Prosecutors filed charges Thursday against three people who allegedly conspired with suicide bombers in the attacks that killed 52 subway and bus passengers in London on July 7, 2005. For the first time, authorities alleged that the plot’s targets may have included London tourist attractions. The three, who were arrested last month, are from the same area of West Yorkshire, England, as three of the four suicide bombers.
Most felons released from prison in Florida will have their voting and other civil rights restored under a rule approved Thursday by Republican Gov. Charlie Crist and the state clemency board. All but the most violent felons would avoid the need to get on a long list for a hearing before the board, which sometimes takes years.
Attackers fired a grenade into a mosque in Thailand’s restive south Thursday, wounding 16 Muslim worshippers in an act of defiance after authorities imposed a strict curfew to contain escalating violence, officials said.
All new vehicles will be required to have anti-rollover technology by the 2012 model year, the government said Thursday, predicting it could prevent thousands of roadway deaths a year. The Transportation Department said “electronic stability control” could save between 5,300 and 9,600 lives annually once it is fully deployed into the nation’s fleet.
With a stunning $25 million fundraising haul for his presidential campaign, Democrat Barack Obama affirmed his status Wednesday as Hillary Rodham Clinton’s chief rival. The freshman Illinois senator proved he could channel his appeal into significant financial muscle, and he dispelled, for now, questions about the durability of his anti-war, “hope”-driven candidacy.
Billionaire Richard Branson hopes to fund a $198 million launch complex in the New Mexico desert that would blast paying tourists into space. Spaceport America, as sketched out by Branson, would be funded by state, local and federal money. The first rocket flights would be in 2009 and would initially be suborbital trips that would offer five minutes of weightlessness at about $200,000 per person. Eventually, the spaceport could offer trips into orbit and beyond.
A Ohio volunteer firefighter who was found at a park wearing a woman’s wig and bikini was arrested on charges of drunken driving and indecency, officials said. He told an officer he was on his way to a Dayton bar to perform as a woman in a contest offering a $10,000 prize, the arrest report said.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that new applications filed for jobless benefits rose by a seasonally adjusted 11,000, to 321,000, for the work week ending March 31. Although the increase left jobless claims at their highest level since the beginning of March, the report suggested that the labor market is holding up fairly well to strains from the troubled housing market and struggles faced by the automotive industry and other manufacturers.
