Dog Sculpture

Barely a month after it eased a two-year ban on American beef imports, the Japanese government reinstituted it today after finding a prohibited backbone in a shipment from a Brooklyn meatpacker. There is no evidence to back Osama bin Laden's claim that al Qaeda is gearing up to attack the United States, but there are signs the group is active in the country, a leading Republican lawmaker said on Friday. The whale was spotted in the afternoon as it flailed around in the murky waters of the Thames, stirring up patches of what looked like blood as seagulls hovered above and rescue boats stood at the ready; it was the first sighting of a Northern bottle-nosed whale in the river since 1913. As the clock ticked down yesterday on a deadline by Iraqi kidnappers to murder Jill Carroll, an American journalist, the leading Sunni politician she was visiting when she was abducted appealed for her release. Investors took fright on Friday as disappointing corporate earnings reignited fears that the US economy's record-beating run of profits may be coming to an end. A space capsule that captured interstellar and comet dust during a seven-year voyage through the heavens was finally opened by scientists this week, and they were delighted with what they found. People who regularly use cell phones don't face an increased risk of developing brain tumors, according to a study published in the British Medical Journal. Iran is withdrawing its foreign currency deposits from European banks, the central bank governor said Friday, a move designed to protect its assets from U.N. sanctions that might be imposed over the country's nuclear program. NASA's New Horizons spacecraft executed a picture-perfect liftoff from Cape Canaveral in Florida on a nine-year journey to Pluto, the last unexplored planet in the solar system.