GROTON, Conn. – Michelle Obama's performance as first lady is getting high marks from her predecessor, Laura Bush.
Speaking to The Associated Press after a change-of-command ceremony for the USS Texas submarine in Connecticut, Bush said Friday she's watched the current first lady from afar and is impressed.
Bush says "she's doing a great job," and says being first lady is like being a member of a club that very few people get to be part of.
Bush says it's "been great to be back home" in Texas after eight years in the White House, and she's enjoying private life.
Bush says she's been working on a book and is busy helping put together President George W. Bush's presidential library.

LONDON (Reuters) –
A Briton wanted in the United States for breaking into NASA and Pentagon networks in "the biggest military hack of all time" lost an appeal against his extradition Friday, making a U.S. trial more likely.

Gary McKinnon, 43, has fought a three-year battle to avoid extradition, including going to the European Court of Human Rights, but he appeared to have run out of options as Britain's High Court ruled against his latest appeal Friday.

The court rejected arguments by McKinnon's lawyers that extraditing McKinnon, who was recently diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, a form of autism, would have disastrous consequences for his health, including possible psychosis and suicide.

Judges also dismissed his calls for a judicial review of the case. Lawyers had challenged a refusal by Britain's chief prosecutor to allow McKinnon to be tried in Britain, which would have avoided any need for extradition.

"For the reasons set out in the judgment, the claims against the secretary of state and the Department for Public Prosecutions are dismissed," Lord Justice Stanley Burnton said in the ruling, according to the Press Association.

McKinnon, whose lawyers describe him as a "UFO eccentric" who used the Internet to search for alien life, is accused of causing the U.S. Army's entire network of more than 2,000 computers in Washington to be shut down for 24 hours in what U.S. authorities called "the biggest military hack of all time."

He was arrested in 2002 after U.S. prosecutors charged him with illegally accessing computers, including systems at the Pentagon and NASA, and causing $700,000 worth of damage.

McKinnon told Reuters in 2006 that he was just a computer nerd who wanted to find out whether aliens really existed and became obsessed with trawling through large military data networks for any proof that they might be out there.

He had used his own computer with a 56K dial-up modem at his London home with no password protection and somehow managed to evade every security measure the U.S. military had adopted.

If he is convicted by a U.S. court, McKinnon could face up to 70 years in prison.

Members of the British media and family and friends have waged a lengthy campaign to try to prevent McKinnon's extradition. His mother was angry at the latest setback.

"It's a disgrace, and they should be highly embarrassed," Janis Sharp told reporters outside the court. "This is from the Bush era, it is hold-over from the Bush era."

President Barack Obama "would not want this to happen," she said.

(Reporting by Luke Baker; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

YANGON (AFP) –
A Myanmar court Friday postponed its verdict in the internationally condemned trial of Aung San Suu Kyi until August 11, adding to uncertainty over the ruling junta's plans for the democracy icon.

Lawyers for the Nobel laureate said the judges announced they needed time to review the case, in which Suu Kyi faces up to five years in jail on charges of violating her house arrest after an American swam to her lakeside home.

"I believe they really have serious legal problems," her lawyer Nyan Win told reporters after the brief court hearing at Yangon's notorious Insein prison.

"I do not want to say anything regarding politics. But could it be because of pressure from the the UN or others? We do not know exactly but there might be something," he added.

"She should not have been charged in the beginning."

The 64-year-old Suu Kyi had thanked diplomats for attending the hearing and told them that the outcome of the case "mainly depends on the rule of law", said Nyan Win, who is also the spokesman for her National League for Democracy.

Critics have accused Myanmar's iron-fisted generals of using the intrusion by US national John Yettaw as an excuse to keep the opposition leader locked up during elections that are due in 2010.

But the regime has appeared increasingly rattled by international outrage over the case, and despite widespread fears of a guilty verdict diplomats have speculated that the court may opt for a lesser sentence of house arrest.

Suu Kyi's international legal counsel, Jared Genser, said the latest postponement in the two-and-a-half-month trial was another attempt by the military government to deflect foreign criticism.

"It is in some ways a smart move -- push off the verdict until the middle of August when numerous government and United Nations officials around the world will be on vacation," Genser said in a statement.

"But it remains to be seen whether this ploy will work or if anticipation will be heightened in the run-up to the issuance of the verdict."

Riot police surrounded the prison on Friday and police trucks patrolled the city following warnings in the junta-controlled state media that protests against a guilty verdict would not be tolerated.

Around two dozen NLD members were arrested around the country on Thursday and Friday, according to an exile-based NLD group. There was no immediate confirmation from authorities or from Nyan Win.

Myanmar's junta has kept Suu Kyi in detention for nearly 14 of the past 20 years, since it refused to recognise the NLD's landslide victory in elections in 1990.

Washington, which like the European Union has imposed sanctions against the Myanmar regime, demanded late Thursday that Suu Kyi and another 2,100 political prisoners in Myanmar should be "immediately and unconditionally released".

Myanmar junta chief Than Shwe snubbed UN chief Ban Ki-moon's request to visit Suu Kyi when Ban visited the country in early July.

Verdicts had also been expected Friday in the cases of Yettaw and of Khin Win and Win Ma Ma, two female aides who were living with Suu Kyi at the lakeside property when the American arrived there in the dead of night.

The eccentric American greeted Suu Kyi's lawyers in court on Friday with the words "I love you", Nyan Win said.

"Daw Suu never talked to Mr Yettaw and tried not to talk to him because she doesn't want to be accused" of further association with him, Nyan Win said.

Yettaw, 53, from Falcon, Missouri, faces charges of abetting Suu Kyi's breach of security laws, immigration violations and a municipal charge of illegal swimming. All three also face up to five years in prison.

Yettaw has said that he embarked on his mission to warn Suu Kyi of a vision that she would be assassinated. He was arrested just days before the most recent, six-year spell of her house arrest was due to expire.

Lawyers for Suu Kyi have argued that she cannot be held responsible for Yettaw's actions, and that the legal framework for her initial detention at her house was under a 1975 law that has been superseded by later constitutions.

ASHBURN, Va. – First-round draft pick Brian Orakpo (oh-RACK-poh) has agreed to terms with the Washington Redskins.
The Redskins reported on their Web site that Orakpo was expected to join the team at training camp on Friday, which is also his 23rd birthday.
The No. 13 overall pick from Texas was the only player absent when the Redskins opened camp on Thursday.
Orakpo played defensive end in college, but the Redskins have him pegged as their starting strongside linebacker.