National and International

Baghdad bombings kill 95
Iraq’s prime minister blamed Sunni insurgents for a wave of deadly bombings in Baghdad Wednesday and says the Iraqi government must re-evaluate security to confront the challenge.
Nouri al-Maliki’s statement is the first government acknowledgment of security failings following an increase of attacks since the June 30 withdrawal of U.S. forces from cities across the country.
Wednesday’s bombings killed at least 95 people and wounded more than 400.
Al-Maliki says the bombers want to undermine an effort to take advantage of security gains to open streets and bridges and to lift concrete barriers.
Brief by The Associated Press

Rep. Frank lashes out at protester for Nazi remark
Rep. Barney Frank lashed out at protester who held a poster depicting President Barack Obama with a Hitler-style mustache during a heated town hall meeting on federal health care reform.
“On what planet do you spend most of your time?” Frank asked the woman, who had stepped up to the podium at a southeastern Massachusetts senior center to ask why Frank supports what she called a Nazi policy.
“Ma’am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it,” Frank replied.
Frank, who chairs the House Financial Services Committee, sought to assure more than 500 people attending the rowdy meeting that the average taxpayer wouldn’t be hurt by plans currently under consideration in Congress.
Brief by The Associated Press

ECLA Lutherans
OK with gays?
Leaders of the country’s largest Lutheran denomination have moved toward a more welcoming view of homosexuality.
Delegates of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, meeting in Minneapolis, approved a “social statement on human sexuality” on Wednesday that acknowledges differing views on homosexuality among congregations. It says the ELCA is strong enough to accommodate such differences.
The vote on the statement is a prelude to a bigger vote Friday. That’s when delegates will debate a proposal to allow individual ELCA congregations to hire people in committed same-sex relationships as clergy.
Critics of the statement and the proposed changes on hiring clergy say both ignore clear scriptural direction that homosexual behavior is a sin.
Brief by The Associated Press