The Federal Reserve on Wednesday cut a key interest rate for the second time in just more than a week, reducing the federal funds rate by a half point. It signaled that further rate cuts were possible. The Fed action pushed the funds rate to 3 percent. It followed a three-fourths of a percentage point cut on Jan. 22, a day after financial markets around the world had plummeted on fears that the U.S. economy was heading into a recession. That decrease had been the biggest one-day move in more than two decades.\nThe Israeli Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld the government’s decision to slash fuel and electricity supplies to the Gaza Strip. Israeli human rights groups had challenged the sanctions, which Israel says are aimed at halting ongoing rocket fire by Gaza militants. Palestinian officials say the cutbacks have harmed Gaza’s already impoverished residents by causing power shortages and crippling crucial utilities. Israel, which pulled out of Gaza in 2005 after a 38-year occupation, supplies all of Gaza’s fuel and more than two-thirds of its electricity.
The head of the 0 panel investigating Israel’s 2006 Lebanon conflict said Wednesday that the war ended without victory and the army did not provide an effective response to Hezbollah rocket fire. Eliyahu Winograd, the retired judge who led the investigation, told a packed auditorium in Jerusalem investigators found “failures and shortcomings” in the country’s political and military leadership during the conflict.
Australia’s government said Wednesday it would formally apologize to its Aborigine population next month as the first item of business of the new Parliament. Austrailians have been divided on the issue of forcibly removing Aborigines from their families for decades, and an apology would be a crucial step toward righting injustices many blame for the marginalized existence of Australia’s original inhabitants – its poorest and most deprived citizens.
The space station’s two American astronauts went out on a riskier-than-usual spacewalk Wednesday and fixed one of two equipment failures that crippled their power system and threatened to stall construction at the orbiting outpost. Commander Peggy Whitson and Daniel Tani replaced a motor needed to tilt a solar wing toward the sun, taking extra precautions to avoid being shocked. Once the new motor was hooked up, electricity began flowing through the unit and provided a power boost.
