Morning News Roundup (11 May)

• The National Security Agency has been “secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth.” The goal of the program, created shortly after 9/11, is “to create a database of every call ever made” within the nation’s borders. “Among the big telecommunications companies, only Qwest has refused to help the NSA.”
  
  The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility has closed its investigation into the Bush administration’s warrantless domestic surveillance program because investigators were “denied the security clearances needed to conduct a probe.” Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) called the denial of clearances “hard to believe.” [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
  
  
• The Bush Push begins: President Bush suggested yesterday that his younger brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, would make a "great president." If that sounds familiar, the Bush brothers' father, former president George H.W. Bush, made a similar statement last year, telling CNN's Larry King that Jeb Bush would be "awfully good" as president. [WaPo]
  
  John Aravosis over at AmericaBlog sez: That Bush family really does think they have a legacy. Unfortunately, their legacy is destructive for the country. Both of the Presidents named Bush have been disasters. America really can't afford another one.
  
  
• There have been violent clashes in the centre of the Egyptian capital, Cairo, between protesters and riot police. Thousands of officers have been deployed to prevent several hundred demonstrators reaching a court house, which is hearing the case of two senior judges dismissed after criticising last year's presidential election as fraudulent. [BBC]
  
  
• Urgent planning for the deployment of a large-scale UN peacekeeping force in Darfur is being blocked by Sudan and there will be a minimum six-months delay before the force arrives in the country. The hold-up comes amid escalating concern about the plight of 3 million people in Darfur who depend on international aid to survive. The world food programme has cut food rations in half due to a shortfall in donor funds. Access to aid continues to be hampered by insecurity, including attacks on relief workers. [Guardian]
  
  
• A Shiite Muslim lawmaker's cellphone ring tone -- sounding a Shiite religious chant with each call -- sparked a scuffle this week that led to a brief shutdown of Iraq's new legislature Wednesday, on what was only its second full day of business. [WaPo]
  
  
• Amid a growing uproar over lucrative government incentives for oil and gas producers, the House Appropriations Committee approved a bill on Wednesday that would order the Interior Department to renegotiate about 1,000 leases for companies drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. The bill would require the Bush administration to revisit scores of leases that permit companies to produce billions of dollars worth of oil and gas in publicly owned waters without paying royalties to the government. [NYTimes]
  
  
• U.S. scientists in Utah say they have found yet another contributing force to polar warming: haze. Arctic climate already is known to be particularly prone to global warming caused by greenhouse gases. Now, a University of Utah study finds the Arctic haze -- consisting of particulate pollution from midlatitude cities -- mixes with thin clouds, enabling them to become more efficient at trapping heat. [UPI via TerraDaily]
  
  
• The people who started what's now the largest biodiesel refinery in the state are planning what could be the largest such plant in the nation, in the heart of Western Washington's depressed timber country.
  
  Imperium Renewables, the parent company of Seattle Biodiesel, announced Tuesday that it hopes to complete a refinery in Grays Harbor County by the end of next year that could produce as much as 100 million gallons a year of diesel fuel made from plants. [Seattle Times]