Entries for June 2007

Police in London's bustling nightclub and theater district today defused a bomb that could have killed hundreds, after an ambulance crew spotted smoke coming from a Mercedes filled with a lethal mix of gasoline, propane and nails, authorities said.

Consumers boosted their spending in May as their incomes grew solidly, an encouraging sign that high gasoline prices haven't killed people's appetite to buy. It was the second month in a row that consumer spending went up by 0.5 percent, the Commerce Department reports.

Californians suffer in the worst traffic in the country, a new study has found.

The trail of investigation into the death of pro-wrestler Chris Benoit and his wife and child has led to the online user edited Wikipedia, where news of the deaths was reported 14 hours before authorities found the bodies.

J. Craig Venter, who led the private effort to decode the human genome, announced that he and his team have successfully transplanted the genetic material of one microbe into another, a breakthrough in an eventual effort to create artificial biological life.

In a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court today rejected public school diversity plans in Seattle and Louisville that took into account students' race. But the court left the door open for using race as a criterion in limited circumstances.

U.S. News reported on the lawsuit last year.

Twenty beheaded bodies have been discovered in Iraq along the Tigris River, the Associated Press reports. Another 20 people died in a car bombing at a bus station in Baghdad.

The price of oil is nearing $71 a barrel, pushing prices up as the summer driving season approaches its peak.

The number of Americans who display the flag somewhere at home, at work, or on their car has dropped off over 10 percent in the past five years, a new study finds.

A massive dust storm on Mars is threatening two NASA missions on the Red Planet.

When Rudy Giuliani was 50 minutes late for a speech last Wednesday in Des Moines, he was chewed out on the blog of Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen.

“Giuliani and his campaign need to learn some things about campaigning in Iowa,” Yepsen wrote. “Like not being tardy.”

Yepsen reported that neither Giuliani nor his campaign workers gave an explanation  as to why the speech, which was to begin at 10:30 a.m., began at 11:20. Some members of the audience were so agitated that they left early.

Last night in suburban Washington, D.C., Giuliani repeated his tardy performance, only this time with more class.

The former New York City mayor, arriving again about 50 minutes late, immediately apologized to his audience at the B’nai Israel Congregation in Rockville, Md., and explained the cause of the delay: Lightning had held up his plane in Norfolk, Va.

“I was coming from Regent University, which is Pat Robertson’s university, to a Jewish house of worship,” Giuliani said. “Now if I hit a Catholic church tonight, I’m all set.”

Apparently Washingtonians aren’t as feisty as Iowans, as Giuliani was well received by the predominantly Jewish audience and received rousing applause for his support of Israel.

“I view Israel with great affection because of Israel’s steadfast friendship with the United States, and I think Israelis view Americans that way because of our friendship with Israel,” Giuliani said. “Countries are friends like people are friends.”

Giuliani primarily focused on terrorism and the Middle East, calling the Clinton-ruled ’90s the “decade of denial” for that administration’s lack of focus on terrorism. He also brought up his handling of 9/11 more than a dozen times during his 53-minute speech.

--Nikki Schwab

Congress ratcheted up its fight with the Bush administration today, subpoenaing documents about the warrantless wiretapping program.

The subpoenas, issued by the Senate Judiciary Committee, seek information relating to the legal justification and authorization for the program from the Justice Department, White House, vice president, and National Security Council.

This is the second set of subpoenas Congress has issued to the White House in recent weeks, coming on the heels of a request for testimony and documents from former Bush advisers Harriet Miers and Sara Taylor in connection with the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

This is not the first time Congress has called the wiretapping program into question, as U.S. News reported last fall.

--Emma Schwartz

The message behind the thousands of numbers released this afternoon in the Pew Global Attitudes survey isn’t very difficult to divine: In the past five years, the view of the United States has become increasingly less favorable throughout most parts of the world.

Of the 33 nations where trends were available between 2002 and 2007, 26 now report less favorable attitudes toward the United States, while six developed more favorable views and two remained largely unchanged. Those gains largely took the form of modest growth in image in several African countries, South Korea, and Lebanon.

The slide in popularity was particularly evident among the other seven nations that make up the G-8, all of which saw a decline in American favorability ratings:

Country            2002        2007        Change

Germany           60%        30%            -30

Britain                75           51                 -24

France               62           39                 -23

Russia              61            41                 -20

Italy                    70            53                 -17

Canada             72           55                 -17

Japan                72            61                 -11

The full report is available at the Pew website (pdf).

British Prime Minister Tony Blair wraps up a decade in power today, handing the reins to Treasury chief Gordon Brown, his longtime associate.

Two Republican senators, George Voinovich of Ohio and Richard Lugar of Indiana, have publicly broken with the White House over Iraq, saying the current strategy is not working and advocating a gradual withdrawal of troops.  

Israeli troops killed at least 11 Palestinians, most of whom were armed, in the largest raid in Gaza since Hamas seized power this month.

Researchers believe a Russian lake could hold the key to the mystery of what happened to a suspected meteor  that struck in 1908.