News
in a few
Terrorism • The
head of a militant Islamic prison gang
and three others were indicted Wednesday
on federal charges of planning terrorist
attacks against National Guard facilities,
the Israeli Consulate and other Los Angeles-area
targets. The four conspired to wage war
against the U.S. government through terrorism,
kill armed service members and murder
foreign officials, among other charges,
according to the indictment.
Relief • The
Bush administration agreed Wednesday
to release oil from emergency stockpiles
to help Gulf Coast refiners hobbled by
a loss of shipments due to Hurricane
Katrina. The administration also moved
to temporarily ease some pollution standards
on gasoline and diesel fuel to avert
shortages.
Resignation • The highly regarded women’s health
chief at the Food and Drug Administration resigned Wednesday in protest of
her agency’s refusal to allow over-the-counter sales of emergency contraception.
Assistant Commissioner Susan Wood charged that the FDA’s leader overruled
his own scientists’ determination that the morning-after pill could
safely be sold without a prescription, and stunned his employees last week
by instead postponing indefinitely a decision on whether to let that happen.
Protest • Cindy Sheehan packed up her campsite outside
President George W. Bush’s ranch Wednesday and took her war protest
on the road, ending a nearly month-long vigil that drew thousands and ignited
an anti-war movement. Rather than heading home to California, the grieving
mother of a 24-year-old solider who died in Iraq boarded one of three buses
heading on tour to spread her message.
Religion • The Naval Academy has no plans to drop
the regular saying of grace before its midshipmen’s lunch, despite
a policy issued this week by the Air Force to discourage most public prayer,
a spokesman said. The Naval Academy is the only U.S. military institution
that holds formal prayer at lunch, a ritual that might date to its founding
in 1845. Its chaplains say grace at the mandatory lunch for its more than
4,100 midshipmen. Prayers are nondenominational and are led by Roman Catholic,
Jewish or Protestant chaplains.
Science • Taiwanese
researchers of Taipei’s Academia
Sinica claimed Wednesday that they have
developed an alternative to laboratory
mice for testing new medicines — using
fluorescent fish to show the impact of
experimental drugs on cancerous tumors.
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