In the News

WORLD

BIRMINGHAM, England – Counterterrorism police arrested eight men Wednesday in an alleged kidnapping plot during pre-dawn raids. The target was allegedly a British Muslim soldier, according to Sky News.

The potential victim was in police custody, Sky reported, saying the kidnapping was going to be an “Iraq-style” execution.

Police would not comment on Sky News reports that part of the plan was to behead the man and post the act on the Internet, but counterterrorism officials said the plot was the first of its kind to be uncovered in Britain.

Birmingham has been the site of several major terror raids in the past two years, including a plot uncovered in the summer that involved several suspects planning to use liquid explosives to blow up as many as 10 flights between Britain and the United States. Birmingham is also the hometown of Britain’s first Muslim soldier, Cpl. Jabron Hashmi, 24, to be killed in Afghanistan last year. The extremist British sect al-Ghurabaa’s Web site posted an image of the soldier surrounded by flames.

Since suicide bombers killed 52 people in London on July 7, 2005, counterterrorism units have conducted several raids across the country. One man was shot in one of the raids in London last year.

“People don’t trust their own children any more,” said Shabir Hussain, chairman of the nearby Ludlow Road Mosque in Birmingham. “You feel like you should challenge your son or daughter: ‘Where are you going at night? What are you watching on TV? What are you doing on the Internet?'”

NATION

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Astronauts Michael Lopez-Alegria and Sunita Williams started the first of three spacewalks over a nine-day period at 10:14 a.m. EST Wednesday outside the international space station.

It is the first time U.S. astronauts have attempted the feat in such a short period without a space shuttle docked at the station.

“We’ll see you in a couple of hours,” Williams told Russian crewmate Mikhail Tyurin, who remained inside the space station as the spacewalk began.

“Good luck,” Tyurin replied.

The astronauts plan to connect ammonia loops that keep the U.S. lab cooled from a temporary to a permanent system, and to jettison a sunshade and thermal shrouds during their three trips outside the station. Besides Wednesday’s trip, spacewalks are planned for Sunday and the following Thursday.

It’s not uncommon for U.S. astronauts to conduct three spacewalks over a short period of time during a visit by a space shuttle to the station. Extra astronauts are handy for helping the spacewalkers prepare their spacesuits and the airlock, and for operating robotic arms on the station and shuttle to provide camera views or move the spacewalkers.

Unlike spacewalks with a docked shuttle, the coordinator during the upcoming spacewalks will be at Mission Control in Houston instead of at the space station.

NASA officials said they scheduled the spacewalks so closely together because the first two are almost identical in nature, and time and energy could be saved on preparation. Timing also played a role, as the spacewalks were scheduled to take place between the last shuttle visit in December and the next scheduled visit in mid-March.

STATE&LOCAL

RICHMOND – The General Assembly took the first step Wednesday toward expressing its “profound regret” for the state’s role in slavery. The House Rules Committee unanimously endorsed a revised version of Delegate A. Donald McEachin’s, D-Richmond, slavery apology resolution. A vote by the full House of Delegates is expected early next week. Also, a resolution identical to McEachin’s original is pending in a Senate committee.

Among those voting for the measure was Delegate Frank D. Hargrove Sr., R-Glen Allen, who angered black leaders two weeks ago by saying “black citizens should get over” slavery. Hargrove said he could support the revised resolution because it expresses regret “without apologizing for anything.”

The resolution originally called for the legislature to “atone for the involuntary servitude of Africans.” After some lawmakers suggested atonement could mean reparations, the resolution’s sponsors agreed to change the wording to an expression of contrition.

Delegate John O’Bannon III, R-Richmond, a member of the Rules Committee, offered yet another rewrite. It says the General Assembly “expresses its profound regret for the Commonwealth’s role in sanctioning the immoral institution of human slavery, in the historic wrongs visited upon native peoples, and in all other forms of discrimination and injustice that have been rooted in racial and cultural bias and misunderstanding.”

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