Entries for April 2007

Research released Sunday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics has found that, while black and Hispanic drivers are almost equally as likely as whites to be pulled over by police, they are significantly more likely to be searched during the stop.

Drivers had between an 8 and 9 percent chance of being pulled over regardless of ethnicity, the study found. But while only 3.6 percent of white drivers stopped by police were subsequently searched, 9.5 percent of black drivers and 8.8 percent of Hispanic drivers underwent a search.

Without a strict budget for groceries, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski splurged on fresh berries with his usual yogurt for breakfast this morning.

Up through last night, he had forgone these delicacies as part of his participation in Oregon's Hunger Awareness Week, during which he lived on food stamps, the value of which averages about $3 per person per day, according to the press release he issued for the event.

Note: Updated at 3:45 p.m. ET.

U.S. News Senior Writer Linda Robinson sends us this news from Baghdad from her interview today with Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. The career foreign service officer, who is fluent in Arabic, drew a connection to his stints as a diplomat in Beirut in the 1980s and 1990s, during and after the Lebanese civil war. He makes a point that the situation in Iraq could become much worse if there is an abrupt U.S. military withdrawal.

"In Lebanon, we used to say in the early '80s, there is no bottom. You can't do a worst-case scenario because your imagination isn't sufficiently strong enough to really conceive of what a worst case can be. I feel that very much about Iraq. If you look at a communal map of Baghdad, a whole lot of it is still very mixed. Partition is lunacy.

In an interview with U.S. News, John Bolton, the recently resigned U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, argued that the State Department is likely to proffer more concessions to North Korea in light of the communist regime's intransigence in moving forward with denuclearization in return for energy, political, and other benefits.

"I fear that the State Department may now be in a 'save-the-deal' mode," said Bolton. "If you're in the 'save-the-deal' mode, anything is possible." The February 13 agreement arose from six-nation nuclear negotiations in Beijing; North Korea has stalled movement on the deal's terms until it directly recovers once-frozen funds from the Macao-based Banco Delta Asia.

This morning's top stories:

• Five U.S. service members were killed in Iraq over the weekend, making April the deadliest month for U.S. troops this year, the AP reports.
• A NATO offensive in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, totaling more than 3,000 troops, is trying to rout the Taliban from its stronghold in the region.
• Two Lebanese female painters are confronting sexual taboos in a new exhibit of pop art on display in a Christian suburb north of Beirut.
• Egypt is requesting the temporary return of some of the most sacred artifacts from its ancient culture, such as the Rosetta Stone, for two new displays of Egyptian art to open at the end of the decade.
• A report just out from the Bureau of Justice Statistics has found that police, while equally likely to pull over people of any ethnicity, tend to search and arrest blacks and Hispanics at higher rates, according to CNN.

Now that the Democrats have completed their first presidential debate, it will be the Republicans' turn next Thursday when they convene at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., for their own nationally televised encounter.

And no candidate is looking forward more to the event than former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. For many weeks, Romney's advisers have been predicting that he will score well in the debate--by proving that he is "presidential," is a "true conservative," and has a mastery of the issues as deep and broad as that of anyone in the race. Romney definitely needs a breakthrough. He has been unable to rise above about 10 percent support in polls of Republican voters even though he has raised more money than any other GOP candidate.

"He needs to move the campaign forward," says a Romney strategist, who admits that the candidate has developed a reputation as an opportunist for reversing himself on issues such as abortion and gay rights and for exaggerating his background as a hunter--all supposedly to appeal to the conservative base.

"Once these impressions set in, it's hard to unwind them," says the strategist.

--Kenneth T. Walsh