“A police official says U.S. troops opened fire on a car in western Baghdad, killing an Iraqi journalist and her husband. The official says the incident took place late Wednesday in the Tobchi neighborhood. He says U.S. troops open fire on Aseel al-Obeidi and her husband’s car but gave no further details.” (03/11/10)

“The Taliban claimed responsibility Wednesday for a suicide bombing inside a U.S.-Afghan base in eastern Afghanistan that killed two NATO service members. A Taliban operative wearing an Afghan police uniform infiltrated the base Tuesday night and detonated his explosive vest next to a group of soldiers who were warming their hands beside a fire, Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told The Associated Press by phone.” (03/10/10)

“A homemade bomb placed outside a store in northwestern Pakistan where locals watch movies exploded Thursday, killing four people, including a child, said officials. The attack, which also wounded 21 people, occurred on the outskirts of Peshawar, a city near the Afghan border that experienced a wave of bombings at the end of last year but has been fairly quiet in recent months.” (03/11/10)

“Congressional opponents of the war in Afghanistan forced a debate yesterday on the House floor on a resolution to bring U.S. forces home and end the eight-year-old war. The measure ended up losing, 356-65, a margin that had been expected. … Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D., Ohio) introduced the resolution, which would have directed the president to remove all U.S. troops from Afghanistan within 30 days of its adoption. If the president deemed that deadline unsafe, he would have had until the end of the year to end U.S. military presence in the nation. Five Republicans joined 60 Democrats in supporting the measure to force a troop withdrawal. Opposing the resolution were 189 Democrats and 167 Republicans.” (03/11/10)

“The Pentagon said Thursday the cost to build its next-generation fighter jet has doubled to as much as $113 million per plane since 2001. The bad news about the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Progam, delivered Thursday to Congress, was swiftly denounced by lawmakers who said runaway spending on major weapons systems has become all too common.” (03/11/10)

“China and Iran have stepped up their abuses of human rights, targeting both anti-government activists and the free flow of information over the Internet, the State Department said on Thursday. In its annual survey of human rights in 194 countries, the State Department also criticized Cuba, Myanmar, North Korea and Russia, which it faulted for killings of activists and journalists.” (03/11/10)

“Three Army commanders linked to a battle that killed nine Americans in Afghanistan in 2008 been given letters of reprimand for reportedly failing to adequately protect their forces and leaving them vulnerable to attack, U.S. military officials told NBC News on Thursday. The three include the brigade commander, battalion commander and the company commander, Capt. Matthew Myer, who was awarded the Silver Star for bravery for his actions during the battle in the tiny Afghan village of Wanat, near the Pakistani border.” (03/11/10)

“He was raised in New Jersey, where he was on the high school wrestling team and earned a black belt in karate. Nearly a decade later, Sharif Mobley is under arrest in Yemen, suspected of being an al-Qaida member and accused of killing a guard in an attempt to break out of a hospital. While some acquaintances were startled by the news out of the Middle East on Thursday, a former classmate said that Mobley had strong religious views in high school, often trying to convert friends to Islam, and became increasingly radical, especially after they graduated in 2002.” (03/11/10)

“The Oregon Supreme Court today kept alive claims by Klamath Basin farmers that the federal government should pay them for shutting off water to crops in 2001 to help protected fish survive a drought. A federal appeals court had asked the state Supreme Court for guidance on a 1905 state law that gave water to the Klamath Reclamation Project, a federal irrigation project. The state Supreme Court decided that while the law does not give farmers a property interest in the federally owned water, it does not preclude it either.” (03/11/10)

“The House of Representatives voted unanimously Thursday to impeach Judge G. Thomas Porteous Jr. of U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, making him the nation’s 15th federal judge ever impeached. ‘Our investigation found that Judge Porteous participated in a pattern of corrupt conduct for years,’ said U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-California, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee Task Force on Judicial Impeachment.” (03/11/10)

“State Sen. Mae Beavers said Thursday that she will run for re-election, dropping her bid for Wilson County mayor and setting up a possible primary battle with state Rep. Susan Lynn. Beavers said that she decided to reverse course after deciding that she could continue to advance the Republican agenda if her party wins the governor’s office and holds onto their majorities in the legislature. She denied that personal animosity toward Lynn factored into her decision. ‘That had nothing to do with it,’ she said. Lynn said she had heard rumors that Beavers was considering seeking re-election but did not learn of her decision until this morning. She said she plans to continue with her Senate bid for at least the immediate future, but she would not say whether she is considering a run for re-election in the House.” [editor’s note: The real chaos here is its effect down the political food-chain, where several contenders are preparing to vie for Lynn’s House seat, and so on down the line - SAT] (03/11/10)

“If you want to know just what your kids are learning from their history books, all you have to do is apply the ‘Reagan test,’ says Professor Larry Schweikart. As the Texas textbook battle continues to simmer, Schweikart says the first thing he does to determine whether a book is politically slanted is to go to any section discussing President Ronald Reagan. What you’ll find there, he says, will tell you everything you need to know, he says. Schweikart says the majority of books he’s examined credit former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev with ending the Cold War, and not Reagan. That’s ‘a joke,’ Schweikart says. ‘I lived through the Reagan years, I remember.’ … Schweikart says the textbooks’ authors bring an inherently liberal viewpoint to their work. … Aside from bias, there are factual errors as well.” (03/11/10)

“Up to half the food aid intended for the millions of hungry people in Somalia is being diverted to corrupt contractors, radical Islamic militants, and local UN workers, according to a UN Security Council report. The report blames the problem on improper food distribution by the UN World Food Program in the African nation, which has been plagued by fighting and humanitarian suffering for nearly two decades, according to a UN diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity. It calls on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to authorize an independent investigation of the Rome-based food agency’s operation in Somalia. Because of Somalia’s instability, transporters must truck food through roadblocks manned by an array of militias, insurgents, and bandits. Kidnappings and executions are common, and the insecurity makes it difficult for senior UN officials to travel to the country to check on procedures.” (03/11/10)

“A bill that would ban the sale of sugary drinks and junk food in school vending machines and school stores is gaining momentum in the Legislature, as Massachusetts combats a troubling rise in childhood obesity rates. The House passed it in January, after nearly a decade of debate on similar bills that went nowhere. Now, Senate President Therese Murray has thrown her support behind the effort and is optimistic that members will embrace it in a scheduled Senate vote today. ‘We haven’t heard anything negative from members,’ Murray said in an interview. ‘Obviously, everyone is very alarmed about the high level of diabetes and obesity rates. It’s a crisis.’” (03/11/10)

“Governors and education leaders on Wednesday proposed sweeping new school standards that could lead to students across the country using the same math and English textbooks and taking the same tests, replacing a patchwork of state and local systems in an attempt to raise student achievement nationwide. But states must first adopt the rigorous new Common Core State Standards, and implementing the standards on such a large scale won’t be easy. Two states, Texas and Alaska, have already refused to join the project, and everyone from state legislatures to the nation’s 10,000 local school boards and 3 million teachers could chime in with their opinions. Since No Child Left Behind became law in 2002, every state has been required to create a set of K-12 grade-level learning goals in math and English. Most often, state standards were developed by committees of teachers, and the quality varied from state to state.” [editor’s note: Having worked a seasonal job for the past near-decade, scoring the results of such “standards” (from about a dozen states), I’ve borne witness to the good, bad and VERY ugly of all of this - SAT] (03/11/10)

“The political fight over the science of global warming took another turn when the United Nations announced Wednesday that it was initiating an investigation into the practices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The probe will be run by an international consortium of national academies of science, the InterAcademy Council. The yet-to-be-staffed panel is charged with developing recommendations on procedural improvements that the global climate-science advisory body should adopt as it prepares a new set of reports on climate science, due out in 2014. The actions are a response to more than three months of embarrassing revelations, beginning with the widespread publication of e-mails either leaked or hacked from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit in England.” (03/11/10)