The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call is reporting that in an effort to improve his network’s image with conservative leaders, new CNN chief Walter Isaacson met with House and Senate Republican leaders last week to seek advice on how to attract more right-leaning viewers to the sagging network. Isaacson met, among others, with Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott. Isaacson confirmed he also reached out to senior White House officials. House Majority Whip Tom DeLay has lambasted CNN as the “Clinton News Network” and “Communist News Network.” He recently suggested a boycott of the network during a Republican leadership gathering. Roll Call goes on to say that Isaacson’s meeting with Republican leaders demonstrates to GOP strategists their unrelenting attacks on the media, in which television and newspaper reporters are accused of being biased against Republicans and conservatives, are beginning to hit home with those who decide what gets aired on the nightly news.

CNN unveiled the new version of its long-running headline news yesterday, in what CNN officials said was an attempt to appeal to a younger wider audience. CNN says the changes include splashier graphics, a TV screen that looks like a website, and a techno music backdrop. One of CNN’s new anchors will be actress Andrea Thompson, who until recently starred on the TV show ”NYPD Blue.” CNN sent Thompson to a local news bootcamp in New Mexico to make up for the fact that its newest anchor has no journalism experience. At a news conference, Andrea Thompson said, “Certainly I am not a seasoned journalist. If my stardom or past has something to do with that, then what I say is, 'You know what? Use me, baby.'”
In related news, CNN announced that it will soon allow corporate advertisers to put their logos on the screen during newscasts. Among the first to sign up was Bank of America. It recently agreed to a $100 million advertising agreement with AOL Time Warner, the company which owns CNN.

This news from Alabama: The group founded by Martin Luther King Jr. at the dawn of the modern civil rights movement said yesterday its agenda for a new century would include seeking reparations for slavery and ending racial profiling. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was formed in the late 1950s. Some members of the group have criticized king’s son, Martin Luther King III, calling him an absent, ineffective leader of the organization. But board members said King’s job wasn’t in danger, after meeting for nearly four hours on Monday night.

This news from South Africa: Police fired tear gas at hundreds of protesters who blocked streets yesterday demanding land and houses. In the past few weeks, poor people have tried to seize privately owned land near Cape Town at least seven times. The authorities have swiftly evicted them.

Italy has indicated its support for a German proposal to create a European corps of riot police to combat anti-globalization protesters. And this news from Sweden: A court sentenced a 19-year-old Swedish man to two years in prison for rioting during the European Union summit in Gothenburg in June. And the United Nations said yesterday it’s going ahead with plans for a summit in Rome on global hunger despite Italy’s concerns about a repeat of the riots that marred the Group of Eight meeting in Genoa last month.

Going further than ever toward disarmament, the Irish Republican Army has agreed on a secret method for getting rid of its weapons, this according to an independent commission. The governments of Britain and Ireland called it a “breakthrough.” Deep divisions within Protestant ranks, however, left the survival of Northern Ireland’s power sharing government in doubt.

The Washington Post has done some analysis. It says on the front page today, “By the time President Bush returns to Washington on Labor Day after the longest presidential vacation in 32 years, he will have spent all or part of 54 days since the inauguration at his … ranch. That’s almost a quarter of his presidency. Throw in four days last month at his parents’ seaside estate in Kennebunkport, Maine, and 38 full or partial days at the presidential retreat at Camp David, and Bush will have spent 42 percent of his presidency at vacation spots or en route.”

In New York, about 1,000 Brooklyn residents marched on their local police station last night demanding a vigorous prosecution of a police officer who’s been charged with drunken driving and killing a family with his minivan, as court documents said the officer had run a red light just before the accident. The man whose wife and two children died in the accident, Manuel Herrera, stood before a crowd protesting outside the station house and said, “All I want is justice. I don’t want him walking on the streets. I don’t have any life since my family was taken away. They were all I had.” Officer Joseph Gray was released without bail Sunday after he was charged with multiple counts of manslaughter, vehicular manslaughter, reckless driving and driving under the influence of alcohol.