Violence rages in Basra

Hello on this Thursday, March 27, 2008. I'm Kristin Volk with a UPI Headline Update. The death toll is climbing in Iraq as fighting continues in Basra and other regions. Iraq's government kicked off an offensive in the oil city earlier this week against militia members associated with Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr. The violence has left more than 100 dead and affected the heavily fortified Green Zone where the U.S. embassy has come under fire. It's also threatened to undo a delicate al-Sadr cease-fire that's credited with reducing bloodshed between Sunni and Shiites. Delta Airlines is expected to cancel more flights today while engineers do safety checks. Delta was the second airline to stop several flights from taking off yesterday for the same reason. American Airlines canceled nearly 10 percent of its schedule for inspections. Both airlines are examining wiring in their aircrafts. This issue was sparked by the fact that Southwest Airlines admitted to flying 60 thousand flights recently without required inspections and the FAA didn't ground the planes. Hillary Clinton's positive rating is at a new low. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll says she's at 37 percent now. That's reportedly 8 percentage points lower than two weeks ago. The New York Senator recently admitted making a mistake in claiming she had come under sniper fire during a 1996 trip to Bosnia. Her rival, Senator Barack Obama also saw a slight dip in his positive rating. He's now at 49 percent from 51 percent. The survey was taken after Obama gave a speech last week on race in America and rejected racially charged remarks by his pastor. Space Shuttle Endeavour and its crew are back on the ground after making a successful nighttime landing last night. The shuttle was supposed to land before sunset, but at the last minute, clouds moved in. It was the 22 space shuttle landing in darkness. Endeavour's crew spent 16 days in space, assembling a giant Canadian robot, testing a shuttle repair technique and installing the first piece of a Japanese lab at the international space station. Thanks for watching today's news headline. Join us tomorrow for a weekly wrap-up from the White House.

» View the original video «

YouTube | March 27, 2008