An internal email from NASA chief Mike Griffin has been leaked to the media. It expresses Griffin's frustration with recent US space policy, says that White House oversight offices have waged a "jihad" against the space shuttle, and offers a gloomy view of the future.
The Ares rockets and Orion capsule will be NASA's next manned spacecraft, but they will not be in service until 2014 or later. Meanwhile the shuttle is currently marked for retirement in 2010, leaving the US dependent on Russian Soyuz ships for access to the International Space Station (ISS).
A lengthy trial centering on what Scotland Yard called a plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners ended on Monday with the jury convicting three of eight defendants of conspiracy to commit murder. But the jury failed to reach verdicts on the most serious charges, involving an alleged conspiracy to have suicide bombers armed with soft-drinks bottles filled with liquid explosives destroy seven airliners headed for the United States and Canada on the same day.
Months before the Bush administration ends, historians and open-government advocates are concerned that Vice President Cheney, who has long bristled at requirements to disclose his records, will destroy or withhold key documents that illustrate his role in forming U.S. policy for the past 7 1/2 years. 
Vise-Grip is an iconic name in Nebraska, one of the most famous products invented or developed in the state, along with Kool-Aid, raisin bran, and the Reuben sandwich.
