12 arrested after Northwest Airlines turned back  —  Passengers 'looked into plastic bags, passed cell phones'  —  AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (CNN) — Dutch police said Wednesday that 12 passengers were in custody after a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Mumbai, India, returned to Amsterdam when several people on board aroused concern.

Breaking: Group claims responsibility for Centanni abduction (Video added) (Update: An Al Qaeda connection?)  —  The "Holy Jihad Brigades"?  Whose very first act of holy jihad is to kidnap a reporter and a cameraman?  —  That's a shrewd way to get press, but at the rather large expense …

Bush: Katrina recovery will take time  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush on Wednesday cautioned against placing too much importance on the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's Gulf Coast strike, saying it will take a long, sustained effort to rebuild the area.

E&P editor attacks bloggers over Reutersgate (Update: Zombie explodes the ambulance incident)  —  I was going to make the title, "E&P editor attacks bloggers over Reutersgate, misrepresents pretty much everything," but his article's only the first of two parts.

Conflict of Interest Is Raised in N.S.A. Ruling  —  The federal judge who ruled last week that President Bush's eavesdropping program was unconstitutional is a trustee and an officer of a group that has given at least $125,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union in Michigan, a watchdog group said Tuesday.

Don't Marry Career Women  —  Guys: A word of advice.  Marry pretty women or ugly ones.  Short ones or tall ones.  Blondes or brunettes.  Just, whatever you do, don't marry a woman with a career.  —  Why?  Because if many social scientists are to be believed, you run a higher risk of having a rocky marriage.

L'Affaire GoldFrisch III: We All Knew This Was Coming  —  This post was co-written with Tim Dreier of The One-Handed Economist; both of us are graduates of the University of Oregon in Eugene, where Deb Frisch now lives.  As a matter of full disclosure, we've had a few scrapes with Frisch of our own …

Knowles, Palin in November  —  Former Wasilla mayor Sarah Palin knocked embattled incumbent Gov. Frank Murkowski out of office in the Republican primary race for governor Tuesday, setting the stage for a general election showdown with former two-term Democratic Gov. Tony Knowles and for a potential shake-up in her own party.

Congress report faults U.S. intelligence on Iran  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. intelligence community is ill-prepared to assess Iran's nuclear weapons capabilities and its intentions for developing weapons of mass destruction, a congressional report said on Wednesday.

The Constitution vs. Counterterrorism  —  Last week a federal district judge in Detroit ruled that the National Security Agency's conduct of electronic surveillance outside the boundaries of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is illegal.  As a judge I cannot comment on the correctness of her decision.

Pope sacks astronomer over evolution debate  —  Pope Benedict XVI has sacked his chief astronomer after a series of public clashes over the theory of evolution.  —  He has removed Father George Coyne from his position as director of the Vatican Observatory after the American Jesuit priest …

George W. Bush, reader  —  A week ago, we discussed whether the president actually read Camus' "The Stranger," and discussed the origins of existentialism.  It turns out, however, there's a little more to Bush's new-found appreciation of the printed word.

Is the Bush Doctrine Dead?  —  The president's critics are wrong.  That includes the neocons.  —  In recent months, we have been bombarded with reports of the death of the Bush Doctrine.  Of course, there have been many such reports since the doctrine was first promulgated at the start …

Connecticut Senate: Lieberman, Lamont Still in a Toss-Up  —  Lieberman (I) 45% Lamont (D) 43%  —  America's two-party system generally marginalizes Independent and third-party candidacies, but every once in a while a contest shows the system is not set in concrete: Ross Perot running for President …