Cheat Sheet
The Best In Brief
Please register to manage your email preferences and comment on the site.
Israeli troops fired on protesters attempting to cross the border between Syria and the Israel-occupied Golan Heights on Sunday, leaving 25 dead and more than 350 wounded, according to the Syrian state news agency. The protests came on the anniversary of the Six Day War in 1967, when Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria and seized other Palestinian territories. The Syrian government may have enabled the activists to distract from its violence against anti-regime protesters, at least 30 of whom were killed elsewhere in the country Sunday.) While the Israeli military would not confirm any casualties, they said that they did use live ammunition on the protesters. “We warned them verbally (and) with warning shots into the air,” Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich told CNN. "And when these two options failed, we had to open fire selectively into the area."
Owing to what U.S. officials are calling “strategic considerations”—namely, the rising cost of the war and the death of Osama bin Laden—President Obama’s national-security team is contemplating even steeper troop reductions in Afghanistan than those discussed weeks ago. There are still reservations given mixed results in getting Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s troops prepared to take the lead in the war, but the National Security Council is convening its monthly meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan on Monday, and will debate not only how many troops to get out in July, but also discuss setting a final date by which all U.S. "surge" troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan. Before the recent “strategic considerations,” officials were anticipating an initial drawdown of 3,000 to 5,000 troops. Gen. David Petraeus, however, sounded a cautious note, telling The New York Times on Sunday that the Taliban would try to “regain the momentum they had a year ago.”
Thousands of Yemeni men and women filled the streets Sunday, singing, dancing and shooting off fireworks in celebration of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's departure to Saudi Arabia. The president was injured Friday by rocket attack on his palace. There was still violence after his depature: Yemeni troops were fighting off gunmen who stormed the presidential palace. amd residents in the capital, Sanaa, also said forces continued to shell the homes of opposition leaders. The bloodshed suggested the power struggle in Yemen is far from over, and an anonymous official vowed that the president would return within a week.
German bean sprouts are likely the cause of the deadliest E. coli outbreak in modern history. After suspecting cucumbers, tomatoes, and lettuce, German authorities now believe bean sprouts grown in Lower Saxony are to blame for the infection that has killed at least 22 people. The test results haven't shown conclusively that the sprouts are to blame, but an agriculture ministry spokesman said “all indications speak to them being” the cause. The government is alerting people to stop eating the sprouts.
Arizona firefighters resorted to extreme measures to fight the third-worst fire in state history on Sunday, intentionally burning many acres to steer the wildfire away from several mountain communities. The Wallow Fire, which has already scorched more than 144,000 acres, forced about 2,100 residents of Phoenix-area towns Alpine and Nutrioso to evacuate. Smoke from the wildfire even reached as far as New Mexico and Colorado. Moreover, weather forecasters were predicting dry thunderstorms in Arizona, which could fuel the raging fire, according to the fire management team. About 1,300 firefighters, including some from as far away as New York and Oregon, are helping local Arizona firefighters contain the blaze.
How much is the state of Indiana willing to lose to prevent abortions? Earlier this year, the state, led by Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels and a GOP-controlled legislature, became the first to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood, issuing a direct affront to the federal government. In so doing, Indiana is risking losing all federal money for their Medicaid programs—totaling $4.3 billion—and leaving more than 1 million poor and elderly Indiana residents without health care. This week, the Obama administration ordered Indiana to drop its ban on Planned Parenthood funding, warning that violating federal law can result in a withholding of all Medicaid funding. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood has filed suit to challenge Indiana's new law, so the matter could be decided in the courtroom.
Before former North Carolina senator and vice-presidential candidate John Edwards was indicted Friday on charges that he committed campaign-finance violations in covering up of his affair and love child with mistress Rielle Hunter, prosecutors made him a final offer: They would accept his guilty plea to three misdemeanor violations for six months in prison, according to the News & Observer. A “furious back and forth” followed, sources told the News & Observer, and Edwards and his legal team contemplated the deal late into the hours Thursday, and did not turn it down until a few minutes before his indictment was returned by the grand jury around 9:30 a.m Friday.
Sarah Palin is defending her account of Paul Revere and his midnight ride. "I didn't mess up," Palin told Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday. Last week in Boston she said that Revere "warned, uh, the British that they weren't gonna be takin' away our arms." The main objective of Revere's ride was to warn Samuel Adams and John Hancock that the British were marching to arrest them. However, the hurry of hooves was not, as Palin claims, a warning to the British that the Americans weren't going to surrender their arms.
Although her old network NBC reportedly made a strong effort to woo her, Katie Couric, the former anchor of The CBS Evening News, is set to announce that she will be joining ABC on Monday, reports The New York Times. Couric was in high demand, being courted by top media executives Leslie Moonves of CBS, Steve Burke of NBC, Jeff Bewkes of Time Warner (CNN), and Disney’s Bob Iger (ABC). Couric will host a syndicated talk show, and while details of the deal with ABC have not been disclosed, as a co-owner of the show, Couric will share in the profits. A chief negotiator in the talks told the Times, “We all know what we’re looking at with a successful syndicated show—$100 million to $300 million a year” in revenue, which could mean tens of millions of dollars per year for Couric.
The usual suspects took home the golden popcorn statues at the 2011 MTV Movie Awards in California on Sunday. Hosted by Jason Sudeikis, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse took home awards for Best Male (Robert Pattinson) and Best Female (Kristen Stewart) performances, as well as Best Fight, and Best Kiss. The latter provided some unexpected excitement, as co-stars Pattinson and Taylor Lautner celebrated the award by sharing a kiss. Pattinson also accidentally dropped an F-bomb during the telecast. Meanwhile, pop star Justin Bieber took home the award for Best Jaw-Dropping Moment for his 3-D concert film, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never, and Reese Witherspoon was honored with the Generation Award for her diverse body of work.
It’s been a good week for the fight against cancer. First, a drug was found that can prevent breast cancer from occurring and, according to study in the New England Journal of Medicine published Sunday, two new drugs can prolong survival for newly diagnosed patients with melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer. The drugs—Yervoy from Bristol-Myers Squibb and vemurafenib from Roche Holding and Daiichi Sankyo—treat the disease in different ways. Yervoy works by strengthening the body’s immune system to fight the disease, and can extend survival by two months more than patients on standard chemotherapy. In a study of 502 patients, after three years about 21 percent of patients on Yervoy were living, as opposed to 12 percent who relied on chemotherapy alone. Meanwhile, vemurafenib blocks a genetic mutation which helps the disease grow, and in a study of 675 patients, 63 percent of them had a reduction in the risk of death after three months. There were 68,130 new cases of melanoma in the U.S. last year, with about 8,700 deaths, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Audiences haven't tired of the mutant-superhero franchise X-Men, as the reboot X-Men: First Class took home the box-office crown, opening to $56 million in its debut weekend. Directed by Matthew Vaughn, the film boasted a new cast of up-and-comers, led by James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender, and managed to beat the opening weekend gross of the original X-Men, which made $54.5 million in 2000. The Hangover: Part II came in second, dropping a steep 62 percent in its second weekend for a take of $32.4 million, and an overall domestic gross of $186.9 million. A few films reached milestones this weekend, as Bridesmaids crossed the $100 million mark, showing legs by earning $12.1 million in its fourth weekend, and the action franchise Fast Five became the year’s first film to reach the $200 million mark at the domestic box office.
SITE DESIGN BY CODE AND THEORY.
