Portal:Current events/2006 September 29

September 29, 2006 (Friday)

The HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter takes its first low-orbit, high-resolution pictures of Mars. (Space.com) (HiRISE team blog)
A high school principal is shot to death by 15-year-old Eric Hainstock. Principal John Klang of Weston High School in Cazenovia, Wisconsin is shot three times by Hainstock with a gun which he stole from his family home. A custodian and others confront the student who is now in police custody. (AP)
Gol Transportes Aéreos Flight 1907 with 154 passengers onboard collides with a smaller jet in midair, 470 miles south of Manaus, Brazil. The Boeing 737-800 wreckage has been found by FAB near Peixoto de Azevedo (Reuters) (G1 NEWS, Portugesse) (Associated Press)
A tape of senior Al Qaeda figure Ayman al-Zawahiri is released in which he brands US President George W. Bush a "lying failure" over the war on terror. He goes on to condemn Pope Benedict XVI as an "impostor" for his recent controversial speech and labels Roman Catholicism a religion "made of myths". (CNN) (BBC)
Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., resigns from the United States House of Representatives in the wake of questions about e-mails and instant messages he wrote to a former Capitol page. (AP via Sun Sentinel)^{[permanent dead link‍]} (The New York Times)
Soyuz TMA-8, with the Expedition 13 crew and Iranian-American space tourist Anousheh Ansari on board, lands safely on the Kazakh steppe. (Reuters)
Typhoon Xangsane lashes the northern Philippines, killing at least 48 people and causing extensive damage. (International Herald Tribune)
Lenovo recalls 526,000 Sony laptop batteries due to fire risk. (Xinhua)
A general strike is being observed in Indian-administered Kashmir to protest the planned execution of Jaish-e-Mohammed militant, Mohd Afzal, set for October 20. (PTI)
The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission submits its report to the government and the LTTE rebels. The report accuses both sides of human-rights violations and breaking the terms of the cease-fire, citing over 200 civilians killed and over 200,000 displaced in the last two months. (AP)