by Frank James
A quick guided tour of some of the morning’s most important or interesting (or both) Washington-related stories.
Private security guards who were at the Baghdad scene earlier this month where Iraqi civilians were killed told U.S. investigators that one guard kept firing at civilians even after other guards called for a ceasefire, to the point where another guard drew his weapon on the offender.
Cities along the Gulf Coast are trying to get Katrina-storm victims to move out of FEMA trailers as communities try to rid themselves of trailer towns because of crime problems and a sense that they’re standing in the way of recovery.
The U.S. border with Canada is vulnerable to terrorists according to federal investigators who told lawmakers how they were able to repeatedly get a large red duffle bag across the border without being stopped by federal agents. The top Republican presidential candidates were criticized for failing to attend a debate to discuss issues of most concern to African-American voters.
After a trial run, U.S. officials have officially adopted a new naturalization test which attempts to probe more for an understanding of American history and government than a rote memorization of facts.
The Senate attached controversial hate-crimes legislation to a defense-authorization bill, with Democrats getting nine Republicans to support the bill to end a filibuster threat but not yet enough to override a possible veto by President Bush.
The Food and Drug Administration doesn’t do enough to protect millions of patients who participate in clinical trials, said the Health and Human Service inspector general.
Lawmakers expressed skepticism about Google’s planned $3.1 billion takeover of Internet advertising broker DoubleClick because of concerns that the two companies’ amassing of large amounts of personal data on customers could harm consumer privacy.
Christian evangelicals are increasingly split over the issue of global warming, with some arguing that believers need to make the issue a priority and others wanting to keep evangelicals focused on their traditional issues including abortion and gay marriage.
