Biden sees slow political progress in Iraq
BAGHDAD, July 4 (UPI) -- U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, in Baghdad Sunday, expressed confidence that Iraq would eventually complete the formation of a new government.
Biden flew to Iraq Saturday evening to spend July Fourth with U.S. troops and met with Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari and to discuss the political situation. He was meeting with other top Iraqi officials Sunday.
The vice president told the Washington Post after the Zebari meeting the political deadlock in Iraq that has existed since the national elections in March appeared daunting, but slow progress was being made toward a final deal.
"This is local politics," Biden said Saturday. "This is not a lot different than any other government. The parties are all talking."
A senior U.S. official accompanying Biden and his wife Jill, who is making her first trip to Iraq, said the United States did not favor any particular candidate or party, and did not see the situation derailing U.S. intentions to wrap up combat operations in Iraq by Aug. 31.
"We have a plan, we're following it," the unidentified official said. "I don't see anything that would take us off that plan."
Iraqi officials said they were glad to see Biden in Baghdad. Industry Minister Fawzi Hariri told the Post the meeting demonstrated the United States hadn't lost interest in Iraq or backed away from its political leadership.
"A distant policy in this country is deemed as a weakness and also deemed as a failure," Hariri said. "It gives the wrong message to Syria and Iran, and it will give the wrong message to the Taliban."
William Taylor, civil rights lawyer, dies
BETHESDA, Md., July 4 (UPI) -- William L. Taylor, a Washington lawyer and leading civil rights advocate who drafted and defended civil rights legislation, died in Bethesda, Md. He was 78.
Taylor died of complications from a fall, said Rabbi Ethan Seidel of Washington's Tifereth Israel Congregation, which Taylor attended.
Taylor -- who began his career working as a lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund Inc., working with Thurgood Marshall, who later became the first black U.S. Supreme Court justice -- helped craft the 1958 Supreme Court brief that resulted in Little Rock., Ark., schools being forced to maintain desegregation.
During the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, he served as general counsel and staff director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and directed research leading to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
He followed this by teaching civil rights law for 15 years at Washington's Catholic University of America, where he founded the Center for National Policy Review, a civil rights research and advocacy organization.
Starting in 1982, Taylor used his role as vice chairman of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights to strengthen major civil rights laws.
Born Oct. 4, 1931 in Brooklyn, N.Y., he recalled being taunted in first grade as a "Christ killer," he wrote in his 2004 memoir, "The Passion of My Times."
Continuing to experience neighborhood anti-Semitism as a teenager, he first became aware of anti-black prejudice when he saw whites harassing Jackie Robinson for breaking the baseball color line in 1947 to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers, The New York Times reported.
His survivors include his three children, Lauren, Debbie and David.
Taylor's wife of 43 years, the former Harriett Rosen, a Washington trial court judge, died in 1997 at age 65.
Fadlallah, Lebanon Shiite leader, dies
BEIRUT, Lebanon, July 4 (UPI) -- Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the top Shiite Islam religious figure in Lebanon, died Sunday, his spokesman said. He was 74.
Fadlallah, who helped form the militant group Hezbollah, was hospitalized in Lebanon two days ago in critical condition, CNN reported, and the news network Sunday said the cleric's office confirmed he had died.
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri called Fadlallah a "great national and spiritual scholar."
"He was at all times and circumstances the voice of moderation, calling for the unity of Lebanese in particular and the Muslims in general, rejecting -- and issuing religious edicts against -- strife, and calling for dialogue as a mean to resolve differences," Hariri said.
Fadlallah, called a terrorist by the United States, was widely viewed as the spiritual leader of Hezbollah after its founding in 1982 but both he and the group denied the claim. He later distanced himself from Hezbollah over its ties to Iran.
The ayatollah was an outspoken and relentless critic of the United States and Israel. He had supported the Islamic Revolution as well as armed resistance to Israel after its invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
He had embraced U.S. Barack Obama hopefully but last year expressed disappointment with the president's lack of progress in Mideast peace efforts.
Fadlallah was born to Lebanese parents in Najaf, Iraq, and moved to Lebanon in 1966. He became known for his pious Islam and scholarship and established schools, foundations, clinics and libraries.
Hezbollah's Web site said Fadlallah would be buried Tuesday after noon prayer at Beirut's al-Imamain al-Hassanein mosque.
N.Y. man loses arm in fireworks blast
ISLIP TERRACE, N.Y., July 4 (UPI) -- A New York man had his left arm blown off Saturday evening by fireworks he was firing from a launcher in the street outside his home, authorities said.
Eric Smith, 36, of Islip Terrace was hospitalized in serous condition, the Long Island Press reported.
Smith was using a 3-foot-long metal tube to set off the illegal fireworks about 5:45 p.m. when one round hit his arm, Suffolk County Police Department detectives said.
Friends placed his severed limb on ice and transported it with him to the hospital. Doctors were expected to try to reattach the arm to Smith's body, the newspaper said.
