July 10, 2003

=July 10, 2003=

* The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund announces that on legal advice it has frozen its funds as it faces a demand for £15 million ($25 million) damages for alleged "malicious prosecution" from the "Franklin Mint" in the US. The Mint had won a courtcase over its right to manufacture a Diana, Princess of Wales lookalike doll. Hundreds of charities are expected face financial difficulties as a result of the freeze. Arc Charity Chief Executive James Churchill says "I hope that the Franklin Mint Corporation is aware of the damage that their action is causing to groups of vulnerable young people all over the world."
* Former International Development Secretary Clare Short urges that British Prime Minister Tony Blair voluntarily leave the premiership. Blair, dining with Bill Clinton in London's Guildhall, makes no comment.
* Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell claims the second most senior Church of England cleric, Archbishop Hope of York, is gay. The Archbishop had previously described his sexuality as a "grey area". The claim follows the row over a nomination of an openly gay canon to a bishopric in England and his withdrawal after attacks from conservative groups within the Anglican communion.
* NASA reports the discovery of PSR B1620-26 b (unofficially dubbed "Methuselah"), the oldest extrasolar planet yet discovered. The planet, which is estimated to be 12.7 billion years old, is orbiting the pulsar PSR B1620-26 in the core of the ancient globular star cluster M4, located 5,600 light-years away in the summer constellation Scorpius. [http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/2003/19/] As U.S. troops continue to take casualties in Iraq, on this day, less than half of Americans believe the U.S. is in control of the situation there -- a dramatic decline from just a month earlier, when 71 percent thought it was.