U.S. National News for Sunday, June 3, 2007

Iraq 'Surge' Stumbling in Bloody Fashion

The AP reported 14 U.S. service personnel killed in action over the weekend in Iraq. Seven of the 14 were killed on Sunday. May had been the deadliest month for the U.S. military with 127 troops killed. It was the third deadliest month since the invasion began in March, 2003.

The report of U.S. deaths came only days after the Bush administration floated the possibility of American forces occupying Iraq for at least 50 years. The president's spokesmen likened the idea to the U.S. presence in South Korea, but some warn the occupation would more resemble Israel's post-six-day war occupation of the West Bank - - that is to say, an endless war.

Still, the bad news doesn't end with the increased U.S. casualties. Mister Bush had been touting a decline in the number of sectarian killings as proof of progress in Iraq, but a new report indicated such killings were up between 30 and 50 percent in Baghdad and across Iraq. In the last 24 hours alone, the bodies of more than 30 sectarian-related murder victims were found in Baghdad.

Mississippi's Infant Death Rate Little Better Than Some Third World Countries

To CBS News's credit, they reported on a very real social issue - - one that didn't include drugs, children, and a celebrity.

After a brief lull, Mississippi's infant death rates have skyrocketed. In 2005, Mississippi's infant death rate increased by nearly 20 percent over 2004.

For whites in Mississippi, the 2005 infant death rate was 6.6 per thousand, around the national average.

Among blacks, the rate soared to 17 per thousand, similar to rates in Sri Lanka and Russia.

Europe Seeing Red Over Bush's Green Pitch

Few in European leadership were as impressed by Mister Bush's call for a summit of the world's 15 biggest polluters as was the American media. Most Europeans, long distrustful of President Bush's motives, viewed the timing of the plan as being designed to simultaneously provide cover for his refusal to participate in G-8 efforts to curb global warming and, too, an effort to derail the U.N.'s ongoing work on reducing the impact of climate change.

Immigration by the Numbers

There are currently as many as twelve million undocumented workers in the United States today. The current immigration reform bill pending in congress is more than 3,000 pages long. Sixty-two percent of the American people believe undocumented workers should be allowed citizenship:

A CBS News/New York Times poll found that 62 percent believe illegal immigrants who have lived and worked in the U.S. for at least two years should have a chance to apply for legal status.