SUSAN ATKINS, the terminally ill Charles Manson follower who admitted stabbing actress Sharon Tate 40 years ago, has lost what was likely to be her last bid for freedom.

An Israeli-Palestinian summit, tentatively scheduled, has now been postponed, a Palestinian negotiator said today.

Palestinian militants today killed an Israeli hitchhiker, the third Israeli to be killed in the past five days in a flare-up of violence that threatens a truce reached in February.

ISRAEL is proposing a troop pullout from two more Palestinian towns in the wake of meetings between the two sides' leaders and US President George W Bush, officials said yesterday.