Wikinews:Briefs/October 31, 2007

Judge delivers verdicts in 2004 Madrid train bombing trial
The National Court of Spain has found 21 of 28 defendants guilty in connection with the 2004 Madrid train bombings. Chief Judge Javier Gomez Bermudez read the verdicts which came after three months of deliberations.

The defendants were facing charges including murder, forgery and conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack. 27 of them are men and one is a woman. 19 are mostly Moroccan Arabs and nine Spaniards.

The 2004 Madrid train bombings consisted of a series of coordinated bombings against the commuter train system of Madrid, Spain on the morning of March 11, 2004, killing 191 people and wounding 2,050.

5.6 earthquake strikes California
According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS) a magnitude 5.6 earthquake, lasting about 90 seconds, struck at 20:04:54 (PDT), with the epicenter being 5 miles north, northeast of Alum Rock California and 9 miles northeast of the center of San Jose. The actual coordinates given by USGS put it along the border of San Jose and Milpitas in the hills near neighborhoods in both cities. The quake was felt as far away as the California communities of Sacramento, Sonoma, and Los Banos. It was the most powerful quake in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley since 1989.

At least ten aftershocks have been reported by 8:35 p.m with magnitudes ranging from 1.3 to 1.8.

Canadian government announces major tax reductions
Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced a five-year program that could reduce taxes by a total C$60 billion.

Some of the planned tax reduction measures include:


 * Low-end personal income tax rates which would be reduced half a percent to 15%, taking retroactive effect to January 2007;
 * Raising the minimum income taxable about a thousand dollars to $9,000 Canadian which is also backdated to January 2007;
 * As well as eventual reductions in business tax rates and goods and services tax.

These measures will be brought before the House of Commons in Ottawa on Wednesday as a confidence motion. The opposition has expressed an unwillingness to defeat the government on this matter.

World champion Boston Red Sox hold "rolling rally"; many more could be on the way
The Boston Red Sox baseball team, back in Boston today, fresh off their sweep of the Colorado Rockies, paraded down from the venerable Fenway Park onto Boylston Street in Boston making their way through the heart of Boston's Back Bay until reaching the Boston Common where they then made their way up Tremont Street to Boston's Government Center where the rally ended at City Hall.

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