In the News: Jan-31

FBI: Students' 'bombs' were fireworks - 31 Jan 2008 at 3:25pm - TAMPA, Fla. -- Two Egyptian college students arrested near a South Carolina Navy weapons station last year were carrying low-grade fireworks, as they claimed, not the dangerous explosives as charged by federal prosecutors, the FBI has determined.

Bush 2009 budget to freeze many programs - 31 Jan 2008 at 3:18pm - WASHINGTON -- President Bush's 2009 budget will virtually freeze most domestic programs and seek nearly $200 billion in savings from federal health care programs, a senior administration official said Thursday.

Bush's Afghan policy raked at hearing - 31 Jan 2008 at 2:38pm - WASHINGTON -- Skeptical senators from both parties swept aside the Bush administration's optimistic defense of its strategy in Afghanistan Thursday, suggesting weariness over the campaign against the Taliban.

Group pans authoritarian rule - 31 Jan 2008 at 2:49pm - WASHINGTON -- Authoritarian rulers are violating human rights around the world and getting away with it largely because the U.S., European and other established democracies accept their claims that merely holding elections makes them democratic, Human Rights Watch said Thursday.

Bush prods Congress on eavesdropping law - 31 Jan 2008 at 1:23pm - Sternly prodding Congress, President Bush said Thursday that lawmakers are jeopardizing the nation's safety by failing to lock ...

Army suicides up as much as 20 percent - 31 Jan 2008 at 9:26am - WASHINGTON -- As many as 121 Army soldiers committed suicide in 2007, a jump of some 20 percent over the year before, officials said Thursday.

Report: Military not ready for US attack - 31 Jan 2008 at 10:01am - WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military isn't ready for a catastrophic attack on the country, and National Guard forces don't have the equipment or training they need for the job, according to a report.

Thought for the day:
At the present rate of progress, it is almost impossible to imagine any technical feat that cannot be achieved - if it can be achieved at all - within the next few hundred years. -Arthur C. Clarke (1917 - ), 1983