'Report Warned Bush Team About Intelligence Doubts'

article by DOUGLAS JEHL here.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 5 — A top member of Al Qaeda in American custody was identified as a likely fabricator months before the Bush administration began to use his statements as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Al Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons, according to newly declassified portions of a Defense Intelligence Agency document.

The document, an intelligence report from February 2002, said it was probable that the prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, “was intentionally misleading the debriefers’’ in making claims about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda’s work with illicit weapons.

The document provides the earliest and strongest indication of doubts voiced by American intelligence agencies about Mr. Libi’s credibility. Without mentioning him by name, President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Colin L. Powell, then secretary of state, and other administration officials repeatedly cited Mr. Libi’s information as “credible’’ evidence that Iraq was training Al Qaeda members in the use of explosives and illicit weapons.

'Malfeasance Might Have Hurt Levees, Engineers Say'

article by JOHN SCHWARTZ here.

 

WASHINGTON, Nov. 2 - The head of a team of engineering experts told a Senate committee on Wednesday that malfeasance during construction might have been one reason for the catastrophic failure of the levees that were supposed to protect New Orleans from hurricanes.

"These levees should have been expected to perform adequately at these levels if they had been designed and constructed properly," said the expert, Raymond Seed, a professor of civil engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

"Not just human error was involved," Professor Seed said. "There may have been malfeasance."

 

'Love the Riches, Lose the Rags'

article by JODI KANTOR here.

ONCE upon a time, Cinderella was one of the humblest souls in the world of children's entertainment. Named for the soot she constantly swept from her wicked stepfamily's hearth, she befriended rodents and warbled patiently until she was rescued by her fairy godmother and her prince.

...

But the Cinderella featured in the new crush of products is quite different from the docile, selfless young lady of earlier versions. In the Brothers Grimm and Disney movie stories, the character is distinguished by her modesty and lack of concern with material possessions. These days, she rarely wears anything but a sumptuous ball gown, prefers the company of fellow royals, shops at a glass slipper boutique, and encourages her young charges to primp for hours at her top-selling Magical Talking Vanity ($69.99).

'Fuel's paradise? Power source that turns physics on its head'

article by ALOK JHA here.

It seems too good to be true: a new source of near-limitless power that costs virtually nothing, uses tiny amounts of water as its fuel and produces next to no waste. If that does not sound radical enough, how about this: the principle behind the source turns modern physics on its head.

Randell Mills, a Harvard University medic who also studied electrical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, claims to have built a prototype power source that generates up to 1,000 times more heat than conventional fuel. Independent scientists claim to have verified the experiments and Dr Mills says that his company, Blacklight Power, has tens of millions of dollars in investment lined up to bring the idea to market. And he claims to be just months away from unveiling his creation.

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'geraldo at large'

article by DANA STEVENS here.

In another recent interview (Geraldo may have his limits as an interviewer, but he's a fantastic interview subject), Rivera had this to say about the critical bias against him: "Bill Moyers could urinate on a tree and the writers would say, 'Oh, how elegant.' ... I could get an interview with Jesus, and they'd say, 'He was too hard on him, too soft on him, look at the way he was chummy with him.' " Maybe so, but if PBS had Bill Moyers peeing on a tree up against Fox's Geraldo/Christ exclusive, I know where I'd tune in.

review of 'First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong'

by DOUGLAS BRINKLEY here.

'A Mind-Bending Head Trip (All Legal)'

article by MICHAEL KIMMELMAN here.

LOS ANGELES — "Ecstasy" is the trippy, messy, highly entertaining survey put together by Paul Schimmel of the Museum of Contemporary Art here. It sprawls through the Geffen Contemporary, the museum's cavernous warehouse in Little Tokyo, which too often begs for attention but is now jammed with blissed-out mobs.

The show's title derives from the eponymous recreational empathogen and popular underground mood-lightener officially called MDMA and sometimes prescribed by therapists for post-traumatic stress disorder, Mr. Schimmel informs us in the show's catalog. The cheeky pharmaceutical peg is a bit of Hollywood salesmanship of the sort he employed 13 years ago when he named a survey about dark, angst-ridden Los Angeles culture "Helter Skelter," after the Manson murders.

'Copernicus' Grave Found in Polish Church'

AP article here.

WARSAW, Poland (AP) -- Polish archeologists believe they have located the grave of 16th-century astronomer and solar-system proponent Nicolaus Copernicus in a Polish church, one of the scientists announced Thursday.

'CNN's Aaron Brown Leaving the Network'

AP article here.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Aaron Brown, once one of CNN's most prominent anchors, is leaving the network after a shakeup that gives his prime-time slot to rising star Anderson Cooper and expands it to two hours.

' 'Can I quit now?' FEMA chief wrote as Katrina raged'

CNN article here.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Louisiana congressman says e-mails written by the government's emergency response chief as Hurricane Katrina raged show a lack of concern for the unfolding tragedy and a failure in leadership.

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Two days after Katrina hit, Marty Bahamonde, one of the only FEMA employees in New Orleans, wrote to Brown that "the situation is past critical" and listed problems including many people near death and food and water running out at the Superdome.

Brown's entire response was: "Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?"

...

"Can I quit now? Can I come home?" Brown wrote to Cindy Taylor, FEMA's deputy director of public affairs, the morning of the hurricane.

A few days later, Brown wrote to an acquaintance, "I'm trapped now, please rescue me."

"In the midst of the overwhelming damage caused by the hurricane and enormous problems faced by FEMA, Mr. Brown found time to exchange e-mails about superfluous topics," including "problems finding a dog-sitter," Melancon said.

Melancon said that on August 26, just days before Katrina made landfall, Brown e-mailed his press secretary, Sharon Worthy, about his attire, asking: "Tie or not for tonight? Button-down blue shirt?"

A few days later, Worthy advised Brown: "Please roll up the sleeves of your shirt, all shirts. Even the president rolled his sleeves to just below the elbow. In this [crisis] and on TV you just need to look more hard-working."

On August 29, the day of the storm, Brown exchanged e-mails about his attire with Taylor, Melancon said. She told him, "You look fabulous," and Brown replied, "I got it at Nordstroms. ... Are you proud of me?"

An hour later, Brown added: "If you'll look at my lovely FEMA attire, you'll really vomit. I am a fashion god," according to the congressman.

' Report: CIA holds terror suspects in secret prisons'

CNN article here.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement, the Washington Post reported.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents, the paper said Tuesday.

'Carter: Americans were misled on war'

CNN article here.

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Former President Jimmy Carter said Friday that there isn't "any doubt" the American people were misled about the war in Iraq and that President George Bush's policy on the war is a "radical departure from the policies of any president."

In an interview with CNN, Carter addressed some of the comments made in his new book, "Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis." In the book he says the Bush administration was determined to attack Iraq using "false and distorted claims after 9/11."

Carter said the Bush administration spoke of mushroom clouds, weapons of mass destruction and the threat of thousands of Americans dying to garner support for the war. No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.

'New Telescope Opens Its Eyes'

article by TRACY STAEDTER here.

After 20 years of planning, developing and constructing, astronomers at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy have finally released the first image captured by the new Large Binocular Telescope, an instrument with a light-gathering power 24 times greater than the Hubble Space Telescope. The so-called LBT, an American-German-Italian joint venture stationed on the 3,190-meter-high Mt. Graham in Arizona, will be able to image planets circling distant stars and is poised to help answer fundamental questions about the universe, including how galaxies, stars and planets evolved from the big bang.

'Scientists Design Tiny Brake to Quicken Communications'

article by KENNETH CHANG here.

To speed up communications, I.B.M. proposes slowing down light.

Writing in today's issue of the journal Nature, I.B.M. scientists at the T. J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., describe a tiny silicon device that can pull the reins on pulses of light, slowing them from their usual clip of 186,000 miles a second to a more leisurely 600 miles a second.

The slowing, by itself, is an unremarkable achievement. In 1999, researchers at Harvard reported that they were able to slow light much more drastically, to 38 miles per hour, and two years later, they and other scientists were able to bring a light pulse to a halt before releasing it back on its way.

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'Astronomers Edging Closer to Gaining Black Hole Image'

article by DENNIS OVERBYE here.

Astronomers are reporting today that they have moved a notch closer to seeing the unseeable.

Using a worldwide array of radio telescopes to obtain the most detailed look yet at the center of the Milky Way, they said they had determined that the diameter of a mysterious fountain of energy there was less than half that of Earth's orbit about the Sun.

'Angry Kerry Supporters Seek Ohio Reform'

AP article here.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Still angry a year later, John Kerry supporters across the country are donating money to an effort to overhaul elections in the state they blame for costing them the White House.

article by GLENN COLLINS here.

It may seem that the American Museum of Natural History is cruising for controversy in presenting "Darwin," the most comprehensive exhibition any museum has offered on the naturalist's life and theories. It is a time, after all, when the theory of evolution by natural selection seems as newsworthy as it was back in the days of the Scopes trial 80 years ago.

According to a CBS News poll last month, 51 percent of Americans reject the theory of evolution, saying that God created humans in their present form. And reflecting a longstanding sentiment, 38 percent of Americans believe that creationism should be taught instead of evolution, according to an August poll by the Pew Research Center in Washington.