■ United States
New spokesman named
Tony Snow, a commentator and radio show host on the Fox News broadcasting network, has been selected to be the new official White House spokesman, Fox News reported on Tuesday. Snow will replace outgoing press secretary Scott McClellan, who announced his resignation last week as part of a shake-up of President George W. Bush's top staff. A career journalist and columnist, Snow did a stint as speechwriter in the White House for Bush's father former president George Bush in 1991. He hosted the Fox News Sunday television interview show from 1996 to 2003, scoring interviews with top Bush administration officials and foreign leaders like Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
■ United States
Abu Ghraib head charged
The US Army plans to charge Lieutenant Colonel Steven Jordan, the former head of the interrogation center at Abu Ghraib prison, with dereliction of duty, lying to investigators and conduct unbecoming an officer, the officer's lawyer said on Tuesday. Jordan would be the highest-ranking officer at Abu Ghraib to face criminal charges in connection with the abuses at the prison. Ten low-ranking soldiers who served at the prison outside Baghdad have been convicted.
■ United States
Birds good at grammar
The simplest grammar, long thought to be one of the skills that separates man from beast, can be taught to a common songbird, new research suggests. Starlings learned to differentiate between a regular bird "sentence" and one containing a clause or another sentence, according to a study in today's edition of Nature. It took University of California at San Diego psychology researcher Tim Gentner a month and about 15,000 training attempts, with food as a reward, to get the birds to recognize the most basic of grammar. Yet what they learned may shake up the field of linguistics.
■ Mexico
Candidate defeats chair
The conservative rising star of the country's presidential election scored well in a first televised debate on Tuesday, gaining more ground on his leftist rival who stayed away and was represented by an empty chair. Felipe Calderon of the ruling National Action Party appeared to come out ahead in some fiery exchanges with other candidates and may have given himself another boost after a recent surge in opinion polls. The election will determine whether the country joins a growing number of Latin American nations moving to the political left or whether it stays firmly allied to the US.
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