Morning News Roundup (06 Feb)

Well, I've got a bit of a junk-food hangover from yesterday's Super Bowl robbery, and a load of work to finish by day's end, so posting will be light. But here are some tasty news tidbits for you to munch on.

• The Guardian reports that Britain is defying the BushCo administration's "global gag rule" and will be dispersing funds to organizations providing safe abortions
  

  The "global gag" rule, as it has become known, was imposed by President George Bush in 2001. It requires any organisation applying for US funds to sign an undertaking not to counsel women on abortion - other than advising against it - or provide abortion services.
  
  The UK will today become the founder donor of a fund set up specifically to attempt to replace the lost dollars and increase safe abortion services.
  [...]
  Nearly 70,000 women and girls died last year because they went to back-street abortionists. Hundreds of thousands of others suffered serious injuries.

• Senate Judiciary chair Arlen Specter agrees to Attorney General Alberto "VO5" Gonzales' refusal to be sworn in under oath for his testimony to the committe this morning, "even though the last time he testified under oath he misled the committee about the program. [VT Senator Patrick] Leahy noted he was sworn the other two times he appeared before the committee." (ThinkProgress). Salon's War Room also notes:
  

  The decision may be largely symbolic: It's a crime to lie to Congress whether you're under oath or not, but no oath means no newspaper photographs of Gonzales' having raised his right hand.

• President Bush has released his $2.8 trillion budget (WaPo), which:
  

  ..would cut billions of dollars from domestic programs ranging from Medicare and food stamps to local law enforcement and disease control, while extending most of his tax cuts beyond their 2010 expiration date.
  [...]
  Defense spending would rise 6.9 percent, from $411 billion to $439 billion. Homeland security spending would rise by 3.3 percent. But all other operations of government would fall by $2.2 billion, or 0.5 percent.

• The protests over the controversial Danish cartoons depicting Muhammed continue to grow, with the Danish embassy in Beirut torched yesterday and loss of life in Afghanistan today (BBC)
  
  
• Surprise: Air pollution experts and advocated complain that the Environmental Protection Agency's proposed regulations on soot are too weak (ENN).
  
  
• Is Amazon entering the digital download fray? Newsweek suspects it might:
  

  Last month, the Hollywood trade publication Variety reported that Amazon will launch an online movie service this spring. Customers who buy a DVD on the site, it said, will also be able to watch the movie online. But that's likely only the beginning of Amazon's plans. According to a music-industry insider who has seen the service, Bezos is working on a similar scheme for music. Customers who buy a CD will receive a digital copy of the album or song, which they can transfer to a portable digital music player. "It's the most well-thought-out, consumer-conscious strategy I've seen yet for digital music," says the insider, who doesn't want to jeopardize his firm's close relationship with Amazon. Several other music execs confirm that Amazon is hoping to launch later this year, before its busy Christmas season.

Alright, now it's off to work I go. Hi-ho!