Third US swine flu death confirmed
by Agency French Presse
The third US fatality from swine flu has been confirmed in the northwestern state of Washington as officials pointed out that the spreading disease posed a serious problem.State health officials said in a statement a man in his 30s with an underlying heart condition died last week with what appeared to be complications from the A(H1N1) influenza virus. |
Report: CIA was authorized to keep prisoners awake for 11 days
by Agence France-Presse
WASHINGTON – More than 25 of the CIA’s war-on-terror prisoners were subjected to sleep deprivation during the administration of former president George W. Bush, The Los Angeles Times reported.Citing memoranda made public by the Justice Department, the newspaper said that at one point, the Central Intelligence Agency was allowed to keep prisoners awake for as long as 11 days. |
Father Cutié: From talk shows to talk of town
by Lydia Martin
As his love affair continues to fuel gossip in the Catholic community, the Rev. Alberto Cutié said he is at peace now his double life is out in the open.Charming, hip and part of an influential Miami inner circle that includes celebrities, TV news personalities and slick power brokers, Father Alberto Cutié has always appeared to navigate with ease the disparate worlds of clergy and society. |
Put Aside Logic
by Maureen Dowd
THE FINAL FRONTIER I dreamed that Spock saved our planet, The Daily Planet of journalism.Instead of swooping in to figure out the dimensionality and logarithms to rescue the world from red matter, as Spock does in J. J. Abrams’s dazzling new “Star Trek,” I imagined Spock rescuing read matter for the world. |
Provacateurs: G20 Police 'Used Undercover Men to Incite Crowds'
by Jamie Doward and Mark Townsend
An MP who was involved in last month's G20 protests in London is to call for an investigation into whether the police used agents provocateurs to incite the crowds.Liberal Democrat Tom Brake says he saw what he believed to be two plain-clothes police officers go through a police cordon after presenting their ID cards. |
The American Press on Suicide Watch
by Frank Rich
IF you wanted to pick the moment when the American news business went on suicide watch, it was almost exactly three years ago. That's when Stephen Colbert, appearing at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner, delivered a monologue accusing his hosts of being stenographers who had, in essence, let the Bush White House get away with murder (or at least the war in Iraq). To prove the point, the partying journalists in the Washington Hilton ballroom could be seen (courtesy of C-Span) fawning over government potentates - in some cases the very "sources" who had fed all those fictional sightings of Saddam Hussein's W.M.D. |
Afghan Students Protest Against Civilian Casualties
by Akram Walizada
KABUL - Chanting "Death to America!" and weeping as they prayed, hundreds of Kabul university students marched on Sunday in protest against U.S. air strikes last week that Afghan officials say killed more than 100 civilians.Washington has acknowledged that some civilians were killed during a battle in which its aircraft bombed Afghan villages. |
GM, union clash as bankruptcy looms for auto giant
by Agence France-Presse
General Motors is sparring with its main union over plans to shut US plants and outsource production to Mexico and Asia as bankruptcy looms over the troubled automaker, union sources said.Negotiations were also complicated by a long-standing feud between GM and the United Auto Workers as they raced to fashion a new labor agreement ahead of the June 1 deadline imposed by President Barack Obama’s automotive task force. |
Petraeus: Taliban threaten existence of Pakistan
by Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The head of the U.S. Central Command says Taliban militants are a "true threat" to the existence of Pakistan. But Gen. David Petraeus (peh-TRAY'-uhs) says he is confident that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is safe from militants.Petraeus also is claiming that Taliban brutality in northwestern Pakistan has "galvanized" the entire country, including its military, behind the recently launched offensive against the militant organization. |
Pakistani president: Osama bin Laden is dead
by David Edwards and Jeremy Gantz
Two weeks ago, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zadari suggested that Osama bin Laden might be dead, saying that U.S. and Pakistani intelligence agencies had been unable to detect any sign of the world’s most wanted man since an audio recording of his voice was released in March. |
