Grenade attack in Mexico

Grenade attack in Mexico

MORELIA, Mexico — Assailants threw two grenades into a huge crowd of Independence Day revelers, killing seven and injuring more than 100 in a brazen attack that escalates the war between Mexico’s army and drug gangs.

The military fragmentation grenades shattered a family-friendly gathering of thousands in the cobblestone streets not far from where President Felipe Calderon grew up. He urged Mexicans not to be afraid and met with Michoacan Gov. Leonel Godoy, promising to find those responsible and redouble security efforts in the violent state.

House OKs oil-drilling bill

WASHINGTON — The House has voted to allow oil drilling off the nation’s Atlantic and Pacific coasts if states agree — but only 50 or more miles out. Republicans called the bill a ruse, saying that’s well beyond where most of the estimated 18 billion barrels of oil is located.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the bill — approved late Tuesday 236-189 — marked “a new direction in energy policy” because of its emphasis on alternative energy.

The bill rolls back $18 billion in oil industry tax breaks and imposes new oil and gas royalties, while giving tax incentives for wind and solar industries and for conservation. Even before the vote, the White House said President Bush would veto it if it passes Congress.

Olmert, Abbas talk peace

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas sat down together Tuesday night to discuss their push to forge a peace agreement by the end of the year even as the Israeli leader prepares to leave office.

The talks came a day before Olmert’s Kadima Party chooses a new leader in a process that could put peace efforts on hold for months. Olmert says he will resign over corruption allegations after today’s ballot, though he could remain in office until next year if his resignation leads to new national elections.

After the two-hour meeting, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said only that the core issues of the conflict were discussed.

Physicists’ energy study

WASHINGTON — The U.S. can reduce its dependence on foreign oil and greenhouse gas emissions by making cars and buildings much more energy-efficient, according to a study released Tuesday by a large national association of physicists.

The 46,000-member American Physical Society argues the need for action is urgent because the energy crisis is the worst in U.S. history. It also says that the physics and chemistry behind the human causes of climate change — such as heat-trapping pollution from the burning of fossil fuels — is “well understood and beyond dispute.”

The report argues that the country can still go a long way to reduce energy use in cost-effective ways that allow for continued comfort and convenience.

Global effect of U.S. crisis

UNITED NATIONS — Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed deep concern Tuesday that the U.S. financial crisis will have a serious global impact, especially on rich donor nations that play key roles in fighting poverty.

He urged a resumption of stalled world trade talks, which the U.N. sees as crucial to opening world markets to poorer developing countries.

The secretary-general addressed the turmoil on Wall Street during an interview ahead of next week’s ministerial meeting of the U.N. General Assembly, which will include two special sessions aimed at achieving the U.N. Millennium Development Goals.

Ban said those goals, climate change, and the global food crisis are at the top of his agenda.

Body exhumed in flu study

LONDON — Scientists have exhumed the body of a British diplomat who died of flu during the World War I-era pandemic that killed tens of millions around the world, hoping to find clues that might help fight a future global influenza outbreak.

The BBC said Tuesday that it had filmed virologist John Oxford exhuming Sir Mark Sykes, who died in 1919. Oxford’s team took tissue samples before reburying the body in its grave in East Yorkshire in northeast England last week. The BBC will broadcast the program today.

Sykes, best known for the 1916 Sykes-Picot agreement dividing up the Middle East in anticipation of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, was buried in a lead-lined coffin that preserved enough human tissue to yield useful information on how he died and the nature of the flu that killed him.

Understanding more about the 1918-19 pandemic, known as the Spanish flu, might help scientists design better treatments for the H5N1 strain of avian flu.

Combined dispatches