iraqi kidnappers of American journalist Jill Carroll have set a Feb. 26 deadline for their demands to be met or they will kill her, the owner of Kuwait's Al-Rai television said Friday.

“Hi, Dad. This is Jill. I’m released.” Those words roused Jim Carroll from sleep in his North Carolina home at about 6 a.m. Thursday and made his day.

A butler opens the door of the large Sesame Street brownstone and guides me to the parlor. Big Bird is sitting on a large couch, wearing a silk smoking jacket, holding a bourbon and enjoying a drag on what appears to be an unfiltered Camel cigarette.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. Muslim advocacy group arrived in Baghdad on Saturday to plead for the release of American hostage Jill Carroll, while an Iraqi official urged U.S. forces to free six detained Iraqi women in a bid to save the journalist.

RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany - Smiling broadly, journalist Jill Carroll arrived Saturday under U.S. military protection in Germany, the first stop on her return to the United States from Iraq where she was kidnapped and spent 82 days in captivity.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Arab television broadcast a new videotape Tuesday showing three Christian peace activists taken hostage in Iraq last year, but a fourth - the only American abducted - was not seen in the footage.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. Marines have arrested four Iraqi men in connection with the kidnapping of U.S. journalist Jill Carroll, who was freed last March after 82 days in captivity, a U.S. spokesman said Wednesday.

Journalists have been criticized a lot lately, sometimes justly, as in Dan Rather’s 2004 “Memogate” report that used a falsified document on President Bush’s military service. But journalists still are the men and women on the front lines of wars, riots and disasters, bringing the news to us. Sometimes journalists are hurt or killed.

WASHINGTON - An American Muslim advocacy group is traveling to the Middle East to plead for the safe return of a journalist facing death at the hands of her kidnappers.

The Gilbert Town Council proved its worth as caretakers of the town’s seven miles of freeway frontage Tuesday, when it refused to cave in to pressure for allowing flashy electronic signs along the Loop 202.

One news story painted the conviction Thursday of terrorism suspect Jose Padilla as “a significant victory for the Bush administration.” It was far from that.

There’s a hackneyed phrase that says the only things that are certain are death and taxes. Add to that the fact that you’re never more than 50 feet away from a television.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Wearing a green Islamic head scarf, American reporter Jill Carroll walked into an Iraqi political party office Thursday, set free nearly three months after being kidnapped in an ambush that killed her translator.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has asked the chief of each service branch for a plan by the end of February to minimize the number of “stoploss” orders.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. and British troops Thursday freed three Christian peace activists in a rural area of Iraq without firing a shot, ending a four-month hostage drama in which an American among the group was shot to death and dumped on a Baghdad street.

They say every dog has his day. This year, that day is Friday, June 22, the 14th national Take Your Dog to Work Day. The event is promoted by Pet Sitters International (see www.takeyourdog.com if you think I’m pulling your paw).

Talk about tall orders. When he chose Janet Napolitano to head the Department of Homeland Security, President-elect Barack Obama said, "She will be a leader who can reform a sprawling department while safeguarding our homeland." Oh, really?

SAN FRANCISCO - A California man suspected of mailing more than 120 hoax anthrax letters to media outlets was interviewed previously by the FBI after one similar mailing in 2007, but he was not charged.

NEW YORK - ABC News led its broadcasts with its own journalists in the news: anchor Bob Woodruff and a cameraman had been seriously injured by a roadside bomb while reporting in Iraq.

November 20, 2004

The 2008 Pulitzer Prize winners and finalists:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Hostage American reporter Jill Carroll appeared in a silent 20-second video aired Tuesday by Al-Jazeera television, which said her abductors gave the United States 72 hours to free female prisoners in Iraq or she would be killed.