Tonight on Countdown
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President Bush went to Congress Thursday to lobby divided Republicans to back more power to spy on, imprison and interrogate terrorism suspects, but his visit came as Colin Powell, his former secretary of state, said part of Bush's strategy was misguided. Powell instead endorsed efforts by three Republican senators to block the president's plan to authorize harsh interrogations of terror suspects. The latest sign of GOP division over White House security policy came in a letter that Powell sent to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., one of the rebellious lawmakers. Powell said that Congress must not pass Bush's proposal to redefine U.S. compliance with the Geneva Conventions, a treaty that sets international standards for the treatment of prisoners of war. This development accompanied Bush's visit to Capitol Hill, where he conferred behind closed doors with House Republicans. His would narrow the U.S. legal interpretation of the treaty in a bid to allow tougher interrogations and shield U.S. personnel from being prosecuted for war crimes. "The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism," said Powell, who served under Bush and is a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "To redefine Common Article 3 would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14814940/Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann broadcasts LIVE at 8 pm et, and the count is never complete without you. Join us.
One-time covert CIA officer Valerie Plame sued the former No. 2 official at the State Department on Wednesday, accusing him of violating her privacy rights. However, the lawsuit did not accuse Richard Armitage, who was deputy secretary of state in the Bush administration, of participating in an administration conspiracy to blow her cover.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0609140125sep14,1,1457842.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hedA wildfire in an area peppered with property owned by celebrities nearly doubled in size Wednesday, prompting evacuation orders for about 325 homes. The fire was estimated at 18,845 acres, or about 29 square miles, information officer Al Nash said. It had been reported at 9,360 acres, or about 15 square miles, the night before.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14815236/Summer of the celebrity baby. With Michael Musto.
That's some of what we're planning for tonight's show.
Finally,
British author J.K. Rowling says she won an argument with airport security officials in New York to carry the manuscript of the final "Harry Potter" book as carryon baggage. Had security agents not relented, she said on her Web site, she might not have flown, she said in a posting dated Wednesday. "The heightened security restrictions on the airlines made the journey back from New York interesting, as I refused to be parted from the manuscript of book seven. "A large part of it is handwritten and there was no copy of anything I had done while in the U.S." Eventually, she added, "They let me take it on, thankfully, bound up in elastic bands."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14833103/-- Carey Fox
Countdown Home:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/Other News:
Former Gov. Ann Richards, the witty and flamboyant Democrat who went from homemaker to national political celebrity, died Wednesday night after a battle with cancer, a family spokeswoman said. She was 73. She died at home surrounded by her family, the spokeswoman said. The silver-haired, silver-tongued Richards said she entered politics to help others - especially women and minorities who were often ignored by Texas' male-dominated establishment.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14826109/A new Web site will tell Americans which companies win government contracts and grants under an ethics bill passed by the scandal-rocked House of Representatives Wednesday, ahead of November elections.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14833067/from/RS.1/A man with a black trench coat whose shooting rampage in a Montreal college killed one person and wounded 19 others before he was slain by police said on a blog in his name that he liked to play a role-playing Internet game about the Columbine shootings.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14818183/Cuban state television has shown photos of a pajama-clad Fidel Castro chatting animatedly with an Argentine congressman, raising expectations that the ailing Cuban president will use the Nonaligned Movement summit to make his first public appearance since undergoing surgery in July.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14830456/from/RS.3/A 22-year-old woman was arrested after authorities say she tried to hire someone to kill another woman whose photo appeared on her boyfriend's MySpace.com Web page. Heather Michelle Kane was booked Tuesday for investigation of conspiracy to commit murder, Mesa Detective Jerry Gissel said. She was arrested after she met an undercover Mesa police detective at a grocery store, gave the officer $400 and offered to pay an additional $100 once the woman had been killed, according to court records.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14833529/from/RS.4/Unbeatable for two months, Tiger Woods' winning streak came to a swift and sudden conclusion Thursday when Shaun Micheel knocked him out in the first round of the World Match Play Championship.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14831859/People can become very attached to their mobile phones and some may even show signs of addictive behavior, a British researcher said on Thursday. In a study that analyzed how students feel about their phones, David Sheffield, of the University of Staffordshire in Stoke-on-Trent, found that some of their reactions were similar to symptoms associated with pathological gambling.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14832639/
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