83: The number of U.S. soldiers who committed suicide in 2005. The Army’s suicide rate last year, 12.9 per 100,000 soldiers, is the highest since 1999.
Jawad al-Maliki, “an experienced, often outspoken Shiite leader,” will replace fellow Dawa Party member Ibrahim al-Jaafari as the nominee for Iraqi prime minister. “The decision comes one day after Jaafari stepped aside; Sunnis and Kurds see Maliki, a Jaafari ally, as more competent.”
A diverse coalition including MoveOn, the Gun Owners of America and Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) have launched SaveTheInternet.com, a campaign to fight a law moving through Congress “that would abandon Network Neutrality, the Internet’s First Amendment.” (Watch a short video explaining the issue.)
The Chinese Embassy in Washington “sent a delegation to the White House on Friday to demand a detailed explanation of how an adherent of the Falun Gong spiritual sect, which is banned in China, managed to infiltrate the welcome ceremony for Mr. Hu.” Some analysts say “the security breach might end up heightening the distrust between the nations that the visit had been intended to dispel.”
Meanwhile, the protester has been charged with intimidating a foreign official, which carries a penalty of up to six months in jail. The Washington Post calls the charge an “overreaction,” arguing “the United States shouldn’t indirectly apologize to the Chinese by means of an action that affronts American values.”
In the face of a “horrendously bad and worsening situation” in Darfur, the U.N.’s top humanitarian official Jan Egeland says the Security Council and other international players are failing “to exert sufficient pressure on the government of Sudan and other responsible parties” to counter the genocidal violence.
$75.35: The price of a barrel of crude oil yesterday, setting a record high for the fifth day in a row. Also yesterday, congressional leaders announced plans “to ask President Bush to order investigations into possible price gouging by oil companies.”
Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-WV), the ranking minority member on the House ethics committee, “resigned from the panel yesterday over criticism of how he had handled earmarked appropriations and his own finances.” More on Mollohan at TPMMuckraker.
A federal trial judge has blocked a plan by Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline “to require doctors, school counselors and psychotherapists, among others, to report all sexual activity by people under 16, from kissing to sexual intercourse.”
And finally: “What happens if a penny is worth more than 1 cent? That is an issue the United States Mint could soon face if the price of metals keeps rising. Already it costs the mint well more than a cent to make a penny.”
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