Whistleblower beaten: Countdown Newsletter 6/7/05

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Tonight on Countdown
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A Los Alamos lab whistleblower scheduled to testify before Congress about alleged financial irregularities was badly beaten outside a bar - an attack his wife and lawyer believe was designed to silence him. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8123885/

Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann broadcasts LIVE at 8 pm et, and the count is never complete without you. Join us.

Keith blogs: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7873141/#050516b

Bush & Blair hold a joint news conference today on African famine relief. But will they be asked about the Downing Street memo? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8123802/

Senators are ready to fulfill the second part of a historic agreement on President Bush's judicial choices by moving California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown's nomination to a federal appeals court toward confirmation. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8128400/

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton criticized the Bush administration's record on unemployment, women's rights and the environment, saying it is "intent upon consolidating and abusing power." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8130460/

Jackson jury deliberates; will today be it? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8129463/

Normally, making four pizza deliveries wouldn't seem like a big deal. But Thomas Stefanelli did it Saturday night after a would-be robber put a hole in his leg with a .32-caliber bullet. Stefanelli, 37, said it was "dedication" that drove him to make the deliveries while he was bleeding in his Jeep. http://www.sptimes.com/2005/06/07/Tampabay/Nothing_could_stop_th.shtml

Nearly 150 angry moms - babies at their breasts - staged a peaceful "nurse-in" yesterday outside ABC's Manhattan studios in defense of mother's milk. Walters said she felt awkward sitting with her hairdresser next to a woman who was breast-feeding on an airplane. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/316620p-270873c.html

That's some of what we're planning for tonight's show.

Finally,
She's 91 and uses a hearing aid and eyeglasses, but Katherine Woodworth of Toledo, Ohio, wasn't about to let somebody steal her purse. Woodworth clobbered the would-be thief with her bag until he ran away, police said. "I didn't have my hearing aid in, and I thought he said that he was going to take my pulse," Woodworth said. "Then he said it again, that he was going to take my purse, and I said, 'No, you're not.'" She fought off the man in a department store parking lot Saturday afternoon, authorities said. Police arrested a 20-year-old suspect and charged him with robbery, felony theft, assault, aggravated menacing, and possession of drug paraphernalia. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/P/PURSE_BEATING?SITE=NWCN&TEMPLATE=STRANGEHEADS.html&SECTION=HOME
Love it.

-- Carey Fox

Countdown Home: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/

More:
General Motors Corp. plans to eliminate 25,000 manufacturing jobs in the United States by 2008 and close plants as part of a strategy to revive North American business at the world's largest automaker, its chairman said on Tuesday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8129876/

For the first time since the Cold War, global military spending exceeded $1 trillion in 2004, nearly half of it by the United States, a prominent European think tank said Tuesday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8129877/

Fearing that airlines and other struggling industries could present the country with its next S&L crisis, Congress and the White House are pushing an overhaul of pension-funding rules that has been overshadowed by Social Security. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8130676/

The government has been looking at the possibility of terrorists targeting food destined for school cafeterias, a federal food safety official said Monday. "The school lunch program is particularly vulnerable," said Carol Maczka, an administrator within the Agriculture Department's Food Safety Inspection Service. http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-school-lunch-safety,0,2656487.story?coll=sns-ap-nation-headlines

Two men charged in the disappearance of an Alabama teenager are known to police for hanging around hotels on Aruba and sometimes approaching female guests, although no complaints had been filed against them, a police officer said Tuesday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8079019/

Like any car driver who has weathered a close call, the engineers steering NASA's Opportunity rover on the Martian surface are already sticking to safer driving techniques now that the six-wheeled robot has broken free from a sand dune. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8119808/

:loveya: