Heavy fighting continued for a second day in two of Iraq’s largest cities as Iraqi security forces clashed with militias connected to Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. In the southern city of Basra, 40 people have been killed and 200 wounded, according to a spokesman for the Iraqi military. In response, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has issued a 72-hour ultimatum for gunmen in Basra to surrender.
“Sixteen months after voters in Michigan voted to kill affirmative action in the public sphere,” opponents of the program “are pushing five more states to ban the practice.” Led by long-time anti-affirmative action activist Ward Connerly, petitions are circulating in Colorado, Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma and Nebraska. Connerly says he has raised “about $1.5 million for the campaigns.”
Air Force lawyer Col. Morris Davis, “who quit as chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo Bay war court five months ago because of what he called political interference has asked to leave the U.S. military.” Morris said that “he submitted retirement papers last week, because of fallout from his criticism of the Guantanamo court and because of family concerns.”
Scientists said yesterday that a chunk of ice seven times the size of Manhattan collapsed off the Wilkins Ice Shelf in western Antarctica. “The event is a result of global warming, said British Antarctic Survey scientist David Vaughan.”
A new analysis by Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. finds that “Wall Street banks, brokerages and hedge funds may report $460 billion in credit losses from the collapse of the subprime mortgage market, or almost four times the amount already disclosed.”
The USA Today writes that the different proposals among the candidates’ health plans boil down to three issues: “Who gets health insurance, how should they get it and who pays.” “McCain’s ideas could continue to leave millions of people without insurance, they say, and could increase the number of employers dropping or limiting health plans.”
Exxon Mobil has “regained the mantle as the world’s biggest company by market value,” overtaking PetroChina Co. Exxon raked in $40.6 billion in profits last year, “the biggest ever for a U.S. company.”
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) wants to scrap the 2005 Real ID Act, the anti-terrorism law that “mandated that states adopt uniform federal standards for driver’s licenses.” “It wasn’t properly considered in the Senate, it creates a national ID card, and it’s a massive unfunded mandate,” he said.
And finally: A new study by the New England Historic Genealogical Society finds that both Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) have famous relatives. Clinton is distantly related to Angelina Jolie, Madonna, Celine Dion, and Jack Kerouac, whereas Obama has ties to both Bushes, Gerald Ford, Lyndon Johnson, Harry Truman and James Madison. McCain is a sixth cousin of First Lady Laura Bush, but is not, as he has claimed in the past, related to the Scottish king Robert the Bruce.
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