Day: August 14, 2006

X-ray machines that screen airline passengers’ shoes cannot detect explosives, according to a Homeland Security Department report on aviation screening.

We now know the secret to closing the gap between men’s and women’s wages: promote more women to upper-level management.

The other day on a popular radio talk show several callers suggested that the foiling by British authorities of the latest alleged terrorist plot was in fact just another politically motivated scheme with this country’s chief ally to help justify the Bush and Blair administrations’ military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan and support of Israel.

AFP/Samuel Aranda

Tens of thousands of Lebanese jammed bomb-cratered roads Monday as they returned to still-smoldering scenes of destruction after a tenuous cease-fire ended 34 days of vicious combat between Israel and Hezbollah. Highlighting the fragility of the peace, Hezbollah guerrillas fired at least 10 Katyusha rockets that landed in southern Lebanon early Tuesday, the Israeli army said, adding that nobody was injured. The army said that none of the rockets, which were fired over a two-hour period, had crossed the border and so it had not responded.

The federal program that provides legal help to poor Americans turns away half of its applicants for lack of resources. But that hasn’t stopped its executives from lavishing expensive meals, chauffeur-driven cars and foreign trips on themselves.

President Bush said Monday that Israel defeated Hezbollah’s
guerrillas in the monthlong Mideast war and that the Islamic militants
were to blame for the deaths of hundreds of Lebanese civilians.

Bombed-out roads and traffic jams slowed the delivery of humanitarian relief to south Lebanon after Monday’s cease-fire, and many aid workers were stuck on roads alongside the refugees they were trying to help.

Even if the U.N.-imposed cease-fire holds beyond its implementation Monday, the road to truly ending the Hezbollah-Israel conflict is fraught with difficulties. A dizzying set of conflicting interests could quickly fracture the truce.

Israeli soldiers killed six Hezbollah fighters in four skirmishes in Lebanon after the U.N.-imposed cease-fire took effect Monday, the army said. Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said he took sole responsibility for the offensive, and acknowledged “deficiencies” in the way the war was conducted.