Morning News Roundup (02 May)

• Former undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame was working to track the proliferation of nuclear material into Iran when her cover was blown by White House political operatives in the summer of 2003. The Plame outing is said to have “damaged” the administration’s ability to track Iran’s nuclear ambitions. [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast] (PS - you can watch the MSNBC report over at Crooks & Liars, or read the initial break in the story from Raw Story back in February)
  
  
• Demonstrators opposed to strict immigration proposals in Congress staged huge marches in Chicago and Los Angeles, curtailed operations at at least one major port, shut down construction sites in the District, forced the closing of crossings at the Mexican border and halted work at meat-processing plants in the Midwest. Although the protests caught the nation's attention, the economic impact was mixed, as many immigrants heeded the call of some leaders not to jeopardize their jobs, and businesses adopted strategies to cope with absent employees. [WaPo]
  
  A crowd estimated by Los Angeles police at 250,000 marched to City Hall on Monday morning, after which many determined demonstrators made their way, on foot or by subway, to MacArthur Park for a larger march along Wilshire Boulevard. Police estimated that crowd at 400,000 and reported few problems. [LATimes]
  
  
• As if it weren't enough to have a bunch of states pestering the federal government over pollution from power plants, now another group of 10 states, including California and New York, plan to file suit this week to force the Bush administration to toughen mileage regulations for sport utility vehicles and other trucks. The suit contends that the administration did not do a rigorous enough analysis of the environmental benefits of fuel economy regulations, as required by law, before issuing new rules last month for S.U.V.'s, pickup trucks and minivans. [NYTimes]
  
  
• Greenhouse gases -- the heat-trapping chemicals linked to global warming -- continued to increase steadily in 2005, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported Monday. Carbon dioxide, emitted by coal-burning power plants and cars, increased last year, according to the federal climate agency's Annual Greenhouse Gas Index, or AGGI. So did nitrous oxide, a byproduct of farming and industry. [Reuters via ENN]
  
  
• Sen. Joseph R. Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, proposed yesterday in an NYTimes editorial that Iraq be divided into three regions -- Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni -- with a central government in Baghdad. He wrote that the idea "is to maintain a united Iraq by decentralizing it, giving each ethno-religious group . . . room to run its own affairs, while leaving the central government in charge of common interests." [WaPo]
  
  
• US President George W.Bush has reportedly declined to meet Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, according to NRK. The reason is said to be that the new Stoltenberg government has adopted a more critical attitude to the US, compared with the previous government. One case that the US administration is said to have reacted to, is the decision to withdraw Norwegian soldiers from Iraq. [Norway Post; hat tip to Sirocco at the EuroTrib]
  
  
• Bolivian President Evo Morales seized control of the country's natural gas industry Monday, sending soldiers to occupy fields that he contends private companies have plundered for years. The developments in Bolivia were not expected to affect the U.S. energy market. Even in Bolivia, analysts played down the importance of the troop deployment, but they acknowledged the message Morales was trying to send. [WaPo]
  
  
• Colbert walk-out: The Comedy Central host “won a rare silent protest from Bush aides and supporters Saturday when several independently left before he finished.” One Bush aide “said that the president was visibly angered by the sharp lines that kept coming. ‘I’ve been there before, and I can see that [Bush] is [angry],’ said a former top aide. ‘He’s got that look that he’s ready to blow.’” [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
  
  
• Looks like this is shaping up to be a good week for Apple and their digital music business -- after the French government effectively eviscerated the iPod DRM bill, it was reported that EMI, Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner Music have all renewed their contracts to sell music on the iTunes Music Store at the standard, flat $0.99 per track rate (that was supposedly settled on before), instead of that yucko variable pricing scheme that would have had consumers paying more for new music, and less for older tracks. [Engadget]