Morning News Roundup (03 August)

Keep up with the latest news on the Israel-Hezbollah-Hamas conflict with these regularly updating news sources:

• Wall Street Journal
  
• BBC Crisis Map
  
• WaPo -- Latest Headlines | Interactive Updates

Now onto the rest of the day's news:

Middle East Sturm und Drang

• The LAT has a front-page piece on an American brigade in Iraq where the commander appears to have issued an order during one operation to "kill all military-age males" who didn't immediately surrender. A few GIs in the unit are now facing charges for murdering some detainees during the operation. As the NYT stuffs, during a hearing yesterday other soldiers testified to the kill orders. Meanwhile, the LAT emphasizes just how gung-ho the unit was. "Commanders encouraged soldiers to compete to rack up 'enemy' kills," recalled one soldier. [Slate's Today's Papers]
  
  
• Civil war is a more likely outcome in Iraq than democracy, Britain's outgoing ambassador in Baghdad has warned Tony Blair in a confidential memo. William Patey, who left the Iraqi capital last week, also predicted the break-up of Iraq along ethnic lines. He did also say that "the position is not hopeless" - but said it would be "messy" for five to 10 years.
  
  "Even the lowered expectation of President Bush for Iraq -- a government that can sustain itself, defend itself and govern itself and is an ally in the war on terror -- must remain in doubt," he wrote. [BBC and WaPo]
  
  
• Last night's Israeli raid on Hezbollah facilities in Baalbek was a sign of things to come. The Israeli Defense Force has a doctrine that Israel cannot afford to lose a single war. They believe that a defeat, or even the absence of a victory, would invite attack from all of Israel's enemies. So, the Israelis will not accept a cease-fire until they have scored an unequivocal triumph. I think this is what explains Israel's decision to launch such a daring raid last night and why we will see more such activity over the next few days.
  
  Ehud Olmert knows that, whatever he says about Israel's success in destroying terrorist infrastructure, if Hezbollah can fire a record 220 rockets into Israel in a day, a cease-fire now would be viewed as a victory for Hezbollah. [Foreign Policy's Passport]

Domestic Potpourri

• “Amid this country’s strong economic expansion, many Americans simply aren’t feeling the benefits,” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said recently. “Their increases in wages are being eaten up by high energy prices and rising healthcare costs, among others.” His comments are “a sign that the income inequality may rise higher on the US policy agenda in the years ahead.” [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast] [Ed. note: I'm not holding my breath, but I guess there's always hope...]
  
  
• For years, organized labor has worked hard to raise the minimum wage, while business groups have campaigned to block such a change. This week in the Senate, however, the AFL-CIO is pushing to kill the wage increase while practically the entire business lobby is demanding that it pass.
  
  The reversal is the product of election-year politics and clever -- critics say devious -- legislative packaging that has been dubbed the "trifecta." In the same bill, senators are being asked to raise the minimum wage (the liberals' goal), cut the estate tax (the conservatives' objective) and approve a laundry list of popular, though narrowly targeted, tax breaks.
  [...]
  The Senate intends to vote on the package this week, but the outcome is too close to call, lawmakers from both parties agree. Several Republican committee chairmen are unhappy with how the House GOP leadership stitched together the bill, and they may raise objections on the floor. [WaPo]
  
  
• The agency that coordinates power distribution across the mid-Atlantic took emergency steps yesterday to try to reduce the demand for electricity, as the third day of a punishing heat wave triggered fears that the grid was being strained to its limit. Yesterday, power usage in the network exceeded the record it had set the day before, of 144,000 megawatts.
  [...]
  Conservation measures in New York City changed the look of some city landmarks -- lights on bridges and the Empire State Building were kept dark, and the Nasdaq stock exchange turned off its seven-story electronic sign in Times Square. But all that apparently wasn't enough: By evening, scattered power outages were reported in all five city boroughs. [WaPo]
  
  
• Millionaire businessman Ned Lamont, a political novice fueled by deep pockets and voters' outrage over the Iraq war, has extended his lead over veteran Sen. Joe Lieberman less than a week before Connecticut's Democratic primary. Lamont has support from 54 percent of likely Democrat voters in the new Quinnipiac University poll, while Lieberman has support from 41 percent of voters. A similar poll July 20 showed Lamont with a slight advantage for the first time in the campaign. [Stamford Advocate; HT to AmericaBlog, which features more number crunching]

Climate Crisis

• “Growing seawater acidity threatens to wipe out coral, fish and other crucial species worldwide.” That finding is the last in a five-part LA Times series entitled “Altered Oceans,” detailing a variety of dangers facing the open seas. [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
  
  
• America in recent years has been sweltering through three times more than its normal share of extra-hot summer nights, government weather records show. And that is a particularly dangerous trend. During heat waves, like the one that now has a grip on much of the East, one of the major causes of heat deaths is the lack of night cooling that would normally allow a stressed body to recover, scientists say.
  
  Some scientists say the trend is a sign of manmade global warming. [ENN]
  
  
• Genetic analysis of living spruce trees provides strong evidence for the presence of a tree refuge in Alaska during the height of the last glacial period (17,000 to 25,000 years ago), and suggests that trees cannot migrate in response to climate change as quickly as some scientists thought. [TerraDaily]

Misc.

• A closely watched French law that allows regulators to force Apple Computer Inc. to make its iPod player and iTunes online store compatible with rival offerings went into effect Thursday. Apple, which had described an earlier draft of the copyright bill as "state-sponsored piracy," did not respond to calls and messages seeking comment Thursday. Currently, songs bought on iTunes can be played only on iPods, and an iPod can't play downloads from other stores that rival iTunes' premium music catalog. In a sign that other governments may follow France's example, recent proposals or regulatory moves to open up iTunes have emerged in Britain, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Poland. [AP via Salon]