A lot of interesting news today over at the independent.co.uk. Here are some of the highlights:

• "Bush blamed for chaos which led to blackouts." [link]

  Writing in The New York Times, President Clinton's energy secretary, Bill Richardson, accused the Bush White House and the Republican-controlled Congress of stalling on legislation to force power companies to take measures guaranteeing grid reliability. Very similar criticisms were voiced by some of the leading contenders for next year's Democratic presidential nomination. "Just two years ago, [President Bush] and his allies in Congress blocked a Democratic proposal to invest $350m in upgrading America's electrical grid system," said the Florida Senator Bob Graham. "The blackout is further evidence that America needs to invest in its infrastructure." ...most energy experts agree on the root causes of a failure many of them have been predicting for years. Deregulation of the power industry has left energy companies with insufficient incentive to invest in new transmission lines or enough generating capacity.

• "Catholic Church [long known for its impeccable honesty] denies bishops were ordered to cover up sex abuse claims" [link]

  Richard Scorer, a British lawyer acting for British victims of abuse, told The Observer yesterday: "This document appears to prove [that] the Catholic Church systematically covered up abuse." The Conference of Catholic Bishops in the United States said: "Those making this claim ... are taking the document entirely out of context and therefore distorting it completely." It added that the document "has no bearing on civil law. It does not forbid the civil reporting of civil crimes."

• "Britons consider suing Saudi Arabia over jail treatment" [link]

  A group of Britons jailed for alleged involvement in a car-bombing campaign in Saudi Arabia will meet lawyers this week to discuss taking legal action against the Arab state... Sandy Mitchell, 44, from Kirkintilloch, Glasgow, and William Sampson, also from Glasgow, who has a Canadian passport, had been sentenced to public beheading after being convicted of co-ordinating the attacks. The other four were each serving 12-year sentences. A seventh Briton had been detained for 10 months but was not charged. They later withdrew their confessions and their relatives have always said the charges were trumped up.

• "Britain 'may face sudden Ice Age'" [link]

  Many scientists now believe that rapidly increasing CO2 emissions will exacerbate the natural cycle of hot and cold weather that led to the mini Ice Age of the 17th century by severely affecting natural ocean currents.