Falwell's Final Affirmation: Abortion Responsible for 9/11

In his final TV interview, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell stood by his statements blaming abortion providers, feminists, lesbians and gays, and civil libertarians for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Under pressure from the White House and others, Falwell had apologized for those statements two days after making them on Pat Robertson's 700 Club television program. But in an interview for the CNN documentary God's Warriors just days before his death, Falwell reverted to his earlier position.

Ethics Daily.com reports

Klansman Gets Prison for '64 Slayings

James Ford Seale has been sentenced to three life terms in prison for his role in the 1964 killings of two black teenagers, Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, both 19, who disappeared while hitchhiking in Mississippi. The FBI arrested Seale and another suspect in November 1964, but local authorities never prosecuted. Investigations into some 100 civil rights-era cases from the South have been reopened in recent years by federal and state officials. However, legislation to set up a unit at the Justice Department to pursue such cases has stalled in Congress.

Los Angeles Times reports

Texas Extends Death Penalty to Black Bystander

Kenneth Foster, a 30-year-old African American man, was sentenced to death ten years ago for the murder of a white man, Michael LaHood. The trial judge, the prosecutor, and the jury that sentenced him admit that Foster never killed anyone. He was convicted under Texas' controversial law of parties, which imposes the death penalty on anybody involved in a crime where a murder occurred. Foster was driving a car with three passengers, one of whom left the car, got into an unexpected altercation, and shot LaHood dead. Foster's execution is scheduled for August 30th.

Democracy Now! reports

Abstinence Programs Get Failing Grade in Oxford Study

Sex abstinence programs neither prevent risky sexual behaviour nor help in the prevention of unwanted pregnancy, an Oxford University study finds. The review of 13 U.S. trials concludes that abstinence programs (which account for one third of the Bush Administration's HIV budget) have no affect on rates of unprotected sex or sexually transmitted diseases. A branch of the US-based Silver Ring Thing, which encourages students to take virginity pledges and wear a silver ring as a symbol of their commitment to abstinence until marriage, now operates in the UK.

BBC News reports

Racial Generation Gap Threatens Public Investment

Communities that are more racially and ethnically diverse devote a smaller share of resources to public goods, according to a recent study. The least diverse states - Maine, Vermont, and West Virginia - spend more on public education, while more diverse states spend less on public goods of all kinds. Research suggests that racial/ethnic divisions may explain up to half of the gap in social spending between the United States and Europe. As the U.S. becomes increasingly multiracial - people of color now number 100 million while America's elderly population is disproportionately white - will this racial generation gap result in reduced social spending?

Population Reference Bureau reports

Cultish LaRouche Group Targets Campuses

Lyndon LaRouche is known to some for his baroque conspiracy theories, antisemitism, and for his 1988 conviction for mail fraud. But most of the students joining his youth movement today -- where they are urged to quit school and work full-time for the cause -- were barely learning to read when LaRouche was paroled in 1994. "Give me 1,000 youth leaders like these," LaRouche announced in 2003, "and I'll take over the country."

Inside Higher Ed reports

Spiritual Warfare Video Game Going to Iraq Soldiers

Soldiers in Iraq will receive gifts of the controversial apocalyptic video game, Left Behind: Eternal Forces, from Operation Straight Up (OSU), an evangelical entertainment troupe that proselytizes among active-duty military. An official arm of the Defense Department's America Supports You program, OSU will launch its "Military Crusade in Iraq" in the near future. Also, watch for more from its famous spokesperson, actor Stephen Baldwin.

The Nation reports

Still Profiling in the Friendly Skies

Air passenger profiling programs revised by the Department of Homeland Security this month continue to pose privacy and security threats, says the Electronic Information Privacy Center (EPIC). The Automated Targeting System is an eight-year-old federal database that creates secret "terrorist" ratings on tens of millions of American citizens "seeking to enter or exit the United States." While DHS cut the number of years the data can be stored from 40 to 15, and agreed not to use it for hiring decisions, its profiles are still secret and cannot be appealed.

Electronic Privacy Information Center reports

Orleans Parish Bucks Greater Racial Diversity Trend

Whites now make up less than half the population in 303 of 3,141 - or roughly 1 in 10 - counties nationwide. According to Census Bureau this increased racial diversity has been fueled by immigration, higher birth rates among Blacks and Latinos, and new settlement patterns that favor towns and suburbs over big cities. But post-Katrina, Black New Orleans is shrinking while the proportion of whites increases. In 2006, Blacks were only 59 percent of the population of Orleans Parish, home of New Orleans, down from 68 percent in 2005. Now Whites are 34 percent of the parish, up from 27 percent.

Associated Press reports

Alabama Clinic Targeted, Again

The same Birmingham, Alabama clinic bombed by Army of God member Eric Rudolph in 1998 was the target of Operation Save America's annual mobilization against clinics in mid-July. The 1998 attack killed a security guard and left a clinic nurse burned, partially blind, and unable to return to her profession. During this latest protest, the clinic's owner displayed the blood-spattered door that was blown off its hinges in the bombing and affixed a sign reading, "You did this."

NBC News and Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice report

Promoting the power of prayer in Iowa straw poll

If you believe in God and the power of prayer, Lonnie Berger wants you to do something for him. He wants you to pray that Sam Brownback does well in the Iowa Straw Poll in Ames on August 11.

Politico.com reports

U.S. Muslim group meets with Georgia city after woman wearing head scarf barred from court

A national Muslim advocacy group met with local officials from Valdosta, Georgia, about a policy that barred a Muslim woman from wearing a head scarf in a city courtroom because of “homeland security” concerns.

The Valdosta Daily Times reports

PBS Documents RNC Voter Supression in 2004; Voter Records Missing in Ohio

Previously undisclosed documents detail how Republican operatives, with the knowledge of several White House officials, engaged in an illegal, racially-motivated effort to suppress tens of thousands of votes during the 2004 presidential campaign in states where George W. Bush was trailing his Democratic challenger, Senator John Kerry. The effort to purge voters from registration rolls was spearheaded by Tim Griffin, a former Republican National Committee opposition researcher. Griffin recently resigned from his post as interim US attorney for Little Rock Arkansas. His predecessor, Bud Cummins, was forced out to make way for Griffin. Meanwhile, voter records from the contested 2004 Ohio race are missing.


Truthout and Alternet report

Americans More Negative on Impact of Immigrants: Gallup Poll

Americans have become more negative about the impact of immigrants in the United States than in the earlier years of this decade. Americans continue to believe that immigrants improve food, music, and the arts, although less so than in 2001 and 2002, and say they have little net impact on taxes either way. But more Americans believe immigrants tend to worsen crime, the economy, social and moral values, and job opportunities.

Gallup Poll reports

Faith-based toys to hit US stores

Instead of Spiderman or Bratz dolls, children could soon be clutching a talking Jesus toy, a bearded Moses or a muscle-bound figure of Goliath. From the middle of August, Wal-Mart, the biggest toy retailer in the US, will for the first time stock a full line of faith-based toys.

BBC NEWS Americas reports