Back in the United States, the Senate has voted to lift one of President Bush’s key restrictions on federal funding for stem cell research. The vote failed to attract the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.

Oregon Republican Senator Gordon Smith: “I believe the U.S. Senate today, at the highest level so far and higher still to come, said that we stand with turning today’s medical mysteries into tomorrow’s medical miracles. I believe that that is the promise of stem cell research and all of its manifestations. This needs to happen. The sooner it happens the better. If we are to err at all in this business, let us err on the side of health and hope and healing.”