Today's Details

-Lebanon is facing an environmental crisis after an Israeli air strike on the Jiyeh power station, about 20km south of Beirut caused 10,000 tons of oil to spill into the Mediterranean sea. DETAILS

-U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill. (READ IT AGAIN, FOLKS - "U.S. citizens SUSPECTED of terror ties might be DETAINED INDEFINITELY and BARRED FROM ACCESS TO CIVILIAN COURTS under LEGISLATION PROPOSED BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION." So, to recap - if you are SUSPECTED of terror ties you could be locked up without access to the legal system. We sat back and have remained mostly silent while they did this to people we don't particularly care for - and now they've decided to broaden the scope to include us. - see today's quote - HAD ENOUGH?) DETAILS

-The US administration has quietly reversed its goal from whittling down troop numbers in Iraq before the mid-term congressional elections in November. A Pentagon spokesman on Friday confirmed that US troop levels in Iraq rose to 132,000 during the past week – the highest since late May – from 127,000 at the start of the week. The spokesman said troop numbers often fluctuated and “there might be temporary spikes during periods of troop rotation”. DETAILS

-Sunday's edition of The New York Times is set to include an editorial endorsing challenger Ned Lamont over incumbent Joe Lieberman for Connecticut's Democratic primary race for the Senate. DETAILS

-The record-breaking heat wave that plagued California will pass this weekend to the U.S. Midwest and East Coast where high air conditioning use will strain electricity systems and increase the chance of outages, power officials and weather forecasters said. DETAILS

-The State Department agency in charge of $1.4 billion in reconstruction money in Iraq used an accounting shell game to hide ballooning cost overruns on its projects there and knowingly withheld information on schedule delays from Congress, a federal audit released late Friday has found. (Shocking!) DETAILS

-Israel on Saturday rejected a request by the U.N. for a three-day cease-fire in Lebanon to deliver humanitarian supplies and allow civilians to leave the war zone. DETAILS

- Tony Blair and George Bush defied the growing anger across the world yesterday by seeking a UN resolution that fell far short of a ceasefire to end the killing of Lebanese civilians. DETAILS

-Republicans muscled the first minimum wage increase in a decade through the House early Saturday after pairing it with a cut in inheritance taxes on multimillion-dollar estates. (These people are shameless.) DETAILS

-The media magnate Rupert Murdoch is expected to offer Tony Blair a senior role in his News Corporation empire when he stands down as Prime Minister. DETAILS

- Wal-Mart Stores, admitting defeat in Germany’s giant, cutthroat retail market, said today that it would sell its 85 stores here to a German retailer, the Metro Group, and incur a loss of $1 billion. The decision to sell out came two months after Wal-Mart sold its stores in South Korea, and amounts to a rare retreat by the world’s largest retailer from its breakneck global expansion. DETAILS

-Mel Gibson was arrested early Friday for investigation of driving under the influence of alcohol, authorities said. Mel Gibson "blurted out a barrage of anti-Semitic remarks" -- "fucking Jews" and "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world" and asking the arresting deputy "Are you a Jew?" -- during his DUI arrest early Friday morning. (Another self righteous, rhetoric spewing nut from the right is forced to show the world he's just a human being who makes mistakes like the rest of us. I guess the temptation was just too great for him to overcome. Hopefully, it will be his LAST TEMPTATION of this sort. This err in judgement on his part is no doubt the result of those Godless Jews who run Hollywood!!!! He should thank God he didn't kill someone.) DETAILS

-Once, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut seemed on the brink of the vice presidency, a principled moderate in a party that didn't always warm to them. Now, hewing to his support for the war in Iraq, he confronts a political abyss, abandoned by all groups but the poorer, older and less educated Democrats in his state he confronts a political abyss, abandoned by all groups but the poorer, older and less educated Democrats in his state. DETAILS