Wednesday, September 26 in the news....
- President George W. Bush announced new U.S. sanctions against Myanmar on Tuesday as world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly focused on rising protests against military rule there. The focus initially involved figuring out whether Bush had misspoke again or whether it was a real country somewhere.
- The death rate from breast cancer continues to drop steadily by about 2 percent a year, the American Cancer Society said on Tuesday. Awareness and check ups are playing an important role, said the makers of Girls Gone Wild from their offices.
- Vilified as a Holocaust denier, a supporter of terrorism and a backer of Iraqi insurgents, the president of Iran was actually able to make New Yorkers burst into laughter -- but not at a joke. "In Iran we don't have homosexuals like in your country," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said at Columbia University on Monday in response to a question about the recent execution of two gay men there. Two homosexual men laughed then high-fived each other in the audience, they then turned to a reporter and said it would be even funnier if they didn't have AIDS.
- Allowing Iran to acquire nuclear weapons could destabilize the world and lead to war, French President Nicolas Sarkozy told the United Nations on Tuesday. In a broader warning against the dangers of appeasement, the new French leader said: "Weakness and renunciation do not lead to peace. They lead to war." The French leader then looked over at the British and told them to get the laughing out their system now, before he continued.
- Actor Kevin Spacey met privately Monday with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, one of Washington's most outspoken critics in Latin America. When told of the visit, Bush said he knew about it, and so did Superman.
- A special effects technician working on the new Batman film was killed when a vehicle he was in crashed while on a stunt test run. Another crew member was fired for beaming a Bat-Signal into the air instead of calling an ambulance.
