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By RAPHAEL G. SATTER, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - A coalition of human rights groups is demanding the United States account for 39 terror suspects it believes have been secretly imprisoned and published their names in a report being released Thursday.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and four other groups have drawn up a list of 39 so-called “ghost detainees” - people they claim are held by U.S. authorities and are still missing.

“What we’re asking is where are these 39 people now, and what’s happened to them since they ‘disappeared’?” Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said “there’s a lot of myth outside government when it comes to the CIA and the fight against terror.”

“The plain truth is that we act in strict accord with American law, and that our counterterror initiatives - which are subject to careful review and oversight - have been very effective in disrupting plots and saving lives,” Gimigliano said. “The United States does not conduct or condone torture.”

Information about the detainees was gleaned from interviews with former prisoners - such as Marwan Jabour, an Islamic militant who claims to have spent two years in CIA custody - and officials in the U.S., Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Yemen, she said.

Information on the purported missing detainees was, in some cases, incomplete, the report acknowledged. Some detainees had been added to the list because Jabour remembered being shown photos of them during interrogations, it said.

Others were identified only by their first or last names, like “al-Rubaia,” who was added to the list after a fellow inmate reported seeing the name scribbled onto the wall of his cell. But information for at least 21 of the detainees had been confirmed by two or more independent sources, Fitzgerald said.

More at Yahoo News

By IRA PODELL, AP Sports Writer
from YAHOO! SPORTS

ANAHEIM, Calif. - The Anaheim Ducks aren’t called mighty anymore. Now they can simply answer to Stanley Cup champions. The 14-year-old Ducks captured their first NHL title with a 6-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Wednesday night, ending the series in five games in front of the home folks yet again.

For the first time, the Stanley Cup resides in California and at the expense of Canada, which hasn’t boasted a winner since Montreal in 1993. Calgary, Edmonton and now Ottawa - in its first trip since the Senators were reborn in 1992 - each had a chance the past three seasons only to be done in by a U.S. club from the sun belt.

Tampa Bay, Carolina and Anaheim aren’t exactly traditional hockey hotbeds but they have been the Cup’s warm weather homes since 2004. Wayne Gretzky made the game a happening in Southern California when he came to Los Angeles in 1988, the Ducks made it legit two decades later with their second trip to the finals.

Ducks captain Scott Niedermayer won it for the fourth time, and brought his brother Rob and teammates Teemu Selanne and Chris Pronger along for the ride for their first. Rob Niedermayer is one of three Ducks on the losing side of the finals in 2003 when Scott Niedermayer and the
New Jersey Devils captured their third title in Game 7.

Only Anaheim goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere had something to smile about that year when he was given the Conn Smythe Trophy, awarded to the MVP of the playoffs. This win was so much sweeter as he stopped 11 shots in the clincher. The biggest roar came when Antoine Vermette shot wide on a penalty shot in the third.

Scott Niedermayer finally earned the MVP award many thought he deserved four years ago.

The 36-year-old Selanne waited 14 seasons and 1,041 regular season games to become a champion. After leading the Ducks in scoring this season, he capped off the year with a title. Pronger was on Edmonton last year when the Oilers lost in seven games to Carolina. He returned to the lineup for the clincher after serving a one-game suspension.

Sticks and gloves flew in front of Giguere when it ended. Fireworks went off and streamers fell as the Ducks rushed off the bench to celebrate.

Senators forward Daniel Alfredsson, the first European captain in finals history, fell short of his first championship in 11 seasons. He supplied all the Ottawa offense despite feeling the booing wrath of the fans, who chided him all night in response to his shooting the puck at Scott Niedermayer in Game 4.

Andy McDonald started the scoring 3:41 into the first period with a power-play goal, his third tally in two games, and Rob Niedermayer made it 2-0 with 2:19 left in the frame. Travis Moen had two goals, one that never touched his stick and another in conventional fashion.

Alfredsson scored twice in the second period, including a short-handed goal that cut Anaheim’s lead to one for a second time, but the Senators couldn’t shake off a fluke goal that Ottawa defenseman Chris Phillips put into his own net with a pass off the skates of goalie Ray Emery.

That one was credited to Moen.

When Francois Beauchemin scored a power-play goal with 1:32 left in the second, the Ducks’ two-goal lead was back and the excited crowd anticipated an appearance by the Stanley Cup that sat in a crate offstage.

By then it was just a matter of time for the Ducks, 8-0 at home in series-clinching games - including 4-0 this year when they dropped the mighty from their name but not from their game. In the building formerly known as the Pond, Anaheim is 6-0 during the finals.

read more at YAHOO! SPORTS

By GARDINER HARRIS
from The New York Times

WASHINGTON, June 6 - The government’s top drug regulator told a packed House hearing today that the agency had recently decided to put the agency’s most serious safety warning on two diabetes drugs - Avandia and Actos - whose health risks have become a focus of Congressional concern.

The decision comes more than a year after F.D.A. safety reviewers strongly recommended just such a step, and it occurs amid a Congressional investigation into why the agency delayed its warnings about Avandia for years.

In a written statement, the Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, Andrew C. von Eschenbach, said the agency was asking the makers of Actos and Avandia to carry a more prominent warning of its heart risks because “despite existing warnings, these drugs were being prescribed to patients with significant heart failure.”

The statement said the F.D.A. requested the label changes on May 23, which would have been two days after an article and editorial about Avandia’s potential heart risks set off the current controversy. Word of the label changes, however, had not been made public before today.

Dr. Rosemary Johann-Liang, an F.D.A. drug safety supervisor, said in an interview this week that she was reprimanded last year for advocating the very label change that Dr. von Eschenbach said the agency was now asking for.

Avandia, a Type 2 diabetes treatment made by GlaxoSmithKline, has been the focus of most of the recent safety concerns, based on evidence that it can potentially cause heart attacks or other cardiovascular problems. But its closest competitor, Actos, a drug from Takeda Pharmaceutical and Eli Lilly & Company, has also been seen as carrying some risk of problems including heart failure.

read more at THE NEW YORK TIMES

By JEFFREY McMURRAY Associated Press Writer
from Breitbart.com

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) - President Bush’s nominee for surgeon general, Kentucky cardiologist Dr. James Holsinger, has come under fire from gay rights groups for voting to expel a lesbian pastor from the United Methodist Church and writing in 1991 that gay sex is unnatural and unhealthy.

Also, Holsinger helped found a Methodist congregation that, according to gay rights activists, believes homosexuality is a matter of choice and can be “cured.”

“He has a pretty clear bias against gays and lesbians,” said Christina Gilgor, director of the Kentucky Fairness Alliance, a gay rights group. “This ideology flies in the face of current scientific medical studies. That makes me uneasy that he rejects science and promotes ideology.”

Holsinger, 68, has declined all interview requests.

Blair Jones, a White House spokesman, said in a telephone interview Wednesday night that Holsinger had spent his career in public service and taking care of others.

“On numerous occasions, Dr. Holsinger has taken up the banner for underrepresented populations, and he will continue to be a strong advocate for these groups and all Americans,” Jones said.

Holsinger served as Kentucky’s health secretary and chancellor of the University of Kentucky’s medical center. He taught at several medical schools and spent more than three decades in the Army Reserve, retiring in 1993 as a major general.

His supporters, including fellow doctors, faculty members and state officials, said he would never let his theological views affect his medical ones.

read more at Breitbart.com

By CHARLES BABINGTON, Associated Press Writer
from YAHOO!

WASHINGTON - A proposed immigration overhaul survived a stiff challenge Wednesday as the Senate turned back a Democrat’s bid to emphasize reuniting families more than job skills for many foreigners seeking to move to the U.S.

Supporters of bipartisan compromise for legalizing 12 million unlawful immigrants invoked rules effectively requiring an amendment to win 60 votes to keep their delicate coalition from crumbling.

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., got 53 votes for his effort to delay shifting U.S. immigration policy away from keeping families together in favor of attracting more foreign workers. But that was seven votes short of the 60 needed. Voting against him were 44 senators.

The Menendez amendment would have allowed more than 800,000 people who had applied for permanent legal status by the beginning of 2007 to obtain green cards based purely on their family connections - a preference the bill ends for most relatives who got in line after May 2005.

Menendez, whose parents were Cuban immigrants, told his colleagues that the bill will undermine “the reunification of families.”

Meanwhile, critics of the bill’s main feature - legalizing the estimated 12 million immigrants in the U.S. unlawfully - won an amendment that could make it easier to locate and deport illegal immigrants whose visa applications are rejected.

The bill would have barred law enforcement agencies from seeing applications for so-called Z visas, which can lead to citizenship if granted. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, called for lifting the ban, saying legal authorities should know if applicants have criminal records that would warrant deportation.

His measure was adopted, 57-39, although opponents said eligible applicants might be afraid to file applications if they believe they are connected to deportation actions.

read more at YAHOO! NEWS

Today is the anniversary of D-Day.

From The Neshoba Democrat
By LUTHER JOHNSON
Staff Reporter

William Howard Cole may not have landed with the initial invasion at the Battle of Normandy, but he was there to help push German forces out of France when he was shot by a sniper hiding in a church steeple.

Sixty-three years ago today, the battle, also known as the D-Day invasion, became the largest sea borne operation in history and was a significant turning point in World War II. Up to 3,000 Allied troops died on D-Day alone.

The Battle of Normandy continued another two months, concluding in August 1944 with the liberation of Paris.

Cole landed at Omaha Beach in early July after the initial invasion, seeing his first action at St. Lo, France. He was put into training at Cherbourg Peninsula, assigned to the 134th Infantry.

“I didn’t even get to my squad before we were under fire from artillery bombardment,” Cole said.

He was with the 134th when they captured Nancy, France, a provincial capital, from the Germans in September 1944.

In November, while fighting in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, Cole was shot from a church steeple by a German sniper, the same day he had earlier detonated a mine.

As he and his company came through a field outside Achain, France, they crossed a ditch. As Cole walked across the log over the ditch he was injured in his back by a “Bouncing Betty,” a land mine that launches into the air about waist high and explodes.

His commander asked if he wanted to wait where he was for a medic or wanted the company to help him continue into Achain.

Read more »

This is MOST important!!! Make the calls!!!

Crossposted from Obsidian Wings

Via FDL, I see that Sen. Leahy is asking people to phone their Senators in support of S. 185, the Habeas Restoration Act. This bill does exactly what it says it does: it undoes the provisions of last year’s Military Commissions Act that deprived detainees of habeas corpus. I think that links to search results in Thomas, the congressional database, don’t work, but if you go here and look up S. 185, you’ll find it.

Leahy writes (via FDL):

“Many of you may recall the hasty passage of the Military Commissions Act in the weeks leading up to last year’s election, a bill that set new rules for trying detainees, in particular those currently being held at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The passage of this bill was a profound mistake, and its elimination of habeas corpus review was its worst error. Righting this wrong is one of my top priorities, and on the first day of this Congress I joined with Senator Arlen Specter to introduce the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act (S. 185). This bipartisan bill already has 17 cosponsors, but it faces a crucial vote in the Judiciary Committee this Thursday so we need your help.”

The bill is currently sponsored by the following Senators, in addition to Sen. Specter, who wrote it:

Sen Biden, Joseph R., Jr. [DE]
Sen Brown, Sherrod [OH]
Sen Cantwell, Maria [WA]
Sen Clinton, Hillary Rodham [NY]
Sen Dodd, Christopher J. [CT]
Sen Durbin, Richard [IL]
Sen Feingold, Russell D. [WI]
Sen Feinstein, Dianne [CA]
Sen Harkin, Tom [IA]
Sen Kennedy, Edward M. [MA]
Sen Kerry, John F. [MA]
Sen Lautenberg, Frank R. [NJ]
Sen Leahy, Patrick J. [VT]
Sen Levin, Carl [MI]
Sen Obama, Barack [IL]
Sen Rockefeller, John D., IV [WV]
Sen Salazar, Ken [CO]
Sen Whitehouse, Sheldon [RI]

FDL has compiled a list of toll-free numbers for the Capitol switchboard:

1 (800) 828 - 0498
1 (800) 459 - 1887
1 (800) 614 - 2803
1 (866) 340 - 9281
1 (866) 338 - 1015
1 (877) 851 - 6437

If you agree that habeas corpus should be restored to detainees — that everyone our government detains should have the right to ask the government to justify their detention in a court of law, so that the government cannot just toss people in prison without any accountability — then it would be worth giving your Senators a call. Thanks.

H/T Bat for the 411 on this!!

Comedians, artists and certainly political cartoonists tend to possess an anti-authoritarian, skeptical, irreverent streak. This makes the staunchly conservative cartoonist an especially odd bird.

Which cartoonists dare to criticize their own party? Who seems to literally illustrate GOP talking points? Who are their favorite targets? Who mocks liberals - and who seems to truly hate them? Who’s funny? Who’s independently minded and who’s a hack? Read, and decide, for yourself!

In this even-larger-than-usual installment, covering three weeks (5/14/07 - 6/3/07), most but not all conservative cartoonists mourned Jerry Falwell and opined angrily on immigration. Gas prices were a surprisingly popular topic. Meanwhile, the usual gang lambasted Democrats for criticizing Bush, for opposing Bush, and for - voting in accord with Bush! Huh? Remember, kids, whatever the Democrats do, they’re baaaaad!!!
Read more »

By NICHOLAS WADE
from The New York Times

In a surprising advance that sidesteps the ethical debates surrounding stem cell biology, researchers have come much closer to a major goal of regenerative medicine, the conversion of a patient’s cells into specialized tissues that might replace those lost to disease.

The advance is an easy-to-use technique for reprogramming a skin cell of a mouse back to the embryonic state. Embryonic cells can be induced in the laboratory to develop into many of the body’s major tissues.

If the technique can be adapted to human cells, it would let scientists use a patient’s skin cell to generate new heart, liver or kidney cells that might be transplantable and would not be rejected by the patient’s immune system.

Previously, the only way scientists knew they were likely to get such cells is by nuclear transfer, the insertion of an adult cell’s nucleus into an egg whose own nucleus has been removed. The egg somehow reprograms the nucleus back to embryonic state.

The new technique, developed by Shinya Yamanaka of Kyoto University, depends on inserting just four genes into a skin cell. These accomplish the same reprogramming task as the egg, or at least one very similar.

The technique is much easier to apply than nuclear transfer, does not involve the expensive and controversial use of human eggs, and should avoid all or almost all of the ethical criticism directed at the use of embryonic stem cells.

“From the point of view of moving biomedicine and regenerative medicine faster, this is about as big a deal as you could imagine,” said Irving Weissman, a leading stem cell biologist at Stanford University.

David Scadden, a stem cell biologist at the Harvard Medical School, said the finding that cells could be reprogrammed with simple biochemical techniques “is truly extraordinary and frankly something most assumed would take a decade to work out.”

read more at The New York Times

Well you learn something new every day. I didn’t know there was such a thing as an “unwanted erection.”

NEW YORK - A man has sued the maker of the health drink Boost Plus, claiming the vitamin-enriched beverage gave him an erection that would not subside and caused him to be hospitalized.

The lawsuit filed by Christopher Woods of New York said he bought the nutrition beverage made by the pharmaceutical company Novartis AG at a drugstore on June 5, 2004, and drank it.

Woods- court papers say he woke up the next morning “with an erection that would not subside” and sought treatment that day for the condition, called severe priapism.

They say Woods, 29, underwent surgery for implantation of a Winter shunt, which moves blood from one area to another.

The lawsuit, filed late Monday, says Woods later had problems that required a hospital visit and penile artery embolization, a way of closing blood vessels. Closing off some blood flow prevents engorgement and lessens the likelihood of an erection.

More at MSNBC

By TERENCE HUNT
AP White House Correspondent
I suppose he knows this because he looked into Putin’s soul and read that message. And I bet Merkel is dreading eating lunch with the no manners, touchy feely dope.

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany (AP) — President Bush on Wednesday discounted Vladimir Putin’s threat to retarget missiles on Europe, saying “Russia’s not going to attack Europe.”

Bush, in an interview with The Associated Press and other reporters, said no U.S. military response was required after Putin warned that Russia would take steps in response to a U.S. missile shield that would be deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic.

“Russia is not an enemy,” Bush said, seeking not to inflame a heated exchange of rhetoric between Washington and Moscow. “There needs to be no military response because we’re not at war with Russia. … Russia is not a threat. Nor is the missile defense we’re proposing a threat to Russia.”

Bush spoke before heading off to lunch with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is hosting the annual meeting of the world’s seven richest industrial democracies and Russia. Merkel has made global warming the centerpiece of her G-8 leadership and is pushing for specific targets for reducing carbon emissions.

More at the AP

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Several thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq early Wednesday to chase Kurdish guerrillas who operate from bases there, Turkish security officials told The Associated Press.

Two senior security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the raid was limited in scope and that it did not constitute the kind of large incursion that Turkish leaders have been discussing in recent weeks.

“It is not a major offensive and the number of troops is not in the tens of thousands,” one of the officials told the AP by telephone. The official is based in southeast Turkey, where the military has been battling separatist Kurdish rebels since they took up arms in 1984.

The officials did not say where the Turkish force was operating in northern Iraq, nor did he say how long they would be there.

More at the AP

Keith Olbermann talks with Joe Wilson about Libby’s sentence.