Morning News Roundup (10 August)

Top Story

• Wow! From the BBC:
  

  A plot to blow up planes in flight from the UK to the US and commit "mass murder on an unimaginable scale" has been disrupted, Scotland Yard has said. It is thought the plan was to detonate explosive devices smuggled in hand luggage on to as many as 10 aircraft.

  And more:
  

  Armed police are patrolling terminals and travellers are undergoing searches. All short-haul inbound flights to Heathrow airport have been cancelled. Some flights in and out of Gatwick have been suspended.
  [...]
  The BBC News website's Krishan Ramakrishnan at Heathrow said travellers were not as worried by the security operation as by the inconvenience of being allowed to take just passports and medicines on the plane.

  And from the ABC News Blotter blog:
  

  ABC News has learned that two "significant arrests" in Pakistan in recent days may have significantly accelerated the pace of the investigation.
  
  Many of the alleged terror plotters appeared to be of Pakistani descent. It appears that they were probably "homegrown" terrorists with strong links to al Qaeda and Pakistani operatives. This new generation of terrorists have figured significantly in plots in the U.S., London and Canada in recent months.

  
  Hmmm... my flight to Hawaii next week could be interesting (especially if I can't take my laptop onto the plane).

Middle East Sturm und Drang

• A suicide bomber detonated a belt of explosives near a highly revered Shiite shrine in southern Iraq Thursday, killing at least 35 people and injuring 122. Shiite religious leaders in Najaf accused Sunni loyalists of former dictator Saddam Hussein of carrying out the attack. In other violence Thursday, 18 people were killed across the country, most of them in Baghdad, including four policemen who died in a gunfight with insurgents. Five bodies were also found Thursday. [WaPo]
  
  
• A neocon cuts and runs. Prominent neoconservative Max Boot, writing in the Los Angeles Times, suggests “reducing U.S. forces from today’s level of 130,000 to under 50,000 and changing their focus from conducting combat operations to assisting Iraqi forces.” [ThinkProgress' ThinkFast]
  
  
• Israeli PM Olmert holds off the planned invasion of southern Lebanon to give more time to a possible UN resolution, though France and the US continue to disagree. Iranian supplies continue to trickle to Hezbollah fighters and Hassan Nasrallah urges Arabs to leave Haifa in northern Israel so that Hezbollah can step up its attacks. Rami Khouri argues in the Daily Star that a UN resolution addresses only one front of five different wars being waged in the region. Aluf Benn in Haaretz believes that Olmert has no idea of how to end the current conflict. [Foreign Policy's Passport]
  
  
• Even as Israel continues to pound Beirut's southern suburbs, and agreed Wednesday on plans to expand its four-week-old offensive as far as 18 miles into southern Lebanon, many here increasingly blame the US for its extensive military and political support for the Jewish state. [CSM]a

Domestic Potpourri

• Do they want to go out of business?!? From the NYTimes:
  

  Ford Motor said Wednesday that it planned to build a 325-horsepower version of the Ford Shelby GT. It also plans a big luxury car, the Lincoln MKS, which will become the struggling brand’s flagship sedan. On Thursday, General Motors is expected to confirm that it will resurrect one of its most famous muscle cars, the Chevrolet Camaro, which was a hit at the Detroit auto show in January.
  [...]
  Though 60 percent of the models G.M. sells are light trucks, including pickups and sport utility vehicles, it offers the only subcompact car sold by a Detroit company: the Chevrolet Aveo, which is built for G.M. by its Korean partner, Daewoo.
  
  Ford or Chrysler sell no subcompacts in the United States, even though they or their corporate parents sell them in other global markets. By contrast, Toyota, Honda and Nissan have all introduced small cars in the last few months, all of them sold overseas.

• A few weeks ago, the Chicago City Council approved a groundbreaking ordinance to require all large retailers in that city to pay a living wage of $10 per hour plus $3 in benefits.
  
  In retaliation, the Target Corp. is making a blackmail threat to cancel the opening of stores in three predominantly African-American Southside Chicago neighborhoods unless the mayor vetoes the ordinance. Advocates for the Chicago law are calling on allies to call Target's CEO and end this political bullying.
  [...]
  What makes it clear that the threat is political blackmail and not merely a calculated business decision is the fact that the company admits that its Chicago Lincoln Park store is its most successful in the country-- and economic analysts note that big box retailers have been pushing hard to get access to urban consumers in recent years: "I think Target is making these threats to try to scare Chicago into scrapping this law," said Annette Bernhardt, deputy director of poverty programs at Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University Law School. "Everyone knows they'll expand into the city. That's where the untapped market is." [TPM Cafe]
  
  
• According to nationwide statistics (see table 2.10, here), transit buses carry fewer than 9 passengers, on average. That average includes both the busy routes and the sparsely-ridden ones; apparently there are lots of buses that have just a few riders, especially in spacious suburbs or during late-night runs.
  
  The average transit bus gets a little around 3.5 miles per gallon in regular service. When I do the math, I find that buses average about 30 passenger-miles per gallon of fuel, or thereabouts. Curiously, that makes transit buses--at least, at current levels of occupancy--just about the least efficient form of personal travel around! [Sightline's Daily Score]

Climate Crisis

• Super Typhoon Saomai, the strongest to threaten China in over 50 years, slammed into the southeast coast on Thursday killing at least two people, injuring over 80 and forcing more than 1.5 million from their homes.
  [...]
  Storm tracker Tropical Storm Risk had graded Saomai a category five "super" typhoon -- its highest category -- but reduced that to category 4 once it came ashore. It landed with a wind velocity of 216 km (135 mph) per hour, and was more powerful than a typhoon that hit Zhejiang in August 1956 and triggered a tsunami that killed more than 3,000, Xinhua said. [WaPo]

Misc.

• Harvard Medical School researchers reported Wednesday that the percentage of infants who are significantly overweight rose 73.5 percent over two decades. Though their study indicates just 5.9 percent of the country's infants fall into that category--or about 242,000 of the 4.1 million born each year--the trend could have worrisome implications for the nation's obesity epidemic. [Chicago Tribune]

And finally... Golden Balls was in town last night, and I got to see him up close and personal with great corner seats (thanks Kat!):

Three years later than expected, there was a David Beckham sighting in Seattle, contributing to a massive downtown traffic jam, leading to a stadium sellout of 66,830 and providing the city with another soccer happening.

On a cool yet pleasant Northwest night, Spain's white-shirted Real Madrid and its English soccer star got a workout from the top American pro team, black-togged D.C. United, as they traded goals midway through the opening half and finished in a 1-1 tie.
[...]
Soccer fans traveled from Canada and every corner of the state mainly to get a glimpse of the great Becks. Fifty seconds into the match, he was center stage, serving up a free kick in front of those squealing Auburn girls, whose midriffs were exposed, painted and offering the message "We Love You Beckham." A couple of them also held aloft a sign that carried his name.