A large explosion ripped apart a vehicle in an American diplomatic convoy in the Gaza Strip today, killing three American security staff members and wounding one in the most serious attack on Americans since the Palestinian uprising started more than three years ago. The explosion, caused by a roadside bomb or mine, hit the small convoy on the outskirts of this Palestinian town, after the vehicles had passed through the Erez Crossing, which connects Israel with the Palestinian-ruled Strip. It was not immediately clear whether the convoy, which included a Palestinian security car, was attacked because it was American. The convoy vehicles, which were armored and had diplomatic license plates, bore no outward identification as being American. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/15/international/middleeast/15CND-Gaza.html?pagewanted=all&position=

Toward Death Penalty Reform Even as Congress was advancing long-delayed death penalty reforms last week, the Supreme Court was moving in the opposite direction, lending tacit approval to modern-day barbarism. The justices declined to review a lower court ruling allowing a deranged prisoner to be forcibly medicated to make him sane enough to be executed. Public enthusiasm for the death penalty has been muted in recent years as the country learns more about how it is actually applied. And those stories continue surfacing, one more distressing than the next. A recent article in The Times pointed to a growing debate among legal and medical experts about the supposedly humane use of lethal injection to kill condemned prisoners, noting that Tennessee recently outlawed use of one of the chemicals for pet euthanasia. The developments in Congress reflect the positive side of all these disclosures � a desire even among supporters of the death penalty to eliminate some of the most outrageous aspects of how it is applied.�The new legislation combines President Bush's initiative to reduce the backlog of biological evidence awaiting testing with a pale version of Senator Patrick Leahy's Innocence Protection Act, a measure that has languished year after year. The hybrid includes provisions to require the preservation of physical evidence in federal criminal cases, expand the availability of post-conviction DNA testing and help nudge states to raise the abysmal caliber of legal representation in capital cases. The bill has cleared an important hurdle, passing the House Judiciary Committee by a 28-to-1 vote. A vote by the full House is expected shortly. No one should be deluded into thinking the measure is a cure-all, however. In the redrafting, for one thing, penalties for noncompliance with lawyering standards were replaced with a voluntary system of large financial incentives to goad states to bind themselves to federal guidelines. The effectiveness of the incentives depends largely on whether the bill is fully financed � a big if � and even then it is possible some states with more primitive death penalty practices may decline to participate. More fundamentally, plenty of factors that contribute to the risk of executing the innocent were left unaddressed, like coerced confessions and the faulty recollection of eyewitnesses. Nor would the bill stop states from forcibly medicating deranged prisoners to get around the Eighth Amendment ban on executing the mentally incompetent � the serious constitutional issue sidestepped by the justices. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/13/opinion/13MON2.html

The N.R.A. Is Naming Names The National Rifle Association doesn't call it an enemies list, but deep in the recesses of the organization's Web site is a long, long compilation of the names of groups and individuals that the N.R.A. considers unfriendly. �The A.F.L.-C.I.O. is there, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The Children's Defense Fund and the Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs are there. The United States Catholic Conference, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Y.W.C.A. of the U.S.A. are all there. Among the celebrities on the list are Dr. Joyce Brothers, Candice Bergen, Walter Cronkite, Doug Flutie, Michelle Pfeiffer, Vinny Testaverde, Moon Zappa and the Temptations. Also on the list are the Kansas City Chiefs, Hallmark Cards, the Sara Lee Corporation, Ben & Jerry's, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City. I'm sure there's a method to the N.R.A. madness, but to tell you the truth, all I can see is the madness http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/13/opinion/13HERB.html