Ex-Envoy to Afghanistan Gets Baghdad Posting
Zalmay Khalilzad, a former White House official who has served as U.S. ambassador to his native Afghanistan, was named yesterday to take over the post in Iraq.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced his selection at the State Department. Khalilzad pledged to work to improve the lives of Iraqis through postwar reconstruction so Iraq "can stand on its own feet."
If confirmed by the Senate, Khalilzad will succeed John D. Negroponte as U.S. ambassador to Iraq.
Frist Says Courts Acted Fairly in Schiavo Case
Senate Republican leader Bill Frist (Tenn.) said courts acted fairly in the Terri Schiavo "right-to-die" case, differing sharply from a vow of retribution by his House counterpart, Tom DeLay (Tex.).
"I believe we have a fair and independent judiciary today," said Frist, now trying to resolve a battle over judicial nominations that threatens to tie his chamber into knots. "I respect that."
Frist and DeLay, as the Senate and House majority leaders, had led a charge for legislation calling on federal courts to review the Schiavo case. But federal judges refused to intervene and let stand a Florida state court order to remove a feeding tube from the brain-damaged woman. Schiavo's husband had said she would not have wanted to live in her condition, but her parents fought against the tube's removal. Schiavo died last week after spending 15 years in what courts had ruled was a persistent vegetative state.
Last night, hundreds of mourners joined her parents at a funeral Mass for her in Florida.
DeLay vowed shortly after her death: "We will look at an arrogant, out-of-control, unaccountable judiciary that thumbed their nose at the Congress and president when given jurisdiction to hear this case anew."
Frist, asked about the case, told reporters he believes the courts "acted in a fair and independent way."
Net Worth of Blacks Lags Behind Whites'
Although income and education gaps between black and white Americans have narrowed significantly, black households still have barely one-tenth the net worth of white households, according to a new National Urban League report.
Middle-class blacks' tenuous hold on prosperity reflects racial discrimination in housing and other wealth-building arenas -- both historically and now -- and suggests that today's civil rights battles are largely economic, said Marc H. Morial, Urban League president. The report, "The State of Black America 2005," was scheduled to be released today.
Among the report's findings: Blacks have more than double the unemployment rate of whites; less than half of blacks own homes, compared with more than three-fourths of whites; and black youth are more likely to have poorly trained teachers, to live in poverty and to not have health insurance than whites.
-- From News Services
