Daily News Digest | Sojourners

Daily News Digest

The latest news on Sen. Kennedy has brain tumor, Court on child porn, Cost of food, Presidential race, Same-sex marriage ruling, More troops to Iraq, Mortgage relief, House conservatives, Farm bill, South Africa, Burma, China, Iraq, Gaza, Pakistan, Abortion-UK.

Sign up to receive our daily news summary via e-mail »

Sen. Kennedy has brain tumor. Sen. Kennedy has brain tumor, hospital says "Massachusetts Sen. Edward Kennedy has a malignant brain tumor, his doctors said on Tuesday. Kennedy has a glioma and will require chemotherapy and radiation therapy," Kennedy Diagnosed With Malignant Brain Tumor "Doctors say tests conducted after the Democratic senator from Massachusetts suffered a seizure this weekend show a tumor in his left parietal lobe."


Court on child porn. Justices Uphold Child Porn Law "The Supreme Court upheld an expansive federal law that punishes people who peddle or seek child pornography, saying Congress's remedy for a growing problem on the Internet does not violate free-speech guarantees.' Supreme Court upholds child-pornography law "The Supreme Court gave prosecutors a powerful tool to attack the spread of child pornography online, ruling that people who send messages over the computer offering or seeking sexual images of children can be sent to prison, even when no such pornography exists." Supreme Court Upholds Child Pornography Law"The law, known as the Protect Act, applies regardless of whether the material turns out to consist solely of computer-generated images, or digitally altered photographs of adults, or even if the offer is fraudulent and the material does not exist at all."


Cost of food. Cost of free food gets ever higher for pantries "The sprawling brick warehouse near Midway Airport that stocks Cook County's food pantries bustled with activity as workers spent a recent day loading 110,000 pounds of meat, vegetables and canned goods onto a fleet of 25 trucks. With demand up 12 percent this year, the Greater Chicago Food Depository has gone into overdrive to ensure enough food is delivered to nearly 600 pantries and other agencies."


Presidential race. Obama Expected to Hit Milestone in Tuesday's Votes"Senator Barack Obama is poised to reach a milestone in the presidential race on Tuesday by capturing a majority of pledged delegates, but he said he would not declare victory against Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton or suggest the Democratic primary should end until the final three contests are finished on June 3." Democrats Observe A Fragile Cease-Fire "Sen. Barack Obama will return to Iowa tonight to celebrate another milestone in his long and sometimes bitter battle against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who shows no signs of dropping her effort to convince party leaders that she would be a stronger Democratic nominee for president."


Same-sex marriage ruling. Coming to grips with same-sex marriage ruling "The 4-3 ruling, which held that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, has prompted conservative and liberal congregations alike to discuss whether gay and lesbian members will be allowed to wed in their churches, synagogues and temples."


More troops to Iraq. 40,000 told to prepare for action "Pentagon officials notified about 40,000 active-duty and National Guard soldiers that they will be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in the upcoming months and years." Pentagon announces Iraq, Afghanistan troop deployments "The Pentagon announced upcoming deployments of more than 42,000 troops, including 25,000 active duty Army soldiers who would be sent to Iraq beginning in the fall to replace troops scheduled to come home by year's end." U.S. announces deployment of seven combat brigades to Iraq "The Defense Department announced that it will send seven combat brigades to Iraq by the end of the year, suggesting that the Pentagon is planning to maintain its troop levels in Iraq through next year."


Mortgage relief. Deal struck on mortgage relief bill Bush once opposed "The Senate Banking Committee is expected to pass a bipartisan measure that creates a $300 billion loan guarantee program to refinance distressed mortgages and slow a rising national tide of foreclosures." Senate Leaders Agree on Housing Aid"Senate negotiators on Monday said they had reached a deal on legislation aimed at helping hundreds of thousands of homeowners in danger of foreclosure by expanding the availability of government-insured mortgages."


House conservatives. House Conservatives to Offer Ideas for G.O.P. Message "Conservative Republicans in the House plan to urge their colleagues to rally behind a new manifesto that mixes antispending initiatives and tighter restrictions on government benefits as the party seeks a fresh message after a string of election defeats." GOP in danger of becoming 'Pelosi-lite' "A top House Republican yesterday said the leadership must steer disheartened rank-and-file members from adopting a centrist or "Pelosi-lite" agenda and instead reaffirm conservative principles, or risk deepening the political grave the party dug for itself under President Bush."


Farm bill. Reaching Well Beyond the Farm"But as Congress proved again last week, few pieces of major legislation also get such overwhelming bipartisan support - enough, in the case of the current farm bill, to override the veto expected by President Bush any day now." McCain urges farm bill veto "Sen. John McCain, standing firmly behind President Bush, yesterday ripped the $290 billion farm bill as excessively wasteful - breaking from the majority of Capitol Hill Republicans who joined Democrats to make the legislation veto-proof." EU looks to cut farming subsidies "The EU is renewing efforts to reform its Common Agricultural Policy, the rural payments system that costs more than 40bn euros (£32bn) a year. It is due to announce proposals aimed at making farming more efficient and environmentally friendly."


South Africa. South Africans Take Out Rage on Immigrants"But the death toll only hints at the consequences. Thousands of immigrants have been scattered from their tumbledown homes. They now crowd the police stations and community centers of Johannesburg, some with the few possessions they could carry before mobs ransacked their hovels, most with nothing but the clothes they wore as they escaped." Zimbabweans face hate in South Africa "The rising number of Zimbabweans in South Africa - estimated to be nearly 3 million - has created growing anxiety among the working-class South Africans who compete with them for jobs. This anxiety has recently turned to anger,"


Burma. Myanmar lets Asian neighbors coordinate relief "The government of Myanmar agreed to allow the 10-member Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations to coordinate international cyclone relief efforts in cooperation with the United Nations," Burma Warns of Food Shortage "Burma's government believes it will need large-scale food aid if rice replanting in the devastated Irrawaddy Delta is not completed in the next three weeks, and it estimates that 75 percent of schools were destroyed or damaged in areas pummeled by Tropical Cyclone Nargis,"


China. 5 million homeless, 40,000 dead in quake "China said it was struggling to find shelter for many of the 5 million people whose homes were destroyed in last week's earthquake, while the confirmed death toll rose Tuesday to more than 40,000." Abortion-UK. MPs to vote on abortion time limit "In a series of votes, MPs will consider whether to reduce the time limit on terminations to as little as 12 weeks. However, anti-abortion campaigners believe that their best chance of getting the Commons to vote against 24 weeks - which has been the upper limit since 1990 - will come when MPs consider an amendment suggesting 20 weeks as an alternative."