Grounded

British police have arrested 4 men who they believe carried out the attempted bombings on the London tube and bus two weeks ago. Heavily armed police captured three of the suspects in West London, and the fourth man was caught in Rome, Italy.
On Friday however another man was gunned down by police in a London subway station. The man was said to have been wearing a heavy coat and ran away from armed plain clothes officers. They shot him 8 times after he tripped and fell. Afterwards the police admitted that the man had nothing to do with any attacks on the subway. The man was in fact a Brazilian named Jean Charles de Menezes. He was originally from Gonzaga which is a ways North of Rio de Janeiro and thousands of people were said to have gathered for his funeral in Brazil.

NASA also launched space shuttle Discovery for a mission to the International Space Station. The shuttle and crew took off safely but NASA declared the mission a failure because an insulation panel fell off the shuttle during take off. This was the same kind of paneling that fell off the shuttle Columbia during its reentry causing it to explode. So all future missions are scrapped and the shuttles are grounded until further notice. NASA did say that Discovery should be able to land back on Earth safely when it returns because the piece that fell off shuttle Columbia hit something else that started the reaction causing the death of those on board.

Sad news

I haven't posted in a while, but I've been working a lot and travelling a bit. In that time there have been two terrorist attacks on the London subways. The first, two weeks ago, killed dozens and injured hundreds. The second which happened today only caused one casualty. It seems, thankfully, that the detonators the attackers used failed to go off. It could have been much worse. Since the bombs did not go off, however, the attackers apparently escaped alive and there's now a massive manhunt going on to find them. A few false arrests were made, but the police have recovered the bombs which failed to go off and there are some eye witness reports. There were people that saw the terrorists running away but no one stopped them.
The bombers that carried out the first attack caused immense anger not only for their murderous act but because they were also Britons born and raised in England, apparently in Leeds, North of London.

In the Phillipines, the leadership of Gloria Arroyo has been facing large protests. A massive group of protesters gathered to ask the President to resign because of corruption allegations. Arroyo, who became President again after the dismissal of Joseph Estrada, has whisked away her husband and son out of the Phillipines because of corruption allegations against her husband. She denies any link to this, but her credibility is seriously in question. But even with all the protest, which was still signifanctly smaller than protests against former leaders or against dictator Marcos, Arroyo probably won't be going anywhere. Predominantly because those that would replace her, such as the Vice President, are seen as worse than she is. This is really a result of the Phillipine political system which seems to like electing actors instead of those with an understanding of politics.