7/ 1/05 Friday
Sandra Day O'Connor stepped down unexpectedly from the Supreme
Court today, closing out a career as the first female justice and
the anchor of a shaky majority for abortion rights. President Bush
pledged to name a successor quickly as the costliest confirmation
battle in history took shape. O'Connor's decision to retire
created the first vacancy at the high court in 11 years, and marked
the departure of the justice who had become the majority maker in a
stream of 5-4 cases covering abortion, affirmative action, the
death penalty and more over a quarter-century.
U.S. forces desperately scoured rugged Afghan mountains today for
an elite American military team missing in the same area where a
U.S. helicopter was shot down. A purported Taliban spokesman
claimed militants captured one of the men.
Time magazine and New York Times reporters, held in contempt for
refusing to name sources, tried today to stay out of jail by
arguing for home detention instead after Time Inc. surrendered its
reporter's notes to a prosecutor. Producing the documents makes it
unnecessary for Time reporter Matthew Cooper to testify to the
federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA officer's
identity, Cooper's attorneys argued in papers filed with a federal
judge.
Despite higher fuel prices, Americans by the tens of millions will
hit the roads, ride the rails and take to the skies for the Fourth
of July in what is expected to be the busiest three-day travel
weekend in U.S. history. The AAA estimated 40.3 million Americans
will leave home to visit with family, see the sights or relax in
the mountains, by lakes or at the seashore. The previous three-day
holiday record was 39.4 million travelers during the last Fourth of
July.
7/ 2/05 Saturday
A top Iranian former secret agent said today the hostage-taker in a
1979 photograph that has come under intense scrutiny is not
President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad but a former militant who
committed suicide in jail. Saeed Hajjarian, a top adviser to
outgoing President Mohammad Khatami, also denied an Austrian
newspaper report and claims by Iranian dissidents that Ahmadinejad
had a role in the 1989 slaying of an Iranian opposition Kurdish
leader and two associates in Vienna.
In Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, more than six weeks after she disappeared
from a home where family members were bludgeoned to death, an 8-
year-old girl was found safe today, sharing a meal with a
registered sex offender at a Denny's restaurant in her hometown.
Shasta Groene was reunited with her father, but her 9-year-old
brother, Dylan, remained missing and was feared dead, Kootenai
County Sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said.
Twenty years after a scruffy one-hit wonder first demonstrated his
gift for lofty dreams and grandiose statements, hundreds of the
world's top performers and more than 1 million fans united for 10
free concerts across the globe aimed at fighting African poverty.
Bob Geldof claimed today's s shows would be "the greatest concert
ever," and it was hard to argue with him after the unprecedented
gathering drew everyone from Snoop Dogg to Bill Gates, Mandela to
Madonna.
7/ 3/05 Sunday
A member of an elite American military team missing in Afghan
mountains since last week has been rescued, while U.S. forces
pushed on with their search for other members of the group still
unaccounted for, U.S. military officials said. The rescued
American serviceman was being rushed to Landstuhl Regional Medical
Center in Germany, a U.S. Defense Department official said,
speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of
ongoing search and rescue operations.
Bombing conspirator Terry Nichols has been meeting with the FBI and
has revealed additional details about his involvement in the 1995
attack that destroyed the Oklahoma City federal building, his
mother said today. Nichols, serving life in prison on federal and
state convictions for the bombing that killed 168 people,
acknowledged that he helped Timothy McVeigh acquire ammonium
nitrate fertilizer and racing fuel that were combined to make the
explosive, and helped assemble the bomb components, said Nichols'
mother, Joyce Wilt of Lapeer, Mich.
Actress Brooke Shields has an ally in her war of words with Tom
Cruise over her use of prescriptions drugs to treat postpartum
depression: New Jersey's acting governor. "Tom Cruise knows as
much about postpartum depression as I do about acting, and he
should stick to acting and not talk about women who need help,"
said Richard J. Codey, whose wife, Mary Jo, has struggled with the
illness.
7/ 4/05 Monday
Two Navy SEALS missing in Afghanistan have been found dead, a
senior U.S. defense official said tonight. Another SEAL was
rescued on Saturday, and the fate of a fourth SEAL was unknown.
The official who confirmed the recovery of the two bodies spoke on
condition of anonymity because of the ongoing effort to account for
the missing U.S. servicemen in Afghanistan. Meanwhile, an American
airstrike in Afghanistan's rugged eastern mountains killed 17
civilians, including women and children, an Afghan official said
today. The U.S. military confirmed civilian deaths but said the
numbers were unclear.
They weren't a red, white and blue spectacle, but the cosmic
fireworks NASA created by blasting a hole in a comet were something
for scientists to cheer about this Fourth of July weekend. The
brighter-than-expected white flash of light climaxed a daring
mission "that's something to be proud of on America's birthday,"
said Rick Grammier, the mission's project manager at NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory.
"War of the Worlds" conquered the box office as easily as the
movie's aliens overpowered Earth, but it did not have enough
firepower to overcome Hollywood's prolonged slump. Steven
Spielberg and Tom Cruise's sci-fi tale took in $77.6 million over
the long Fourth of July weekend, lifting its total since debuting
Wednesday to $113.3 million, according to studio estimates today.
7/ 5/05 Tuesday
Gunmen ambushed two more top diplomats from Muslim countries in
apparent kidnap bids that seemed aimed at scaring off foreign
governments and isolating Iraq from the Arab world. Pakistan
responded by announcing the withdrawal of its ambassador. The
attacks, targeting diplomats from Bahrain as well as Pakistan, came
three days after gunmen seized Egypt's top envoy to Iraq as he was
buying a newspaper in the capital. The Egyptian envoy is still
being held.
President Bush thanked war ally Denmark today in Copenhagen and
mulled his decision on a Supreme Court nomination he'll soon make
at home. On his way to an international economic summit in
Scotland, Bush reviewed resumes and other material on potential
court nominees to replace retiring Sandra Day O'Connor.
Activists kept up pressure on leaders of the world's richest
nations to lift Africa out of poverty, but Britain's Treasury chief
said those who believe human misery can be eliminated "with the
stroke of a pen" may be disappointed by the results of this week's
G-8 summit. As Irish singer Bob Geldof - energized by his Live 8
concerts' success - joined the demonstrators in Scotland, police
warned they will crack down on any further violence by anarchists
and others bent on spoiling the summit. About 100 arrested during
clashes a day earlier appeared in court today.
Ford Motor Co. jumped on the employee-discount bandwagon today,
announcing it will join GM and Chrysler in allowing customers to
buy vehicles at employee rates. Ford's decision follows a huge
sales surge General Motors Corp. saw last month because of the
heavily promoted discount, which drove monthly sales to their
highest total in nearly 19 years. Chrysler said Friday it also
would match such programs.
7/ 6/05 Wednesday
New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed today for refusing
to divulge a confidential source to a grand jury investigating the
Bush administration's leak of an undercover CIA operative's name.
Another reporter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, agreed to talk
and avoided jail. Cooper agreed to cooperate with prosecutors
after disclosing that his source had given him permission to do so
hours earlier. The about-face came after nearly two years of
refusals to disclose the information.
Hurricane Dennis flooded roads in Haiti and threatened a direct hit
on Jamaica, pushing oil prices sharply higher today and becoming
the second storm to threaten petroleum output in the Gulf of
Mexico. Hurricane warnings were posted for the Cayman Islands,
Jamaica, Haiti and eastern Cuba, including the U.S. Navy base at
Guantanamo Bay, where some 520 terror suspects are detained.
Forecasters also warned Dennis was on track for the Alabama-
Florida coastline.
World leaders weighed a huge aid package for Africa and new plans
for tackling global warming as Iraq war allies President Bush and
British Prime Minister Tony Blair found themselves advocating rival
positions. Blair, buoyed by the decision to award London the 2012
Olympics, pledged to keep pushing for more aid to combat poverty in
Africa and global warming, the two issues he has made the focus of
this year's meeting but both goals that are more ambitious than
those embraced by Bush.
President Bush defended potential Supreme Court nominee Alberto
Gonzales, under attack from conservatives, as White House officials
reached out to Democrats. The party's top senator said the
attorney general was qualified but would not necessarily get "an
easy way through" confirmation. Even before Justice Sandra Day
O'Connor announced her plans to retire, some conservatives had
begun warning Bush about selecting Gonzales, the former White House
counsel. They objected to his record on abortion and affirmative
action.
London edged out Paris in the hotly contested race to host the 2012
Olympics. The British capital, which last had the games in 1948
while continental Europe was rebuilding in the aftermath of World
War II, upset Paris 54-50 on the fourth ballot. Moscow, New York
and Madrid were knocked out in the first three rounds of the
International Olympic Committee vote.
7/ 7/05 Thursday
Terror struck in the heart of London today as explosions ripped
through three subway trains and blasted the roof off a crowded red
double-decker bus. At least 37 people were killed and more than
700 wounded in the deadliest attack on the city since the blitz in
World War II. British Prime Minister Tony Blair blamed Islamic
extremists and said the bombings were designed to coincide with the
opening in Scotland of a G-8 summit of the world's most powerful
leaders. Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the bombings - which
came the day after London won the bid to host the 2012 Olympics -
have the "hallmarks of an al-Qaida-related attack."
Al-Qaida's wing in Iraq claimed today it had killed Egypt's top
envoy who was abducted by gunmen last weekend and warned it would
go after "as many ambassadors as we can" to punish countries that
support Iraq's U.S.-backed leadership. Iraq's chief government
spokesman said the killing and today's bombings in London show that
terrorism "is not only targeting Iraqis, but everyone." An
Egyptian official in Cairo said Egypt would temporarily close its
mission here and has recalled its staff.
A bridge collapsed into a river swollen by Hurricane Dennis' fierce
winds and rain, killing at least four people in southwestern Haiti
today as the strengthening storm lashed Caribbean coastlines. The
hurricane's winds neared 135 mph, and it grew to a Category 4 as it
sideswiped Jamaica and headed straight for Cuba. Forecasters at
the U.S. Hurricane Center in Miami predicted the storm could hit
the United States anywhere from Florida to Louisiana by Sunday or
Monday, raising fears that oil production in the Gulf of Mexico
would be disrupted by the fourth storm in as many weeks.
7/ 8/05 Friday
Hurricane Dennis slammed Cuba's southern coast and sliced across
the island to the capital today, killing at least 10 people and
pushing the Caribbean toll to 20. The powerful storm headed toward
a U.S. landfall, prompting hundreds of thousands to flee the Gulf
Coast. Strong winds and surf buffeted the U.S. detention camp for
terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, on the island's eastern end,
where a guard tower was washed into the sea. There were no reports
of casualties.
Vowing not to be sidetracked by the deadly London bombings, world
leaders unveiled a $50 billion package today to help lift Africa
from poverty and proposed up to $9 billion to help the Palestinians
achieve peace with Israel. "We offer today this contrast with the
politics of terror," said British Prime Minister Tony Blair,
wrapping an economic summit jolted by Thursday's bus and subway
attacks.
President Hamid Karzai said that Osama bin Laden wasn't in
Afghanistan, saying his government has no idea of his whereabouts.
"God knows where he is," he said. "We don't know. ... He is not in
Afghanistan." The comments come just days after Pakisani Interior
Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said the al-Qaida leader wasn't in
Pakistan and could be hiding in southeastern Afghanistan.
The government today ordered warnings onto the labels of Viagra and
two other impotence drugs that some users have developed a form of
blindness - while cautioning that it's impossible to know if the
pills are to blame. The Food and Drug Administration's move comes
as the agency is under intense pressure to investigate more
aggressively and warn the public about drug side effects.
7/ 9/05 Saturday
Hurricane Dennis dealt a glancing blow to the Florida Keys on
today, knocking out power and leaving streets flooded with seaweed
as it roared toward the storm-weary Gulf Coast, where nearly 1.4
million people were under evacuation orders. The hurricane, blamed
for at least 20 deaths in Haiti and Cuba, carried a threat of more
than a half-foot of rain plus waves and storm surge that could be
more than a story high when it makes landfall Sunday somewhere
along the coast of the Florida Panhandle, Alabama or Mississippi.
Police radically revised the timing of the deadly blasts that tore
through the London Underground, saying today that the bombs were
detonated just seconds apart - not 26 minutes as first reported.
The explosions were so intense that none of the 49 known dead has
yet been identified. Many bodies still lay buried in a rat-infested
subway tunnel and frantic relatives begged for word about others
still missing in the worst attack on London since World War II.
Police indicated as many as 50 additional victims were unaccounted
for.
7/10/05 Sunday
Hurricane Dennis roared quickly through the Florida Panhandle and
Alabama coast today with a 120-mph bluster of blinding squalls and
crashing waves, but shellshocked residents emerged to find far less
damage than when Ivan took nearly the same path 10 months ago. The
tightly wound Dennis, which had been a Category 4, 145- mph monster
as it marched up the Gulf of Mexico, weakened just before it struck
less than 50 miles east of where Ivan came ashore. And despite
downed power lines and outages affecting nearly half a million,
early reports indicated no deaths and relatively modest structural
damage.
Britain and the U.S. are trying to build a new strategy to exit
Iraq that could see British troops leaving the country by
Christmas, a newspaper reported citing a government memo written by
the defense secretary. The Mail, today reported that British
Defense Secretary John Reid drafted a secret paper for Prime
Minister Tony Blair outlining how most of the country's 8,500
troops could be sent home from Iraq within three months, with the
rest by the end of the year.
In Lewes, Del., two small planes practicing for an air show
collided today above Delaware Bay, killing at least one of the
pilots, state police said. Rescue crews retrieved one body and
divers searched the waters near Cape Henlopen State Park for the
other pilot until evening but were unable to locate the plane's
wreckage, police said.
7/11/05 Monday
For the better part of two years, the word coming out of the Bush
White House was that presidential adviser Karl Rove had nothing to
do with the leak of a female CIA officer's identity and that
whoever did would be fired. But Bush spokesman Scott McClellan
wouldn't repeat those claims today in the face of Rove's own
lawyer, Robert Luskin, acknowledging the political operative spoke
to Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, one of the reporters who
disclosed Valerie Plame's name.
Major reductions in U.S. troop levels in Iraq next year appear
increasingly likely, although Pentagon officials said today it is
too early to predict the specific size and timing. The Pentagon is
eager to pull some of its 135,000 troops out of Iraq in 2006,
partly because the counterinsurgency is stretching the Army and
Marine Corps perilously thin as casualties mount and partly because
officials believe the presence of a large U.S. force is generating
tacit support for anti-American violence.
7/12/05 Tuesday
New evidence suggests four suicide bombers, including at least
three Britons of Pakistani descent, carried out the terror attacks
in London, officials said today. Surveillance cameras captured the
men as they arrived in the capital just 20 minutes before the
explosions began. Police raided six homes in Leeds searching for
explosives and computer files that would shed more light on what
were believed to be the first suicide bombings in Western Europe.
They arrested a man, identified by the British news agency Press
Association as a relative of one of the suspected bombers.
President Bush supports Karl Rove, the White House said today,
rebuffing Democratic calls for Bush to fire his top political
adviser over his role in the leak of an undercover CIA officer's
identity. Bush ignored a question about whether he would fire
Rove, and White House spokesman Scott McClellan said later that
"any individual who works here at the White House has the
confidence of the president." McClellan said that includes Rove.
With the countdown for Discovery in its final hours, NASA was dealt
an embarrassing setback topday when a window cover fell off the
shuttle and damaged thermal tiles near the tail. But the space
agency quickly fixed the problem and said it was still on track for
launch Wednesday. The mishap was an eerie reminder of the very
thing that doomed Columbia 2 1/2 years ago - damage to the
spaceship's fragile thermal shield.
7/13/05 Wednesday
NASA scrapped today's launch of the first shuttle flight in 2 1/2
years because of a fuel gauge that mistakenly read full instead of
empty, a frustrating setback to the agency's bid to get back into
space after the Columbia tragedy. "All I can say is shucks,"
deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said at a news conference
of grim-faced NASA managers.
President Bush passed up a chance today to express confidence in
senior aide Karl Rove in a political fight over a news leak that
exposed a CIA officer's identity. The lack of endorsement
surprised some White House officials who had been told Bush would
back his embattled friend. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, later
asserted that Rove had "cooperated fully" in the federal
investigation, had done nothing wrong and was prepared to provide
additional information to a special prosecutor if needed.
7/14/05 Thursday
Presidential confidant Karl Rove testified to a grand jury that he
learned the identity of a CIA operative originally from
journalists, then informally discussed the information with a Time
magazine reporter days before the story broke, according to a
person briefed on the testimony. The person, who works in the
legal profession and spoke only on condition of anonymity because
of the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, told The AP that Rove
testified last year that he remembers specifically being told by
columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, the wife of a harsh Iraq
war critic, worked for the CIA.
Squelching rumors of his retirement, Chief Justice William H.
Rehnquist said today he will continue heading the Supreme Court
while battling thyroid cancer. "I'm not about to announce my
retirement," he said. "I want to put to rest the speculation and
unfounded rumors of my imminent retirement," Rehnquist, 80, said in
a statement first disclosed by The AP and later confirmed by the
court. "I will continue to perform my duties as chief justice as
long as my health permits."
NASA's first step in trying to figure out what caused a fuel gauge
to fail shortly before liftoff and keep space shuttle Discovery
grounded is about as low-tech as it gets: The Wiggle Test. The
only way NASA can launch the shuttle on Sunday - the earliest
option - is "if we go in and wiggle some of the wires and find a
loose connection," deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale said
today.
7/15/05 Friday
Police in Cairo detained a biochemist who studied in the United
States and taught at a university in Leeds - the home base for at
least three of the London bombers. Investigators in Britain raided
an Islamic book shop and the Egyptian's home, searching for
explosives and other evidence today. In another sign of the
investigation's widening global reach, Metropolitan Police
Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said authorities were trying to
determine whether any of the four "foot soldiers" - suicide bombers
who ranged in age from 18 to 30 - had ties with Pakistan-based
cells of the al-Qaida terror network.
After mentioning a CIA operative to a reporter, Bush confidant Karl
Rove alerted the president's No. 2 security adviser about the
interview and said he tried to steer the journalist away from
allegations the operative's husband was making about faulty Iraq
intelligence. The July 11, 2003, e-mail between Rove and then-
Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley is the first
showing an intelligence official knew Rove had talked to Matthew
Cooper just days before the Time magazine reporter wrote an article
identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA officer.
NASA has indefinitely put off its long-awaited return to space,
saying today that engineers were no closer to knowing why a fuel
gauge acted up right before a scheduled liftoff two days earlier.
"We are going forward on a day-by-day basis," said deputy shuttle
program manager Wayne Hale. "We have got the entire resources of
the agency behind us to troubleshoot this problem."
7/16/05 Saturday
An insurgent suicide bomber detonated explosives strapped to his
body today, triggering a huge explosion at a gas station near a
mosque south of Baghdad and killing at least 54 people. The attack
capped a string of three major bombings over the past four days
that killed at least 120. Police Capt. Muthanna Khaled Ali and Dr.
Adel Malallah of the Jumhuri General Hospital in Hillah, the
provincial capital, said the gas station blast in Musayyib, about
40 miles south of Baghdad, killed 54 and wounded at least 82
others.
Fishermen dragged skiffs to shore and surfers rode enormous waves
as Hurricane Emily's winds strengthened today to 155 mph, passing
south of Jamaica and on track to make a direct hit at Mexico's
Yucatan peninsula. Mexican officials launched the evacuation of
85,000 people across more than 100 miles of coastline and ordered
the relocation of 30,000 tourists in Cancun. The state oil
company, Petroleos Mexicanos, began evacuating more than 15,000
workers from its offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
Thousands of people gathered today at Trinity Site, a restricted
area of the White Sands Missile Range, to mark the 60th anniversary
of the world's first test of an atomic weapon. Scientists working
at Trinity site as part of The Manhattan Project created the
nuclear device used in the test on July 16, 1945. That successful
detonation led to the construction of the two atomic bombs that
killed hundreds of thousands of people in Japan in August 1945,
essentially stunning Japan into surrender and ending World War II.
7/17/05 Sunday
Hurricane Emily lashed the Yucatan peninsula today, hours after
thousands of jittery tourists streamed out of their waterfront
hotels and fled inland to shelter in schools and gymnasiums. The
Category 4 storm caused heavy flooding that swept four people to
their deaths in Jamaica on Saturday. In Mexico, it downed signs,
toppled trees and whipped white sands from the beaches in Cancun.
The vice president's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, was a source
along with the president's chief political adviser for a Time story
that identified a CIA officer, the magazine reporter said today,
further countering White House claims that neither aide was
involved in the leak. In an effort to quell a chorus of calls to
fire deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove, Republicans said
that Rove originally learned about Valerie Plame's identity from
the news media. That exonerates Rove, the Republican Party
chairman said, and Democrats should apologize.
Israel threatened today to invade Gaza if Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas does not control militants who have stepped up rocket
and mortar attacks ahead of Israel's planned pullout from the
coastal strip next month. Abbas pledged to do his utmost to stop
the barrages but warned that an invasion of Gaza would "sabotage
everything." Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said all restraints are
off and thousands of Israeli troops have massed along the Gaza
border. The sudden escalation is the most serious threat yet to a
5-month-old truce that had drastically reduced Palestinian-Israeli
violence after more than four years of bloodshed.
7/18/05 Monday
President Bush qualified his pledge to dismiss any White House
official found to have leaked the name of a CIA operative, saying
today that "if someone committed a crime" he would be fired. In
September 2003, the White House had said anyone who leaked
classified information in the case would be dismissed. Bush
reiterated that promise last June, saying he would fire anyone
found to have disclosed the CIA officer's name.
Hurricane Emily ripped roofs off luxury hotels along Mexico's Mayan
Riviera, stranded thousands of tourists and left hundreds of local
residents homeless today, forcing many to remain in crowded, leaky
shelters. Residents of Yucatan Peninsula resorts, including Playa
del Carmen and Tulum, began wading through knee-deep flood waters
to assess damage under a light drizzle, as the storm barreled west
into the Gulf of Mexico.
Nearly a week after a faulty fuel-gauge reading halted the first
shuttle countdown since the Columbia tragedy, NASA had yet to
uncover any clues to the problem today and put off the flight of
Discovery until at least next week. "Right now, I can tell you
that we're still looking for the problem," shuttle program manager
Bill Parsons said at an evening news conference. "We've waited
two-plus years, 2 1/2 years to be here. We're trying awfully hard
to resolve this issue."
7/19/05 Tuesday
President Bush named federal appeals judge John G. Roberts Jr. to
fill the first Supreme Court vacancy in a decade today, delighting
Republicans and unsettling Democrats by picking a young jurist of
impeccably conservative credentials. If confirmed by the
Republican-controlled Senate, the 50-year-old Roberts would succeed
retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, long a swing vote on a court
divided over abortion, affirmative action, states' rights and more.
A British research group said today that about 25,000 civilians
died in violence in Iraq in the two years after the start of the
U.S.-led invasion. Iraq Body Count compiled its figures of
killings that occurred between March 20, 2003 and March 19, 2005
from reports by the major news agencies, including The AP and
British and American newspapers.
7/20/05 Wednesday
Britain's Muslim leaders demanded a judicial inquiry today into
what motivated the four "homegrown" suicide bombers who targeted
London, as Prime Minister Tony Blair proposed an international
conference on rooting out Islamic extremism.
Supreme Court nominee John Roberts paid courtesy calls on key
senators today as the White House rolled out a methodical campaign
to secure his confirmation and Democrats posed their first probing
questions. "No one is entitled to a free pass to a lifetime
appointment to the Supreme Court," said Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy,
senior Democrat on the committee that will question the 50-year-
old appeals court judge later this summer.
A record heat wave has led to the deaths of 18 people, most of them
homeless, leaving officials scrambling to provide water and shelter
to the city's transient population. For the first time in years,
homeless shelters opened their doors during the day to offer
respite from the blistering sun, which has delivered above-average
temperatures every day since June 29. Police began passing out
thousands of water bottles donated by grocery stores, and city
officials set up tents for shade downtown.
7/21/05 Thursday
Police in London have arrested two men in connection with four
attacks on three subway trains and a double-decker bus today, a
scene hauntingly similar to deadly explosions set off by four
suicide bombers exactly two weeks before. It was an inescapable
message that life in London now means living with the threat of
terror. The explosive devices were either faulty or too small to
cause bloodshed, and the only reported injury turned out to be an
asthma attack. But the lunch-hour blasts rattled a capital already
on edge after the July 7 explosions, which killed 52 people and
four suicide bombers.
Federal agents have shut down an elaborate, 360-foot drug-smuggling
tunnel dug underneath the U.S.-Canadian border - the first such
passageway discovered along the nation's northern edge, officials
said today. Five people were arrested on marijuana trafficking
charges, U.S. Attorney John McKay said in Lynden, Wash., about 90
miles north of Seattle.
Police will begin random searches of bags and packages carried by
people entering New York city subways, officials announced today
after a new series of bomb attacks in London. Passengers carrying
bags will be selected at random before they pass through
turnstiles, and those who refuse to be searched won't be allowed to
ride, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
7/22/05 Friday
Three car bombs exploded in quick succession in the Red Sea resort
of Sharm el-Sheik, ripping through a hotel and a coffeeshop packed
with European and Egyptian tourists. The province governor said at
least 49 people died in the deadliest attack in Egypt in nearly a
decade. The powerful blasts, beginning at 1:15 a.m. Saturday,
rattled windows miles away and sent panicked vacationers streaming
out of hotels and clubs. Smoke and fire rose from Naama Bay, a
main strip of beach hotels in the desert city at the southern tip
of the Sinai Peninsula, also popular with Israeli tourists,
witnesses said.
Undercover police shot and killed a man today in front of stunned
subway passengers and arrested another while snipers and bomb
squads fanned out in a dramatic hunt for the culprits behind
London's latest terror attacks. Using closed-circuit television
images, officials released photos of four suspects in the attempted
bombings - including a man running through a station in a dark
shirt with "NEW YORK" on the front - and appealed for help in
identifying and finding them.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a surprise visit today to a
city wracked by terror and political unrest, welcomed Lebanon's
advances in democracy and signaled to Syria that it should stay out
of its volatile neighbor's internal politics.
7/23/05 Saturday
Police identified the man who was chased down in a subway and shot
to death by plainclothes officers as a Brazilian and said today
they no longer believed he was tied to the recent terror bombings.
Friday's shooting before horrified commuters prompted criticism of
police for overreacting and expressions of fear that Asians and
Muslims would be targeted by a "trigger-happy culture" after two
well-coordinated attacks in two weeks.
In the span of a week, in the throes of a record heat wave, 14
transients have perished on the streets of metropolitan Phoenix.
They lived in obscurity, and many of them died the same way -
anonymous, ignored, alone. Their bodies were found crumpled on
sidewalks near strip malls or in the shadow of downtown
skyscrapers. Some were discovered only after strangers stumbled
upon them and dialed 911. Now, as Salvation Army volunteers pass
out water and social workers coax vagabonds into shelters, the city
is grappling with another challenge: how to put a name to the
nameless, find their families and bury the dead.
7/24/05 Sunday
British police arrested a third man in connection with last week's
failed attack against London's transit system and said today they
were trying to penetrate what they suspect is an al-Qaida network
behind the plot. Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair expressed deep
regret to the family of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian
electrician shot dead by police on the subway Friday after he was
mistaken for a terrorist. Blair called the killing a "tragedy,"
but defended officers' right to use deadly force against suspected
terrorists.
Jolting organized labor, the Teamsters and a massive service
employees' union decided today to bolt the AFL-CIO, paving way for
two other labor groups to sever ties in the movement's biggest
schism since the 1930s. The four dissident unions, representing
nearly one- third of the AFL-CIO's 13 million members, announced
they were boycotting the federation's convention that begins
Monday, a step that was widely considered to be a precursor to
leaving the federation.
"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "Wedding Crashers" held off
a rush of new releases to retain the top two spots at the weekend
box office. But after two straight weekends of rising revenue,
Hollywood slid back into the slump that has lingered most of the
year. The top 12 movies took in $128.9 million, down 7 percent
from the same weekend in 2004.
7/25/05 Monday
Iraq's police force has suffered from inadequate recruiting and
screening of candidates, apparently even allowing some insurgents
to join, a U.S. report said today. Even so, the study by the
inspectors general at the Defense and State departments said the
effort to build up Iraq's police agencies has been a qualified
success.
Four adult Boy Scout leaders were killed today in an electrical
accident while setting up camp at the organization's 2005 Jamboree,
marking with tragedy the first day of a festival that draws
thousands of Scouts and Scout leaders from around the world. The
accident happened between 4:30 and 5 p.m., officials said. Three
others were injured.
The AFL-CIO splintered today, spooking some Democratic Party
leaders and the ranks of organized workers, their futures in the
hands of labor rebels who bolted the 50-year-old federation vowing
to reverse the steep decline in union membership. "Our goal is not
to divide the labor movement but to rebuild it," said Andy Stern,
president of the 1.8 million-member Service Employees International
Union. He and Teamsters President James P. Hoffa said their unions
would leave the AFL-CIO, paving the way for other unions to follow.
A large swath of the U.S. suffered through another miserable day of
sizzling temperatures and high humidity today - a deadly heat wave
that had people cranking up air conditioners, scrambling to cooling
shelters and running through sprinklers in the park. Temperatures
soared past 100 in several cities, and the National Weather Service
posted excessive heat warnings and advisories from Illinois to
Louisiana and from Nebraska to the District of Columbia.
7/26/05 Tuesday
In uneasy reminders of the Columbia accident, a thermal tile
apparently got chipped and other debris whirled around Discovery as
it rumbled toward space today, but it wasn't clear if the shuttle's
sensitive skin had been jeopardized. A 1 1/2-inch-wide bit of tile
captured on camera appeared to fly off the shuttle's belly, on the
edge of a door that encloses the nose landing gear. It was not
clear if the tile had been struck by anything. Pieces of tile,
which protect the shuttle from searing heat on return to Earth,
have been lost on past flights without preventing a safe
homecoming.
Frustrated Senate Democrats struggled to unearth Supreme Court
nominee John Roberts' elusive views on abortion, civil rights and
other controversial issues Tuesday, digging through newly released
government documents while criticizing the White House for refusing
access to thousands more. "It's more than what they need,"
President Bush's spokesman said of the material being turned over.
A blistering heat wave gave Philadelphia summer school students the
equivalent of a snow day today as temperatures climbed into the
upper 90s and so many homeowners cranked up their air conditioners
that their power grid set a record. As a large swath of the United
States suffered through another miserably hot day, several western
states and parts of the Midwest began to feel the relief of a cold
front pushing out what had been days of triple-digit temperatures.
7/27/05 Wednesday
NASA grounded future shuttle flights today because a big chunk of
insulating foam flew off Discovery's fuel tank during liftoff - as
it did in Columbia's doomed mission - but this time apparently
missed the spacecraft. "Until we're ready, we won't go fly again.
I don't know when that might be," shuttle program manager Bill
Parsons told reporters in a briefing this evening.
Near Bowling Green, Va., about 300 people, most of them Boy Scouts,
were sickened by the heat today while waiting for President Bush to
arrive at a memorial service for four Scout leaders who were killed
while pitching a tent beneath a power line. The president's visit
to the Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill was postponed because of
severe thunderstorms and strong wind. Instead, Bush is scheduled
to visit the gathering Thursday.
India's financial capital was paralyzed today by the strongest
rains ever recorded in the nation, with torrential downpours
marooning drivers, snapping communication lines and leaving at
least 200 people dead statewide. At its worst, the rainfall
descended in what looked like a solid wall of water, overwhelming
Bombay, a crowded city long accustomed to monsoon rains.
7/28/05 Thursday
Space shuttle Discovery escaped damage from the potentially deadly
chunk of foam that broke off from the fuel tank during liftoff, but
may have been struck in the wing by a much smaller piece, NASA said
today. Even if the small foam fragment did hit, engineers believe
the impact caused no damage of concern, said deputy shuttle program
manager Wayne Hale.
The Irish Republican Army renounced the use of violence against
British rule today and said it will disarm - a dramatic end to the
IRA's 35-year threat to Northern Ireland and a boost toward peace
making. British Prime Minister Tony Blair praised what he called
"a step of unparalleled magnitude," and leaders in Ireland and the
United States also heralded the announcement as historic.
The police chief warned deadly terror cells could strike any time
as thousands of officers flooded the transit system, made more
arrests and grilled suspects today in their biggest investigation
ever. Exhausted police faced their greatest challenge since World
War II. With sleeper cells still thought to be active, it's "a
race against time," said Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian
Blair.
7/29/05 Friday
After a charged standoff between suspects and police in the British
capital and a raid in Rome on Friday, an official at London's
Metropolitan Police said they believed they had in custody all of
those suspected of trying to carry out the botched attacks. At
least three are of British citizens or legal residents of east
African origin.
President Bush intends to announce next week that he is going
around Congress to install embattled nominee John Bolton as the
U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, senior administration
officials said today. Bush has the power to fill vacancies without
Senate approval while Congress is in recess. Under the
Constitution, a recess appointment during the lawmakers' August
break would last until the next session of Congress, which begins
in January 2007.
Congress today passed sweeping highway and mass transit legislation
that will send nearly $300 billion to the states to build and fix
roads, create thousands of new jobs and - lawmakers hope - save
lives and cut hours wasted in traffic jams. The bill "will affect
every American in some way," said Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt. "The
impact of this bill will be felt for decades to come." Also passed
and ready for the president's desk is the energy bill.
7/30/05 Saturday
A suspect in the failed London transit bombings admitted today to a
role in the attack but said it was only intended to be an
attention-grabbing strike, not a deadly one, a legal expert
familiar with the investigation said. Osman Hussain told
interrogators he wasn't carrying enough explosives even to "harm
people nearby," the expert told The AP. The expert spoke on
condition of anonymity, citing the ongoing investigation, which
under Italian law must remain secret.
Their motto is: "Be prepared." But as the disaster-riddled
National Boy Scout Jamboree carries on following five deaths and
hundreds of heat-related illnesses, event planners from across the
country are wondering just how prepared the Scouts were. "That's
the part that breaks my heart - there are things you can avoid and
things you can't," said Phyllis Cambria, an event planner from Boca
Raton, Fla., who has written several books on the subject. "This
one sounds like it was an avoidable one."
The Oregon Senate today approved a plan to make Oregon the first
state in the nation to require a prescription for many cold and
allergy medicines, an attempt by lawmakers to shut down
methamphetamine labs. The Senate voted 26-4 to approve the
measure, which now returns to the House. Soon the bill is expected
to reach the desk of Gov. Ted Kulongoski, who supports it.
7/31/05 Sunday
Police arrested seven people today during a raid on an apartment in
southern England, bringing to 21 the number in custody in the
relentless hunt for accomplices in the failed July 21 transit
bombings. Investigators determined to prevent further attacks also
were probing possible ties between two of the bombing suspects and
Saudi Arabia, British newspapers reported. Police were searching
for anyone who may have recruited and directed the attackers and
built the explosives.
A couple short strips of fabric dangling from Discovery's belly may
require an unprecedented repair by spacewalking astronauts, if
engineers determine there's even a possibility that the problem
could endanger the shuttle during descent, NASA said today. Teams
of experts were scrambling to understand just how serious the
problem was, with "strong arguments" raging on what to do, if
anything.
Succeeding on his third try to visit them, President Bush comforted
thousands of Boy Scouts today at a national jamboree marred by the
electrocutions of four leaders and stifling heat that sickened
300. "The men you lost were models of good citizenship," Bush told
the estimated 50,000 Scouts, leaders and visitors attending the
event near Bowling Green, Va., where boys yelled "Boy Scouts Rock!"
Despite a boost from the majority leader, there is not enough
Senate support now to override a threatened veto if Congress tries
to ease restrictions on embryonic stem cell research, a key
proponent said today. A favorable Senate vote is considered more
likely now that Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has reversed
his position to support more federal dollars for research.
However, the Senate vote will not matter if, as lawmakers
predicted, a veto by President Bush stands in the House.
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