news snippets from Think Progress

ThinkFast: April 25, 2006
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Rep. Charles H. Taylor (R-NC) is single-handedly blocking a $10 million request to buy land for a memorial to the passengers and crew of Flight 93. Taylor, “a large landowner in the mountains of western Carolina,” believes the federal government already owns too much land.
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In Alaska, lab reports discovered that several cruise passengers had suffered from an outbreak of bacteria that “normally grows on shellfish harvested in much warmer waters.” The outbreak “highlighted how surprisingly and directly global warming can affect human health, particularly in terms of infectious diseases.”
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The Pentagon plans to “release” 141 detainees from Guantanamo Bay, but Reuters notes that only 22 of them will actually be freed. The other 119 will be transferred to prisons in their home countries.
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The Washington Post slams the new conservative House ethics bill as a “watered-down sham that would provide little in the way of accountability or transparency. If the Senate-passed measure was a disappointment, the House version is simply a joke.”
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6 million: Number of people in the Horn of Africa at risk of dying from the “worst drought in two decades.” Oxfam director Barbara Stocking: “This crisis might be getting less attention that the tsunami did. … But the number of people needing help is even greater.”
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And finally: President Bush yesterday explaining his efforts to avert war: “I can look you in the eye and tell you I feel I tried to solve the problem diplomatically to the max and would have committed troops both in Afghanistan and Iraq, knowing what I know today.”

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