July 2006 in the United States

• Tony Blair and Arnold Schwarzenegger have announced their intention to collaborate to decrease carbon emissions and fight global warming. Their plan includes incentives for companies which limit their carbon emissions, among other carbon-limiting measures. Schwarzenegger has shown interest in a ban on excessive carbon emissions, which is directly in opposition to statements made by President George W. Bush. (AP)

• A U.S. jury convicts four members of the Aryan Brotherhood on charges of [...], racketeering and conspiracy in a federal case aiming to dismantle the white-supremacist group. (Minneapolis Star Tribune)
• A U.S. federal appeals court upholds the conviction and 25 year sentence of former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers for fraud. (USA Today)
• Coroners in the U.S. state of California estimate the death toll from the current heat wave at least 123. (AP News Alert)

• U.S. Heat Wave of 2006: A heat wave in California causes at least 90 deaths. (KOVR-TV / CBS 13)
• Andrea Yates, a U.S. woman who killed her five children in 2001, is found not guilty of [...] by reason of insanity. (CBS News)

• United States National Park Service director Fran P. Mainella announces her resignation. (NPS.gov)

• The Interstate Abortion Bill is passed by the United States Senate. The bill would make it illegal for non-parents to take a minor to another state to obtain an abortion without parental consent. (Washington Post)[http://www.congress.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:S.403: (Congress Record, Not yet updated)]
• Three men in St. Augustine, Florida are convicted of first degree [...] for the beatings to death of six people who had held onto the ringleader's Xbox when he was evicted from a home where he was squatting. (floridatoday.com)

• The United States Coast Guard and Alaska Air National Guard rescue twenty-three crew members from a capsized cargo ship south of the Aleutian Islands, on its way from Japan to Vancouver. (CBC)

• Tiger Woods wins the The Open Championship commonly known as the British Open, finishing two shots ahead of Chris DiMarco. (ABC News America)
• American Floyd Landis wins the 2006 Tour de France. (Bloomberg)

• The U.S. grand jury investigating baseball player Barry Bonds convicted him of perjury and tax evasion charges, sentencing him to 25 years in jail. All his homeruns for the year are to be stricken from the record books. Bonds' trainer, Greg Anderson was released from a federal prison in Dublin, California, after having been jailed for refusing to give evidence.

(ESPN.com), (Forbes) (NBC)

• The United States House of Representatives has voted 260-167 to protect the "Under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance from review by federal court judges. (CBS News)
• Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve warns the United States Senate Banking Committee of the possible impact of rising energy prices on inflation. (Bloomberg)
• Cruise ship carrying 1000 Americans leaves Beirut for Cyprus as the fighting enters its second week in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict. (Associated Press)

*The Special Investigations Division of the US House of Representatives, reports that the "vast majority" of pregnancy counselling centers contacted in the probe "misrepresented the medical consequences of abortion, often grossly exaggerating the risks." (NewStandard)

• BP (formerly British Petroleum) shuts down 12 wells in Alaska after employees report leakage. The company is under investigation by a grand jury over an oil spill of some 267,000 gallons (1 million litres) at the Prudhoe Bay field. (BBC)
• A power outage at the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center cuts communications and brings flights in southern California to a standstill. (MSNBC)

*Dr. Anna Pou and two nurses from Memorial Medical Center, New Orleans, have been charged with [...] in connection with the possible mercy killings of 34 patients in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. (CNN.com) * The United States House of Representatives fails to pass a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage as the margin 236-187 is 47 short of the necessary two-thirds support needed for constitutional amendments. (Washington Post)

* Space Shuttle Discovery lands successfully on Runway 33 at the Shuttle Landing Facility of the Kennedy Space Center, ending a 13-day mission to the International Space Station. (BBC)

* US President George W. Bush claims that the United States and Russia had almost reached agreement on Russia joining the World Trade Organisation. Bush met with Vladimir Putin prior to the G8 meeting in Strelna. (Bloomberg) * US President George W. Bush calls for Syria to urge Hezbollah to "lay down its arms and to stop attacking". Russian defense minister Sergei Ivanov calls Hezbollah to "cease using [...] methods, including attacks on neighboring countries". (Haaretz)

* Merck & Co. wins a trial over a grandmother's claim that its Vioxx painkiller caused her to have a heart attack, reducing pressure on the company to settle 12,000 other cases AbOUT the [...]. (Bloomberg)

* The United States is considering establishing an independent command for South Korean troops. South Korea has command of its forces during peacetime, but currently the United States would take control if there were a war. (Reuters) * Condoleezza Rice says Iran's rejection of the international incentives program will force the major powers to take decisions in the United Nations Security Council. (Reuters)

• A fire and smoke buildup has occurred on the CTA Blue Line train in the U.S. city of Chicago. Most injuries are from smoke inhalation. No fatalities have been stated at this time. Emergency personnel are on scene. The cause is from a rear derailment. (CBS2 Chicago)(NBC5 Chicago) (Chicago Tribune) (CNN)(Associated Press)
• U.S. broadcaster Bob Novak reveals his involvement in the Plame leak, stating "I learned Valerie Plame's name from Joe Wilson's entry in ''Who's Who in America." (Bob Novak/Human Events Online)
• News Corp's MySpace.com has surpassed Yahoo! Mail for the first time, and has become the number-one most visited website in the United States. (Reuters)
• The United States government agrees to apply parts of the Geneva Convention to detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, but does not change their status from enemy combatants to POWs. (Washington Times)
• A three ton concrete ceiling tile falls on a car in a tunnel in Boston, United States, [...] one female passenger and closing the tunnel. The Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, announces that the Massachusetts Government will be taking legal action to remove the Chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, Matt Amorello. (Bloomberg) (The Boston Globe)(Daily Comet)
• In the 2006 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, the American League defeats the National League 3 to 2. Michael Young of the Texas Rangers is named Most Valuable Player. (Major League Baseball)

• U.S. President George W. Bush will likely cast the first veto of his presidency if the Senate passes a bill expanding federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research, Karl Rove says. The House has already passed the bill. (Drudge Report)
• U.S. Chief Judge Thomas Hogan rules that a Federal Bureau of Investigation raid on the Capitol Hill office of Congressman William J. Jefferson was legal. Minneapolis St. Paul Star Tribune
• Building on 62nd Street in the Upper East Side of New York City explodes. Details in 2006 62nd Street explosion. (MSNBC/AP)

• 25 people are injured on the Son of the Beast wooden roller coaster near Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, as it came to a rapid stop. Several rescue units were sent to the scene. (WCPO-TV)(Associated Press)

• USS Mustin, which has surface-to-air and Tomahawk cruise missiles has been deployed to a Japanese port. This is regularly scheduled and not in response to North Korea's missile test. (Associated Press)
• US diplomat Christopher R. Hill indicates US support for the informal resumption of six party talks aimed at resolving the North Korean nuclear crisis. (Sydney Morning Herald)

• craigslist is sued because of illegal posts to that website. Amazon, eBay, AOL, Yahoo, and Google all file briefs as friends of the court in support of craigslist. (NPR News)
• President George W. Bush says in a rare conference out of Washington, D.C. in Chicago, that the United States had "a reasonable chance" of shooting down the long range missile fired by North Korea, if it didn't fail. He also said however that, "Our anti-ballistic systems are modest, they are new," and that, "I have always said it is important for an American president to exhaust all diplomatic avenues before use of force." (Associated Press)
• The FBI has uncovered a plot to bomb the Holland Tunnel and flood Lower Manhattan with water. (Daily News)

• The New York Court of Appeals rules in a 4-2 decision, that gay marriage is not allowed under state law. (Newsday)

• China and Russia resist efforts by the United States and Japan to move a motion in the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on North Korea over its missile tests. (ABC News America)
• Former Enron executive Kenneth Lay has died of a heart attack at the age of 64. (Reuters) (KTRK)
• A tropical storm could form in the Atlantic off the coast of Florida. The NHC states that conditions could be "somewhat more conducive" over the next "day or two." (National Hurricane Center)(Reuters)
• New Jersey casinos have shut down for the first time in their history. The closure started at 8 AM Local Time, 1200 GMT, since the state's budget has not been decided requiring the shutdown of state regulatory offices.(Philadelphia Inquirer)(Associated Press)

• The Space Shuttle Discovery takes off from Cape Canaveral for the International Space Station at 2:38pm EDT (1838 UTC) after its liftoff had been postponed twice. (CNN)

• The Space Shuttle Discovery's launch is now in doubt, with a 5 inch crack found in the foam insulation of its external tank. The launch is scheduled for 2:38 PM ET Tuesday, which would be the first launch on the United States Independence Day. (Spaceflight Now/CBS News) (MSNBC)

• The launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery is postponed until Tuesday at 2:38pm local time due to stormy weather in Florida. (CBC)

• Launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery on STS-121 is delayed today due to cloud cover and the threat of thunderstorms. The next launch attempt is scheduled for 3:26 PM EDT tomorrow, although more bad weather is forecast. (Spaceflight Now) (Associated Press)