Madrid bombing not linked to al-Qaida; GOP backs off on felony threat to immigrants; Powell tells Robert Scheer that president followed Cheney’s misleading advice; Mike Davis traces the use of car bombs; explosion in Karachi kills scores; US military death toll for April already has surpassed March; and more …
Spain Indicts 29 in Bombing, Sees No al-Qaida Connection
Spanish judge issued the first indictments in the 2004 Madrid train bombings, charging 29 people Tuesday with murder, terrorism or other crimes after a probe that uncovered a hornet’s nest of Islamic militancy but no apparent link to al-Qaida.
GOP Leaders to Drop Felony for Immigrants
The two top Republicans in Congress, confronted with internal party divisions as well as large public demonstrations, said Tuesday they intend to pass immigration legislation that does not subject illegal immigrants to prosecution as felons.
Robert Scheer | Now Powell Tells Us
Robert Scheer writes: On Monday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told me that he and his department’s top experts never believed that Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat, but that the president followed the misleading advice of Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA in making the claim. Now he tells us.
Mike Davis | The Poor Man’s Air Force
Mike Davis writes: On a warm September day in 1920, a few months after the arrest of his comrades Sacco and Vanzetti, a vengeful Italian anarchist named Mario Buda parked his horse-drawn wagon near the corner of Wall and Broad Streets, directly across from J.P. Morgan Company. He nonchalantly climbed down and disappeared, unnoticed, into the lunchtime crowd. A few blocks away, a startled postal worker found strange leaflets warning: “Free the Political Prisoners or it will be Sure Death for All of You!” They were signed: “American Anarchist Fighters.” The bells of nearby Trinity Church began to toll at noon. When they stopped, the wagon – packed with dynamite and iron slugs – exploded in a fireball of shrapnel.
Karachi Bomb Attack Leaves at Least 45 Sunni Worshippers Dead
A powerful bomb ripped through a crowd of Sunni Muslims in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi yesterday evening, killing at least 45 and raising fears of an escalation of tit-for-tat sectarian atrocities.
Deaths of US Soldiers Climb Again in Iraq
The American military on Tuesday announced the deaths of five soldiers, bringing the number of troops killed this month to at least 32. That figure already surpasses the American military deaths for all of March.
Felony Threat Rouses Immigrants
Stiff penalty in a House bill spurred hundreds of thousands to march in cities around the nation.
VIDEO | Dispatch From South Dakota: Tribal President Cecelia Fire Thunder Speaks
Filmmakers Chris Hume and L. Wild Horse travel to South Dakota, the state that has passed a law banning all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest. But on the Pine Ridge Reservation, tribal president Cecelia Fire Thunder is taking a stand. She is invoking the Oglala Lakota tribe’s status as a sovereign nation to surpass state law, by building a family planning clinic on the reservation. President Fire Thunder speaks with t r u t h o u t in this video exclusive.