CNN 2009-08-01

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Hi there. Thanks for joining us. I'm Virginia Cha at the CNN center in Atlanta with a look at what's happening NOW IN THE NEWS.

More violence in Iraq. Iraq's Interior Ministry¹ says at least 27 people were killed in a series of bombings today near Shiite mosques² in Baghdad. The attacks occurred after Friday prayers concluded and appeared to target worshippers as they left the mosques. Police believed the attacks were coordinated³.

The military scrambled⁴ fighter jets when a plane, a civilian⁵ plane, veered⁶ way off its flight plan last night. NORAD says it's sent two F16s to tail the single engine plane when it flew past its destination. That plane crashed 300 miles away near Henderson, West Virginia, killing⁷ the pilot. Fighter pilots say they never had any luck contacting the single engine plane pilot, affiliate⁸ WSAZ reports that pilot had apparently⁹ passed out.

President Obama was, um , bartender in chief at the White House yesterday. He hosted Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and the police officer who arrested Gates in his own home for some beer outside the Oval Office. There you see him. The president said he wanted the meeting to defuse the racial issues brought up by the arrest. There were no apologies made, but Cambridge police Sergeant¹⁰ James Crowley says they need to move forward.

"Professor Gates and I bring different perspectives to these issues and have agreed that both perspectives should be addressed in an effort to provide a constructive¹¹ outcome to the events of the past month. "

Welcome home Endeavour. The space shuttle landed safely at Kennedy Space Center in Florida the last hour. They were in space for more than two weeks, and did not come home. Just the first crew that was originally up. In fact they have a passenger, a Japanese astronaut, who spent the last four and a half months onboard the International Space Station. He hitched¹² a ride home.

Those are the headlines for you at this hour. Stay with CNN for more on those stories and all your other news of the day.