The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal world-wide newsbox, and Los Angeles Timesall lead with Terri Schiavo’s parents appealing to a circuit court after a federal judge declined to order Schiavo’s feeding tube reinserted—and early this morning, as the LAT as USA Todaycatch, the three-member court denied the appeal in a 2-1 ruling. USAT fronts Schiavo but leads with details on Monday’s school shooting at an Indian reservation in Minnesota. Before his rampage, Jeff Weise, a Chippewa, apparently had been posting on a neo-Nazi Web site. “I’ve always carried a natural admiration for Hitler and his ideals, and his courage to take on larger nations,” he wrote in one post.
The NYT covers some conservatives squirming over the party line on Schiavo. “This is a clash between the social conservatives and the process conservatives, and I would count myself a process conservative,” said a Hoover Institute guy. A former solicitor general for President Reagan chimes in on the Times op-ed page: “FEDERALISM HAS A RIGHT TO LIFE, TOO.”
The LAT and NYT front the Fed warning that “pressures on inflation have picked up.” The announcement, which was made as the Fed made another small nudge in the interest rates, made the financial markets frown.
The papers go inside with an unlikely coalition of libertarians, ACLU-types, and gun advocates who’ve banded together in opposition to parts of the Patriot Act.
The Post gets a heart-to-heart with Vice President Cheney, with the shocking results splashing above-the-fold: “CHENEY LAUDS BUSH APPOINTEES.” (Hey, it was an “exclusive” interview; they needed to give it some headline.)
Meanwhile, currently on USAT’s Web site: “POPE REPORTEDLY SICKLY.”
Everybody mentions a bombing early this morning at a shopping center in a Lebanese town that the NYT describes as “anti-Syrian.” Three people were killed.
A front-page LAT analysis has European diplomats celebrating the White House’s Lebanon policy. “The change is from a diplomacy of statements to a discreet, active diplomacy in the traditional sense,” said one diplomat. “It’s the use of America’s soft power rather than its military power.”
The LAT says that, in an effort to quell the insurgency, Iraq has begun sweeps for illegal immigrants. So far only 250 immigrants have been kicked out, but the Times points out the potential for far more since plenty of legit immigrants don’t have the documents necessary to prove their residency. The policy has won support among taggers. Some recent graffiti: “Arabs out of Iraq” and “We agree with the government—Arabs go home.”
The WP says Iraqi troops, with U.S. air support, attacked what was described as an insurgent training base northwest of Baghdad. Seven Iraqi troops were killed; no word on insurgent deaths. There was also fighting in the northern city of Mosul, where there was a failed assassination attempt on the provincial police chief and a roadside bomb aimed at a U.S. patrol killed four civilians. The NYT emphasizes the curious case of a shopkeeper in Baghdad who saw insurgents “coming toward his shop” (NYT) and decided on a policy of pre-emption. “We killed three of those who call themselves the mujahedeen,” said the Shiite shop-owner. “I am waiting for the rest of them to come, and we will show them.”
The Journal reports that a few mutual fund companies have mistakenly posted some customer info—including account numbers—on an SEC Web site. The disclosures have been limited to customers who own more than 5 percent of a class of any mutual fund. Some of the companies involved: Pimco, Dreyfuss, and AmSouth.
The NYT and WP go inside withgeneticists discovering a plant that somehow had a corrected version of a defective gene it inherited, suggesting it had a backup somewhere. Assuming the results are confirmed, it will change the laws of inheritance we learned back in ninth grade (thank you, Gregor Mendel). “We think this demonstrates that there’s this parallel path of inheritance that we’ve overlooked for 100 years,” said one of the researchers, “and that’s pretty cool.”
Are these plants, perhaps, using hydroponics? Scientists have dubbed the mutated gene “hothead.” The Post offers the names of some other related genes: “Fiddlehead, airhead, pothead and deadhead.”
