AP Network News. I’m John Belmont.
This really shouldn’t affect your holiday shopping but interest rates are going up again. Let’s go live right away to the business desk and correspondent David Melendy.
— John, the Federal Reserve policymakers have done exactly what most analysts were expecting, raising a key short-term interest rate one-quarter of a percent. The federal funds rate banks charge each other on overnight loans goes to 2.25% now. And in their statement accompanying the interest announcement, they say the economy is growing at a moderate pace, and both energy prices and the job market continue to improve gradually. As First Albany Security chief economist Hugh Johnson told me, their view couldn’t be better. John?
Looks like Saddam Hussein isn’t going to be in an Iraqi courtroom any time soon. Iraq’s interim prime minister had said the trials involving the top figures in Saddam’s regime would begin next week, but US officials say those will be just preliminary hearings. As Saddam awaits trial inside a prison cell, he’s said to be doing some reading, writing and gardening.
— My understanding is that it’s mostly poetry. And I’ve seen some indication that he’s been writing a book, but not in terms of a memoir.
That’s Lt. Col. Barry Johnson who’s overseeing the care and feeding of Saddam.
He survived Columbine, now Greg Rund has died in Iraq during his second tour of duty there. His family says the marine lance corporal was killed in action on Saturday.
Presidential attaboys today for three men who played major roles in Iraq.
— This honor goes to three men who have played pivotal roles in great events, and whose efforts have made our country more secure and advanced the cause of human liberty.
President Bush giving a Medal of Freedom to retired general Tommy Franks, former CIA chief George Tenet, and former Iraq administrator Paul Bremer.
The Associated Press has learned from documents that the government’s chief of AIDS research rewrote a safety report on a US-funded drug study to change its conclusions and delete negative information.
This is AP Network News.
The family of an Iraqi allegedly killed by British troops can’t get the dead man back, but Melissa Gray reports the relatives have won an inquiry into his death.
— Twenty-six-year-old Baha Mousa was a hotel receptionist in the southern Iraqi city of Basra who died after British troops allegedly beat him in September last year. Mousa’s family wanted the British high court to order an independent inquiry into the case saying Mousa’s death violated British and European human rights laws. Family attorney Phil Shiner says he’s pleased with the ruling. (I think it gives a very clear message to the government that they should get on now with finding out what went wrong in the Baha Mousa case particularly.) The court rejected five other similar cases and the British government says it’s now studying the ruling. Melissa Gray, London.
With more jobs and less expensive universities in Israel, more Jewish Americans are exercising their right of return and emigrating to Israel. More than 2200 Americans made the decision in the first 10 months of this year.
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