News from Around the World

Both Democratic and Republican senators were questioning the qualifications of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, who has never argued a case before the Supreme Court but has been often referred to as President Bush’s “work wife.” UNICEF released a short film that shows an airstrike attack on a village of Smurfs. The U.S. Senate passed a $440 billion defense-spending bill; the bill includes an amendment that places limits on the torture of military prisoners. President George W. Bush promised to veto the bill if it was passed containing the amendment. An Oregon woman was suing her doctor for trying to heal her lower back pain by having sex with her. The doctor was also in trouble for charging the state $5,000 for giving the woman the treatment. A new vaccine that prevents cervical cancer was found to be 100 percent effective. A Cambodian couple was in trouble for biting their 12-year-old daughter so that they might drink her blood, and in Australia a worker at a forensics laboratory was under investigation for stealing parts of human brains so that they could be injected into racehorses in order to make the horses run faster.