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Tonight on Countdown
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What else could we title today's newsletter when you look at today's news?
In a stunning and heartbreaking reversal, family members were told early Wednesday that 12 of 13 trapped coal miners were dead - three hours after they began celebrating news that 12 had survived. The sole survivor, Randal McCloy, was in critical condition with a collapsed lung and dehydration but no sign of brain damage or carbon monoxide poisoning after being trapped by an explosion for more than 42 hours, a doctor said. At 27, McCloy was among the youngest in the group. The last of the 12 bodies were taken out of the mine at midmorning. The cause of death was not disclosed, but it appeared it was not the blast that killed them. Officials said the 12 were found together behind a curtain-like fabric barrier they had set up to keep out carbon monoxide gas, which was detected in deadly concentrations inside the mine.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10682163/Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann broadcasts LIVE at 8 pm et, and the count is never complete without you. Join us.
Federal officials expressed sorrow Wednesday over the deaths of 12 West Virginia coal miners and pledged a full investigation into what happened.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10693283/Time and again over the past four years, federal mining inspectors documented the same litany of problems at central West Virginia's Sago Mine: mine roofs that tended to collapse without warning. Faulty or inadequate tunnel supports. A dangerous buildup of flammable coal dust.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10706084/It is a fact of life in this part of Appalachia that if you want to make the good money and don't have a college degree, you either have to cut it from the wooded hillsides or gouge it from the earth. And every once in a while, the earth demands repayment in blood. In a scene played out time and again in this corner of America, people gathered in a muddy, fog-shrouded hollow this week, hoping their husbands and fathers, sons and brothers had not been made to pay that debt.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10706312/A day after pleading guilty to three felonies, once-powerful lobbyist Jack Abramoff faced another federal court hearing over fraud charges stemming from his purchase of a Florida gambling boat fleet.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-01-04-abramoff-florida_x.htm?POE=NEWISVAPresident Bush's re-election campaign will give the American Heart Association thousands of dollars in campaign contributions connected to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the White House said Wednesday, as the government pushed a sweeping corruption investigation. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Wednesday that Abramoff, his wife and the tribal associates that he helped win influence on Capitol Hill donated thousands to the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign. Donations to charities has been the policy in similar situations in the past, McClellan said.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10706220/The plea deal worked out by Jack Abramoff could send seismic waves across the political landscape in this congressional election year. The Republicans, who control Congress and the White House, are likely to take the biggest hits. The GOP has more seats to lose and has closer ties with the former lobbyist. But some Democrats with links to Abramoff and his associates are also expected to be snagged in the influence-peddling net.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10697000/Letterman's verbal smackdown to O'Reilly: Letterman: "I'm not smart enough to debate you point to point on this, but I have the feeling, I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap.
But I don't know that for a fact. Paul Shafer: "60 percent." Letterman: "60 percent. I'm just spit-balling here." O'Reilly: "Listen, I respect your opinion. You should respect mine." Letterman: "Well, ah, I, okay. But I think you're-" O'Reilly: "Our analysis is based on the best evidence we can get." Letterman: "Yeah, but I think there's something, this fair and balanced. I'm not sure that it's, I don't think that you represent an objective viewpoint."
That's some of what we're planning for tonight's show.
Finally,
Curiosity didn't kill one cat on a wild ride on the New Jersey Turnpike. The kitten, now known, for obvious reasons, as Miracle, hitchhiked a ride on the underbelly of a sport utility vehicle just before Christmas. The gray and white feline traveled some 70 miles under the vehicle as it whizzed along the Turnpike on Dec. 23. "I'm just amazed that the cat didn't fall off or get blown off," Karen Dixon-Aquino, director of the Animal Welfare Association in Voorhees, told the Courier-Post of Cherry Hill for Tuesday's newspapers. The association is caring for the furry hitchhiker and plans to put him up for adoption. http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TURNPIKE_KITTEN?SITE=NWCN&TEMPLATE=STRANGEHEADS.html&SECTION=HOME
What is it with these cats? Yesterday in this space was the story of a cat that dialed 911 for his owner who had fallen out of his wheelchair.
-- Carey Fox
Countdown Home: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/
More:
A suicide bomber killed 32 mourners and injured dozens at a funeral for the nephew of a Shiite politician, one of several attacks Wednesday across Iraq that killed a total of 52 people - making it the deadliest day since the Dec. 15 elections. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10703607/
Landslides triggered by monsoon rains this week killed or left missing more than 170 people on Indonesia's Java island, many of them in a single village buried beneath tons of mud and rock early Wednesday, officials said. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10663281/
Lynn Swann, the former Pittsburgh Steelers star and veteran football commentator for ABC Sports, is expected to declare his candidacy for Pennsylvania governor Wednesday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10696875/from/RS.2/
Ted Koppel has joined the Discovery Channel to make news documentaries, bringing his former top producer and eight other ex-"Nightline" staff members, the cable channel announced Wednesday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10707035/
Cuba lay behind the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Lee Harvey Oswald and its agents provided the gunman with money and support, an award-winning German director says in a new documentary film. Wilfried Huismann spent three years researching "Rendezvous with Death," based on interviews with former Cuban secret agents, U.S. officials and a Russian intelligence source, and on research in Mexican security archives. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10707630/
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