Submitted by admin on Mon, 2006-11-27 08:00. ::
WASHINGTON - Arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court could determine whether the U.S. auto industry will face tougher regulations on cars and trucks because of concerns about global warming.
The court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in a case brought by a coalition of 12 states, three cities and environmental groups seeking to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to consider whether it should regulate carbon dioxide from vehicles, which account for 23 percent of the United States' output of the gas.
The industry has been locked in a legal battle with the State of California since 2004 over the state's attempt to impose fuel economy standards of up to 40 miles per gallon on some vehicles as a way of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The industry says only the federal government has the power to set such rules.
The government contends that even if it wanted to change the rules, developing new technology and rolling it into the vehicle fleet would likely take two decades before affecting "a tiny percentage reduction in worldwide greenhouse gas."
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish leaders called on Sunday for an end to Iraq's sectarian conflict and vowed to track down those responsible for the war's deadliest attack.
But as they went on national television to try to keep Iraq from sliding into an all-out civil war, fighting between Iraqi security forces and Sunni Arab insurgents raged for a second day in Baqouba, the capital of Diyala province north of Baghdad.
During Saturday's fighting in Baqouba, police killed at least 36 insurgents and wounded dozens after scores of militants armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades attacked government buildings in the city center, police said. The fighting raged for hours in the city, about 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.
LONDON - A British Cabinet minister accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of "attacks on individual liberty and on democracy" and said Sunday that relations with Moscow were strained after a former KGB agent was poisoned to death in London.
Peter Hain, the government's Northern Ireland Secretary, said Putin's tenure had been clouded by incidents "including an extremely murky murder of the senior Russian journalist" Anna Politkovskaya.
They were the strongest comments leveled at Moscow since Alexander Litvinenko died Thursday from poisoning by the radioactive element polonium-210. In a dramatic statement dictated from his hospital bed, the Kremlin critic accused the "barbaric and ruthless" Putin of ordering his poisoning.
WASHINGTON - President Bush reaches out to allies this week for help in quelling violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, in a burst of diplomacy from a Baltic summit of NATO partners to Mideast talks with Iraq's prime minister.
Just back from an eight-day trip to Asia, Bush was leaving on Monday on another overseas trip as pressure builds at home for a change in his administration's Iraq strategy amid deepening tensions and violence in that country.
Estonia and Latvia have sent troops to both Iraq and Afghanistan and the United States considers the two former Soviet republics important allies.
From Latvia, the president heads to Amman, Jordan, for two days of talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Jordan was deemed a less dangerous setting for the meeting than Baghdad.
Democratic probes may lead to sharp divisions WASHINGTON - The incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee is promising an array of oversight investigations that could provoke sharp disagreement with Republicans and the White House.
Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., pledged that Democrats, swept to power in the Nov. 7 elections, would govern "in the middle" next year. But the veteran lawmaker has a reputation as one who has never avoided a fight and he did not back away from that reputation on Sunday.
Spending on government contractors in Iraq, including Halliburton Co., the Texas-based oil services conglomerate once led by Vice President Dick Cheney.
the path to happiness NEW YORK - As a motivational speaker and executive coach, Caroline Adams Miller knows a few things about using mental exercises to achieve goals. But last year, one exercise she was asked to try took her by surprise.
Every night, she was to think of three good things that happened that day and analyze why they occurred. That was supposed to increase her overall happiness.
Miller was assigned the task as homework in a master's degree program. But as a chronic worrier, she knew she could use the kind of boost the exercise was supposed to deliver.
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