USA
US military tribunals resumed Wednesday at the Guantánamo prison camp in Cuba, exactly four years after the first suspected terrorists arrived at the controversial facility. Two were to stand trial: Ali Hamza al Bahlul, who is accused of being a bodyguard for terrorist kingpin Osama bin Laden, and Omar Khadr, a Canadian accused of killing an American Army medic with a grenade at a suspected Al Qaeda compound in Afghanistan. The cases of other detainees have been halted until the Supreme Court rules on whether President Bush had the authority to establish the tribunals.
The Bring New Orleans Back Commission's blueprint for the city's reconstruction calls for restoring all its neighborhoods, including poorer ones severely damaged by hurricane Katrina, according to early indications. The commission was scheduled to share its report Wednesday. Some urban planners have encouraged concentration on revitalizing areas that were not flooded or are less vulnerable.
The Office of Professional Responsibility, an independent watchdog within the Justice Department, said it lacks authority to call for a probe of the NationSecurity Agency's domestic eavesdropping program. Congress, however, plans to investigate the decision by the White House to authorize the interception of calls and e-mails of those with suspected ties to terrorist groups.
The Environmental Protection Agency announced proposed changes in its procedures for gauging gas mileage in cars. The new testing regime, meant to provide a more accurate reading under real driving conditions and not just in laboratory tests, is expected to decrease mileage figures by 10 to 30 percent.
In a study of workday-related drinking, 15 percent of respondents said they were directly affected by alcohol at work, either by drinking on or before the job or by working with a hangover. The results were compiled by the University of Buffalo's Research Institute on Addictions.
Navy teams extended their search Wednesday for a twin-engine jet, carrying four aviation trainees, that disappeared Tuesday shortly after takeoff from Pensacola, Fla.
Judging from footprints at the site, the 11 men who died in the recent Tallmansville, W.Va, coal mine explosion tried to escape using a mechanized mine car, according to family members of the sole survivor. The information was shared with the relatives by a mining executive.
More than a hundred homes on the outskirts of Denver were evacuated as a precaution against wildfires. Meanwhile, Bush issued a federal disaster declaration for Oklahoma to faciliate federal funding to 12 counties where grass fires have burned nearly 400,000 acres.
