From Earth First!, March 29:

Environmental Activists Jailed as Grand Jury Indictments Increase

San Francisco, CA—As attorneys argue in federal court in San Francisco on March 30 to quash a grand jury investigating a protest in San Francisco, activists point to current trends that use secret grand juries to carry out broad, politically-motivated sweeps of environmental and other activists around the country.

From the technology news site CNET, March 29:

Unmanned aerial vehicles have soared the skies of Afghanistan and Iraq for years, spotting enemy encampments, protecting military bases, and even launching missile attacks against suspected terrorists.

The final results of Israel's Knesset election are as follows: Kadima, the party created by Sharon and now led by Ehud Olmert has 29 seats, a disappointment considering polls had projected up to 43 seats at one point. Labor, led by Moroccan-born Amir Peretz, has 20. The Mizrahi Orthodox party Shas and Likud have 12 each. Yisrael Beiteinu, the party led by Moldovan-born xenophobe Avigdor Lieberman, who once threatened to blow up the Aswan dam, won 11. The transferist National Union-National Religious Party won nine; the Pensioners' Party, led by Jonathan Pollard's control agent Rafi Eitan, won seven; the non-Zionist United Torah Judaism won six; the increasingly moribund Zio-leftist Meretz won five; the Palestinian Israeli Ra'am-Ta'al party, led by Sheik Sarsur of the more moderate southern wing of the Israeli Islamic movement, won three; the Arab-Jewish communist faction Hadash led by Mohammed Barekeh, won three; and the Balad party led by Palestinian nationalist Azmi Bishara won three. The lowest voter turnout in Israeli history was advantageous for the smaller parties as it lowered the amount of votes needed to pass the 2% threshold to enter the Knesset. Likud also suffered as a result of a voter backlash against the neo-liberal policies of current party leader and former finance minister Benyamin Netanyahu. The pro-marijuana Green Leaf party did not make it past the threshold. (Haaretz, March 31)

File this under words-mean-whatever-we-say-they-mean. NYU "had not put any pressure on [the Objectivist Club's] free speech", but "said the panel discussion could not be open to the public if the cartoons were shown on stage." Huh? It's amazing how absolutely everybody pays lip service to free speech, while practically nobody upholds it. And of course it is right-wing nimrods like the Objectivists and the New York Sun who get to reap the propaganda benefits of this capitulation. Will "progressives" never learn? From The Sun, March 30:

From the New York Times, March 29:

Nanny Is Hit by Truck While Seeking Help to Save a Choking Baby

An Upper East Side nanny trying to save a choking boy was struck by a truck yesterday after she wandered into a busy Manhattan street on her way to the hospital, the police said. When she collapsed from her injuries, strangers and a police officer took the child from her, revived him and took him to the hospital.

The latest shoot-out between US forces and the Sadr militia has prompted an alliance between Sadr and his longtime rival in the Shiite movement, the Iran-backed Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which controls the equally formidable Badr militia. This will, of course, increase the pressure on Washington to effect "regime change" in Iran... From The Guardian, March 28:

We especially love the lip service to "freedom of religion" in the Afghan constitution. Of course, WW4 REPORT warned of this contradiction all the way back to the Bonn Accords, the consolidation of the interim Afghan government, the Loya Jirga, and the consolidation of the new Afghan state. But, hey, nobody ever listens to us! By the way, this is also a taste of what we can look forward to in Iraq under the best scenario Bush can offer. Pretty sad that these are the forces the US is supporting in the name of "secularism"—while the forces they oppose (Taliban, Iraqi insurgents) are merely more militantly anti-secular (meaning, mostly, that they are less hypocritical and do not bother to pay lip service, having no incentive in the form of US aid and protection to do so). From The Guardian, March 27:

From Israel's Haaretz, March 24:

WASHINGTON - Harvard University has decided to remove its logo from a study that denounces the pro-Israel lobby's impact on American foreign policy, in order to distance itself from the study's conclusions.