WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan commission is asserting the country should expect a terrorist attack using nuclear or biological weapons sometime in the next five years.

The report, which is scheduled to be publicly released today, suggests that the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama should improve the capability of the United States to counter such an attack and to prepare if necessary for germ warfare.

The report was written by the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism. Among other things, it concluded: "Our margin of safety is shrinking, not growing."

TRACY, Calif. -- A Girl Scout leader and her husband were arrested after an emaciated, terrified and nearly naked 17-year-old showed up at a gym with a chain locked to his ankle, saying he had just fled his captors, authorities said yesterday.

Police were also seeking the boy's aunt and had an outstanding felony warrant against her for an earlier alleged assault against the teen.

The boy, who authorities said ran away from a Sacramento foster home last year, came into the In-Shape Sports Club in Tracy on Monday wearing only boxer briefs and covered in what appeared to be soot, gym manager Chuck Ellis said. Tracy is about 70 miles south of Sacramento.

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates signaled a willingness yesterday to forge ahead with two key priorities for the incoming Obama administration: accelerating the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq and shutting down the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

As the only Republican Cabinet member asked to stay on by President-elect Barack Obama, Mr. Gates told reporters that military commanders are looking at ways to more quickly pull troops out of Iraq in light of the 16-month timetable that was a centerpiece of the Democrat's campaign.

He also said it will be a high priority to work with the new Congress on legislation that will enable the U.S. to close the detention center at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where more than 200 terrorism suspects are still being held.

WASHINGTON -- Hundreds of visitors got their first look at the Capitol Visitor Center -- an underground museum and now the first stop for people touring Congress -- as it opened yesterday three years late and $360 million over budget.

A 186-foot marble wall holds display cases that document the nation's milestones and key decisions in Congress. Visitors will find President John F. Kennedy's 1961 speech calling for the nation to send a man to the moon, Thomas Jefferson's 1803 letter urging Congress to fund the Lewis and Clark Expedition and James Madison's notes for the Constitution.

WASHINGTON -- In Richard Nixon's time, all the president's men fretted about threats on every front: disquiet out on the streets, disloyalty inside the administration and trouble from political opponents who had to be discredited at any cost.

This is borne out in the nearly 200 hours of White House tape recordings and 90,000 pages of documents released yesterday by the Nixon Library, which is run by the National Archives. It is latest release of material from his administration.