Investors who have stock in cigarette makers will be deciding this week whether or not a bill from the House of Representatives will allow the Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco. The bill also calls for a scientific review of menthol in cigarettes, imposes tighter restrictions on tobacco advertising and creates new federal penalties for selling to minors.
The Michigan police arrested 20 year old Spencer Taylor after he dressed up like the Joker and tried to steal posters and other items that were related the newest Batman movie “The Dark Knight”. The young man is now being investigated for malicious destruction of property and larceny.
Mohney says officers who were dispatched early Sunday to the theater arrived to find employees restraining a man wearing a purple suit, a green wig and face paint in the style of Batman’s nemesis in “The Dark Knight”.
A letter that had been lost in the U.S. mail for 60 years was found this week when a woman from Kansas discovered it in her mailbox. Xan Wedel was shocked to find a letter postmarked for November 11th, 1948 sitting in her mailbox with the words “return to sender” stamped across it and “found in supposedly empty mailbox.”
Authorities have defused a few unexploded bombs in a western Indian city of Surat - which has become one of the world’s largest diamond-polishing centers. Three days earlier blasts in the same area had killed 45 people. “We have defused seven bombs and (are) working on three more,” senior police official H.P. Singh stated in an interview.
Authorities from Australian have requested that the country’s national airline check all of the oxygen bottles in the fleet of Boeing 747’s jets. Investigators believe that one of the 747 jets - which ripped a hole mid-flight - was caused by an exploding cylinder.
A gunman began shooting in the middle of a youth Church performance on Sunday. During the shooting he killed two people and injured seven adults. Five of the injured were in serious condition - but no children were harmed. Witnesses say that one of the men died protecting others who were in the line of fire.
The gunman was tackled by church members and eventually taken into police custody. He was charged later with first-degree murder. Jim D. Adkisson, 58, was being held on a $1 million bond, according to a city spokesman.
Three people have disappeared and four people have died in two days at the beaches at Long Island and New York City. Authorities said that they have rescued three so far. They spent all day Sunday looking for a 10 year old girl after she went missing near Coney Island.
Congress passed a housing rescue bill this weekend that was created to lend a helping hand to 400,000 homeowners who are struggling under the weight of foreclosure. President Bush will be signing the new agreement soon.
The measure was approved by a 72-13 vote during a weekend session in the Senate. Something that is rare. The measure helps homeowners who cannot afford their monthly payments refinance into affordable government-backed loans. This saves them from losing their homes. The bill also offers a temporary financial lifeline to the troubled mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and tightens controls over them.
The Mississippi River at New Orleans has been reopened and ships were allowed to pass through after the accident that caused a massive oil spill. The Coast Guard gave the order to reopen the river for economic purposes. The first to pass was a ship carrying refinery-bound oil.
With more than 200 ships to be cleared, it was expected to take days to clear the backlog that developed after the tanker Tintomara collided with a barge in the early morning hours Wednesday. About 419,000 gallons of fuel oil spilled from the barge into the Mississippi at New Orleans.
A Qantas Boeing 747 was forced to make an emergency landing in Manila today after part of the plane ruptured during the flight. The rupture left a hole in the fuselage of the plane. Passengers said that the plane - which had taken off from London - plunged 20,000 feet and was “absolutely terrifying”.