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Tuesday, June 14, 2011
The Morning Scoop - And the GOP Debate Winner Is…
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Who won last night's Republican debate? Michele Bachmann was the breakout star although Mitt Romney was the most polished. Tim Pawlenty floundered, especially after he backed away from his attacks on Romney's health-care plan—and Herman Cain got lapped. The debate was, all in all, relatively civil, with few candidates taking Romney to task over issues. Daily Beast contributors Howard Kurtz, Mark McKinnon, Michelle Goldberg, Matt Latimer, Michael Tomasky, John Avlon, and more weigh in.
Here we go again. Officials said Monday that the CIA is preparing to launch predator drone strikes in Yemen to kill al Qaeda militants, taking advantage of that country's power vacuum. The U.S. previously has operated strikes against militants in Yemen—the country is home to the radical American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki—but these were conducted with the knowledge of Yemen's government. The CIA program will have different legal restrictions, and will be modeled after the Pakistan strikes—conducted without express permission of the country. The CIA program was originally slated to begin in July, but officials say it has been pushed back a few weeks due to logistical concerns. Washington is worried that Yemen's power vacuum will allow radical al Qaeda militants to come to power.
The U.S. Senate website was the latest target in a string of cyberattacks from Lulz Security, the hacker group that had previously compromised PBS and some Sony sites. The hackers got into the servers' public side but were not able to penetrate the firewall to reach private information, such as senators' contact information. "We don't like the U.S. government very much," Lulz Security said in its release of the information it obtained. "This is a small, just-for-kicks release of some internal data from Senate.gov—is this an act of war, gentlemen? Problem?" The reference is to a report that the U.S. government may consider cyberattacks acts of war; however, the report referred specifically to attacks from foreign governments, not loose-knit hacking groups like Lulz Security.
Japanese citizens who have lived away from their homes for months due to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear crisis will at least receive compensation: The Japanese cabinet has approved a compensation package that could reach $124 billion, paid out to tens of thousands of people. The government will set up a fund and issue a special bond so that Fukushima Daiichi's operator, Tepco, can pay compensation. Tepco would, over an unspecified number of years, repay the government in full.
Forest firefighters in eastern Arizona said on Monday they had made major progress by containing 10 percent of the wildfire that has burned for 16 days and displaced thousands from their homes. Firefighters said they had managed to stop the advance of the fire, known as the Wallow fire, on populated areas in and around the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest, and also carried out extensive charred brush and trees to remove them as potential fuel for the flames. "We're gaining an upper hand, in terms of getting some lines around the fire and making sure the lines are secure," said U.S. Forest Service Spokeswoman Suzanne Flory. The Wallow fire, believed to have been started by an unattended campfire, has already grown nearly as large as Arizona's biggest fire on record, the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski fire. A total of 31 homes have been destroyed in the fire, while up to 7,000 have been evacuated.
The fear of aging and being ignored affects the behavior of politicians like Anthony Weiner, stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger—and the rest of us, says Christopher Dickey.
Heart Disease Poses Surprising Threat to New Moms by Jennifer Block Pregnancy-related deaths are on the rise in the U.S., and a new report reveals that heart disease is a major factor—yet hospitals often fail to heed the red flags, reports Jennifer Block.
Pretty Little Liars' Student-Teacher Love Story by Jaimie Etkin The ABC Family series returns for its second season on Tuesday after becoming TV's teen hit last summer. With a central storyline about a student-teacher relationship that viewers are rooting for, Jaimie Etkin argues that it's bad for girl viewers—and the novelist who created the characters says it's "extreme" and she hopes they get caught.
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