From NJ.com, Oct. 12:

Officials investigate crude oil spill
PAULSBORO — Coast Guard and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection officials are investigating the spill of at least 2,300 gallons of crude oil into the Delaware River from a ship docked at the Gloucester County Citgo Asphalt Refinery Wednesday morning.

Despite the ignorant blather of his brainless liberal apologists that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "not a 'Holocaust denier'" but merely calls for more research into whether it happened (gee, thanks for raising this subtle distinction), BBC Monitoring notes an Oct. 5 radio address by His Excellency, delivered in Tehran during Friday prayers—part of a series of state-sponsored rallies for "Al-Quds Day"—in which he shows his hand pretty blatantly:

From New York Newsday, Oct. 12:

Legless man hit by car in Harlem
A homeless panhandler with no legs was critically injured yesterday when he was struck by two cars in Harlem, police said. Donald Samuels, 33, broke several bones, including his pelvis, and was in critical condition last night at Harlem Hospital Center, police said. A witness told police Samuels was in the middle of East 125th Street, near Third Avenue, when was hit by a white van heading west just before 6 a.m.

On the heels of the outcry over the Blackwater massacre, comes another atrocity by a private contractor in Iraq. A particular ugly irony is that this time the victims were members of one of Iraq's threatened minorities—the Armenians, whose very precarious existence in Iraq largely goes unnoticed by the outside world. The painful irony is compounded by the Bush administrations' ongoing betrayal of the historical memory of the World War I-era Armenian genocide, which is once again in the headlines at the moment. From AP, Oct. 11:

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, speaking to the Association of the United States Army in Washington DC Oct. 10, said the US Army of the future will need to concentrate more on training foreign militaries, mastering other languages and customs, and honing its ability to fight small insurgent forces. (AP, Oct. 10). Calling the post-9-11 War on Terrorism "our first protracted conflict with an all-volunteer force since the American Revolution," Gates outlined the challenges facing US forces as this pattern extends indefinitely into the future. Some excerpts from the text, which is online at Defenselink.mil:

Pakistani soldiers and tribal fighters in North Waziristan are observing an unofficial ceasefire while tribesmen bury their fallen killed in air raids. At least 250, including dozens of soldiers, have died and thousands have fled in five days of fierce battles. Residents say up to 50 were killed in Oct. 9 air strikes, some while shopping at a village bazaar. (AlJazeera, Oct. 10) The fighting pitted militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Pashtun tribal force led by Baitullah Meshud against Pakistani army and paramilitary forces. A jirga of leading North Waziristan clerics led by a former member of the National Assembly, Maulana Nek Zaman Haqqani, following day-long negotiations received the bodies of 30 slain soldiers from the jihadis and handed them over to military officials. The clashes, centered on the Mir Ali area, started after the Uzbek fighters ambushed a security forces convoy Oct. 6. (Rediff, India, Oct. 10)

Just a week after Baghdad and Ankara made a public show of pledging cooperation against the PKK, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his military staff Oct. 9 for the first time formally approved unilateral incursions into Iraqi territory to route the Kurdish separatist guerillas. “To put an end to the terrorist organization operating in Iraq, the order has been given to take every kind of measure, legal, economic, political, including also a cross-border operation if necessary," said an official statement issued after the security summit in Ankara. The decision came after 15 Turkish soldiers were killed in guerilla attacks Oct. 7 and 8. The White House reacted by again stressing the need for co-operation between the US, Turkey and Iraq. (AKI, Italy, Oct. 9)

Turkey reacted angrily to the Oct. 10 vote by the House Foreign Relations Committee approving a measure that condemns the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during World War I as an act of genocide. Said President Abdullah Gul in a statement to the Anatolian News Agency: "Unfortunately, some politicians in the United States have once more dismissed calls for common sense, and made an attempt to sacrifice big issues for minor domestic political games. This is not a type of attitude that works to the benefit of, and suits, representatives of a great power like the Unites States of America. This unacceptable decision of the committee, like similar ones in the past, has no validity and is not worthy of the respect of the Turkish people." Turkey has recalled its ambassador in Washington for consultations on the issue. (NYT, Oct. 12) The White House lobbied heavily against the measure, arguing with refreshing blatancy that historical memory should take a back seat to realpolitik. From an AFP account, Oct. 10: