Daily News Channel
British man Gary McKinnon appeared in court Tuesday to try to prevent his extradition to the United States, where he is wanted for allegedly hacking into U.S. government computers at the Pentagon and NASA. McKinnon, who has admitted breaking the law and intentionally gaining unauthorized access to computer systems, wants to be tried in Britain rather than the United States.
A Southwest Airlines jet made an emergency landing in Charleston, West Virginia, on Monday after a football-sized hole in its fuselage caused the cabin to depressurize, an airline spokeswoman said. There were no injuries aboard the Boeing 737, which was traveling at about 30,000 feet when the problem occurred, Southwest spokeswoman Marilee McInnis told CNN. The sudden drop in cabin pressure caused the jet’s oxygen masks to deploy.
Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso is facing increasing pressure within his party to step aside before national elections after his party lost a key vote in Tokyo on Sunday. Aso’s Liberal Democratic Party lost its majority in the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly as the opposition Democratic Party of Japan made the largest gains. The LDP won 38 seats, down from 48.
Insurgents’ use of roadside bombs has increased dramatically in Afghanistan this year, according to Pentagon statistics, and the United States’ top military official is calling them the "No. 1 threat" to troops there. In June there were 736 incidents in Afghanistan involving roadside bombs, called improvised explosive devices or IEDs, and 82 “effective attacks,” ones that caused casualties among coalition forces, the figures show.
A month ago, Britain’s Health Secretary Andy Burnham issued a statement urging British citizens not to panic despite a surge in cases of H1N1 influenza virus in the country. Now it seems health officials have the opposite problem, and are urging parents not to hold “swine flu parties” which some people believe will build up children’s immunity by infecting them with the virus. Parents in Britain have long held “chicken pox parties” at the beginning of summer so that children can catch the disease at a convenient time
France has awarded its highest decoration to veteran CNN correspondent Jim Bittermann.
Tom Clanton, the team physician for the Houston Rockets basketball team has said the foot injury currently sidelining Chinese center Yao Ming could threaten the seven-foot-six-inch player’s career. “At this point, the injury has the potential for him missing this next season and could be career-threatening,” Clanton told the Houston Chronicle regional newspaper.
A Yemeni jetliner with more than 150 people aboard has crashed in the Indian Ocean off the island nation of Comoros, aviation officials in Yemen said Tuesday. The jet was en route to Moroni, the capital of Comoros, from Yemen’s capital Sanaa when it crashed about an hour before reaching its destination, officials from the national airline Yemenia said
United States accident investigators are probing two recent failures of airspeed and altitude indications aboard Airbus A330s — the same type of plane that crashed into the Atlantic nearly a month ago.
The number of Obama Administration figures losing power to Dennis Ross is growing longer by the day, but one addition to the list is particularly surprising: General James Jones. Obama picked the 6’4″ former Marine to be his National Security Adviser last November after meeting him only a handful of times. And while Obama is happy with his strategic military advice, the President seeks more guidance on the “political and diplomatic” front than he’s getting from Jones, two senior Administration officials tell TIME