FBI: No bang in ‘bombs’
Two Egyptian college students arrested near a Navy weapons station last year were carrying low-grade fireworks, as they claimed, not the dangerous explosives as charged by federal prosecutors, the FBI has determined. Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 26, and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, have been in jail since police found what they called bomb-making materials in the car of the University of South Florida students during a traffic stop in South Carolina.
Scientists learnhow AIDS hides
The AIDS virus has hideouts deep in the immune system that today’s drugs can’t reach. Now scientists in Washington, D.C., finally have discovered how HIV builds one of those fortresses — and they’re exploring whether a drug already used to fight a parasite in developing countries might hold a key to break in. Researchers say the new work is in very early stages.
Murderer gets reprieve
A murderer who would have become the nation’s first executed inmate in months won a reprieve Thursday from the Supreme Court a little more than an hour before he was scheduled to die by lethal injection. James Harvey Callahan was granted a stay, officials said.Callahan was sentenced to death for the 1982 murder of Jacksonville State University student Rebecca Suzanne Howell.
Detroit mayor returns to work
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick returned to City Hall on Thursday, a day after apologizing to family and constituents in a televised speech that avoided direct mention of a text messaging scandal that came to light a week ago. Kilpatrick emerged from a weeklong, self-imposed exile Wednesday night and used the shadow of a church pulpit to apologize for “the embarrassment and disappointment” that recent events have caused residents.
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Survey says
Great expectations
Americans have a decidedly dour view of how things are going in the country and an outsized view of what one person — the president — can do about it.
In a year when talk of change is all the rage in the presidential campaign, people have great expectations for the next president’s ability to get things done, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News survey released Thursday. Democrats are more optimistic about the possibility of change than Republicans or independents.
The percentage of Americans who think a president can have at least some influence on big issues:
Inflation: 73 percent
Interest rates: 66 percent
Gasoline prices: 69 percent
Housing prices: 59 percent
Federal budget deficit: 86 percent
Taxes: 88 percent
Health-care costs: 76 percent
