Toward the end of his first 100 days in office, President George W. Bush suspended proposed Clinton administration regulations to clamp down on arsenic in drinking water, arguing that more study was needed. His action drew the ire of Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer. "I sent Arsenic and Old Lace over to the White House with a note that says, 'Don't you know arsenic kills? Watch the movie,'" she tells U.S. News. "I never got an answer." In the end, Bush allowed the Clinton rule to take effect. Democrats notched a win, but arsenic proved to be just the opening salvo in a red-faced battle over all things green.
Climate pressure continues to build over the White House. Last week, the Supreme Court unraveled one of the Bush administration's principal legal arguments for opposing federal action on climate change by ruling that carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases could be regulated under the Clean Air Act. According to the act, the EPA must regulate emissions, in this case those from automobiles, which "may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare." To date, the EPA has denied petitions to consider whether or not greenhouse gases contribute to climate change. In a split 5-to-4 decision, the majority ruled that the Bush administration offered "no reasoned explanation" for its refusal.
The organization Reporters Without Borders is reporting today that three Iraqi journalists have been killed in as many days in Iraq. Two radio reporters were abducted and later killed in separate incidents, and a deputy TV director died when a truck bomb detonated at the offices of the satellite TV station where he worked.
AP - British sailors and marines freed by Iran said Friday they were blindfolded, isolated in cold stone cells and tricked into fearing execution while being coerced into falsely saying they had entered Iranian waters.
AP - A suspected al-Qaida in Iraq suicide bomber smashed a truck loaded with TNT and toxic chlorine gas into a police checkpoint in Ramadi on Friday, killing at least 27 people the ninth such attack since the group's first known use of a chemical weapon in January.
AP - Navy divers searched the sunken wreckage of a cruise ship on Friday for the bodies of a Frenchman and his daughter who disappeared after the vessel foundered on a volcanic reef the only two people missing despite what passengers described as a chaotic evacuation in the Aegean Sea.