Blog Heap of Links for the day 14 March 2009

The Obama administration says it is dropping the "enemy combatant" designation for inmates at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba and that it will draw on international law for its detention policy.

An American fighter jet shot down an Iranian drone as it was flying over Iraq.... Details of the previously-unreported shoot-down, which occurred last month, are still sketchy. But we do know that American commanders have long accused Tehran of supplying weapons and training to all sorts of Iraqi militant groups.

Alan W. Livingston, who created the character of Bozo the Clown and signed the Beatles to a contract at Capitol Records during a long and multifaceted show business career, died Friday in Los Angeles. He was 91.

The piece of orbital space junk that forced three astronauts to briefly evacuate the International Space Station on Thursday was bigger than originally reported.... The object, identified as a piece of rocket engine that flew in 1993, was about 5 inches (12.7 cm) in diameter, not .35 inches (0.89 cm).

New England travelers should benefit from faster, more frequent and safer train travel with an extra $1.3 billion pumped into the long-struggling Amtrak, half of it directed to the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington, the Obama administration announced yesterday.