The ringleader of the Madrid terrorist attack blew himself up along with three other suspects as police prepared to storm their apartment, Spain's Interior Minister Angel Acebes said Sunday.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced Friday that it planned to require travelers from 27 industrialized nations -- including longtime allies like Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Japan and Australia -- to be photographed and electronically fingerprinted when they arrive in the United States.

As Cuban Ambassador Orlando Gual remembers it, he and his staff had just had a heated discussion in their mission about health insurance plans when a sheaf of insurance ads suddenly came rolling off the fax machine.

A brief look at the stories making headlines in the Russian-language press

State Coffers Swell NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Russia raised its 2005 budget surplus forecast above 1 percent, driven primarily by the high price of oil, which is now expected to average $26 per barrel next year, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said Saturday. Kudrin, who spoke to reporters while in New York to attend a charity fund-raiser and meet with World Bank President James Wolfensohn, said overall government revenue projections for the 2004 budget were set at $100 billion and are due for revision. The extra oil revenue is helping to quickly fill Russia's newly established stabilization fund, which must grow to at least 500 billion rubles ($17.5 billion) before anything more can be used to pay for budgetary spending increases. Kudrin said the stabilization fund had met its goals of collecting in excess of 142.9 billion rubles through April 1.

The United States last week slapped sanctions on two Russian companies accused of assisting Iran's alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons program while at the same time removing several Russian companies and a scientist from its blacklist.