2 Fed hammers home message against inflation
By Alister Bull, Reuters
Tue Jun 10, 12:49 PM ET
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top Federal Reserve officials on Tuesday hammered home the U.S. central bank's determination not to allow inflation to get out of control, cementing views that interest rates will rise later this year.
The remarks by two regional Fed presidents followed hard-line comments on Monday from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke that the U.S. central bank would "strongly resist" any deterioration in inflation expectations. Analysts and markets viewed the comments as a sign the Fed -- like other central banks -- was turning its sights on inflation.
Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher, who solidified a reputation as one of the most hawkish members on the Fed's interest rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee with three dissents against steep rate cuts, echoed Bernanke. |
3 North America tomato industry reeling: growers
By Jane Sutton, Reuters
Tue Jun 10, 3:52 PM ET
| MIAMI (Reuters) - Florida's tomato industry is in "complete collapse" and growers in California and Mexico are having trouble selling their crops as U.S. regulators hunt the source of a salmonella outbreak linked to certain tomato varieties, growers said on Tuesday.
In Florida, the No. 1 U.S. tomato producer, $40 million worth of tomatoes will rot unless the U.S. Food and Drug Administration quickly traces the source of the outbreak and clears the state's produce, an industry official said.
"We've had to stop packing, stop picking," said Reggie Brown, executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange.
"The stuff that should have been harvested over the weekend won't survive more than another day or so. The stuff we have in storage is getting riper every minute and at some point it will have to be disposed of," Brown said. |
"The stuff we have in storage is getting riper every minute."
Mmmm. Peaches.
4 Zimbabwe now run by 'military junta': opposition leader
by Fanuel Jongwe, AFP
Tue Jun 10, 3:37 PM ET
| HARARE (AFP) - Zimbabwe is now run by a "military junta", the country's opposition leader charged on Tuesday, vowing not to accept victory for Robert Mugabe in a presidential run-off later this month.
There had been a "de facto coup d'etat" following the first round of the election in March, Morgan Tsvangirai told reporters, with a campaign of violence unleashed throughout the country.
"This country is effectively now run by a military junta," the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader said. "As a people we have been exposed to state-sponsored brutality." |
5 Two truck drivers die as fuel protests spread across Europe
by Olivier Thibault, AFP
Tue Jun 10, 4:49 PM ET
| MADRID (AFP) - Two lorry drivers were killed on picket lines in Spain and Portugal on Tuesday as strikes by thousands of truckers over soaring fuel prices turned deadly.
Spanish police escorted petrol supply tankers into Barcelona on the second day of the stoppage that has caused food and fuel shortages and huge tailbacks on the Spanish-French border.
French railway workers began their own walkout, increasing the transport chaos. |
6 Aussie dinosaur bone takes bite out of theory of continental drift
AFP
1 hour, 21 minutes ago
| PARIS (AFP) - A dinosaur bone discovered in Australia has defied prevailing wisdom about how the world's continents separated from a super-continent millions of years ago, a new study published on Tuesday said.
The 19-centimetre (eight-inch) bone was found in southeastern Australia but it comes from a very close cousin to Megaraptor, a flesh-ripping monster that lorded over swathes of South American some 90 million years ago.
The extraordinary similarity between the two giant theropods adds weight to a dissident view about the breakup of a super-continent, known as Gondwana, that formed the continents of the southern hemisphere, the authors say. |
7 Older veterans now helping vets of Iraq and Afghanistan
By Jill Carroll, The Christian Science Monitor
Mon Jun 9, 5:00 AM ET
| La Jolla, Calif. - William Rider had never seen the young stranger standing in his office doorway. But as a Vietnam veteran who'd spent decades helping himself and other vets struggling with psychological injuries, he knew that face.
"I saw a look in his face like terror. He didn't know what he was going to say or if he was going to be judged," says Mr. Rider, who cofounded American Combat Veterans of War (ACVOW), a volunteer group that counsels and advocates for combat vets diagnosed with psychological injuries. "He sat down and started telling us about his combat trauma and he was there for over four hours.... He's been coming back ever since."
Using veterans who have recovered from psychological injuries to help others through the healing process is a novel, even a controversial approach. But there's growing evidence of its effectiveness, and it's now gaining greater acceptance in the US and abroad. |
8 Burma's (Myanmar's) elite help with aid
By a correspondent, The Christian Science Monitor
Tue Jun 10, 4:00 AM ET
| Rangoon, Burma - While international aid groups and world leaders have been clamoring for greater access or accusing the government of Burma (Myanmar) of neglecting cyclone victims, the junta has effectively parceled out areas of the disaster zone to the country's corporate leaders.
They are a "who's who" of Burma's business class: powerful execs with close ties to the ruling military junta, some of them under Western sanctions for that reason.
Despite those connections - indeed, because they have enabled these men to distribute badly needed relief - foreign aid workers in Burma, their own efforts inhibited by the junta, are partnering with these businessmen-turned-relief workers. |
9 Talks to keep U.S. troops in Iraq provoke ire
By Howard LaFranchi, The Christian Science Monitor
Tue Jun 10, 4:00 AM ET
| Washington - An agreement the United States is negotiating with Iraq on the conditions for the long-term stationing of American forces there is under fire from national legislative leaders in both countries.
At the same time, an accord that would permit the US to keep soldiers on Iraqi soil for years to come - the same kind of agreement that governs the US military presence in South Korea, Japan, and Germany - faces criticism from some of Iraq's neighbors, especially Iran.
Some Iraqi parliamentarians fear the proposed agreement would keep Iraq an occupied country and a venue for the US to fight its battles with Al Qaeda and Iran. Some in the US Congress worry a deal could tie the hands of the next president on Iraq policy. Both groups say the executive branches of the two countries are too tight-lipped about a negotiating process that was supposed to be transparent. |
10 $79 million smoker case not over
By Warren Richey, The Christian Science Monitor
Tue Jun 10, 4:00 AM ET
| Washington - The US Supreme Court has agreed once again to take up the case of a smoker's widow in Oregon who was awarded $79.5 million in punitive damages against the tobacco firm Philip Morris.
In agreeing to hear the case, Philip Morris v. Mayola Williams, the justices have set the stage for a potential clash of judicial titans. On one side are the justices of the nation's highest court; on the other are the justices of the highest court in Oregon.
The case will involve an examination of whether the Oregon Supreme Court acted properly in upholding the $79.5 million verdict on state law grounds after the US Supreme Court sent the case back to the Oregon court based on federal constitutional grounds. |
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11 Combat Vets Display Severe Sleep Disorders
Health Day
1 hour, 31 minutes ago
| TUESDAY, June 10 (HealthDay News) -- Insomnia among U.S. combat veterans returning from Iraq is as severe as that seen in patients with chronic insomnia, according to University of Pittsburgh researchers.
They compared 14 vets with post-deployment adjustment disorders to 14 insomnia patients and 14 good sleepers, and found that the vets displayed significantly more severe disruptive nocturnal behaviors, such as nightmares and body movements, than people in the other two groups.
Insomnia complaints among the vets were as severe as complaints among insomnia patients, and the vets had significantly worse sleep quality than good sleepers. |
12 The Philippines' Disappearing Dissidents
By PETER RITTER/MANILA, Time Magazine
Tue Jun 10, 5:55 AM ET
| On April 28, 2007, Jonas Burgos, a 37-year-old Philippine political activist, was eating lunch in Ever Gotesco shopping mall in Manila. At around 1:20 p.m., a group of four men approached his table. They spoke quietly to Burgos for about 20 minutes. Then the men began pushing him toward the mall's exit. "I'm just an activist," a waitress heard Burgos shout. A mall security guard approached the group. As the guard would later testify, the men warned him that they were police officers. They hustled Burgos outside and into a maroon Toyota. As the car vanished into traffic, the guard wrote down the license plate. |
13 For about $500 a season, you can have own farmer
By M.L. JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 10, 4:59 AM ET
| MILWAUKEE - Environmentalists recommend buying close to the farm. But actually buying the farm?
A growing number of people around the nation are investing in shares of a local farmer's crop, reducing trips to the supermarket and the cost of shipping food.
"It makes sense that you would save gas on broccoli grown 30 miles away versus California," said Rob Goldman, 53, a doctor from the Milwaukee suburb of Whitefish Bay. |
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14 Senate GOP blocks windfall taxes on Big Oil
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
59 minutes ago
| WASHINGTON - Saved by Senate Republicans, big oil companies dodged an attempt Tuesday to slap them with a windfall profits tax and take away billions of dollars in tax breaks in response to the record gasoline prices that have the nation fuming.
GOP senators shoved aside the Democratic proposal, arguing that punishing Big Oil won't do a thing to lower the $4-a-gallon-price of gasoline that is sending economic waves across the country. High prices at the pump are threatening everything from summer vacations to Meals on Wheels deliveries to the elderly.
The Democratic energy package would have imposed a 25 percent tax on any "unreasonable" profits of the five largest U.S. oil companies, which together made $36 billion during the first three months of the year. It also would have given the government more power to address oil market speculation, opened the way for antitrust actions against countries belonging to the OPEC oil cartel, and made energy price gouging a federal crime. |
15 Scientists find monkeys who know how to fish
By MICHAEL CASEY, AP Environmental Writer
Tue Jun 10, 4:51 PM ET
| BANGKOK, Thailand - Long-tailed macaque monkeys have a reputation for knowing how to find food - whether it be grabbing fruit from jungle trees or snatching a banana from a startled tourist. Now, researchers say they have discovered groups of the silver-haired monkeys in Indonesia that fish.
Groups of long-tailed macaques were observed four times over the past eight years scooping up small fish with their hands and eating them along rivers in East Kalimantan and North Sumatra provinces, according to researchers from The Nature Conservancy and the Great Ape Trust.
The species had been known to eat fruit and forage for crabs and insects, but never before fish from rivers. |
16 S. Korea: 80,000 protest new US beef import accord
By HYUNG-JIN KIM, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 10, 11:12 AM ET
| SEOUL, South Korea - About 80,000 protesters gathered in the South Korean capital Tuesday in the largest demonstration yet against the planned resumption of U.S. beef imports, as the entire Cabinet offered to resign in the uproar over the policy.
President Lee Myung-bak's office did not say whether he would accept the resignations, an attempt to defuse the beef crisis that has paralyzed his government less than four months after the former Hyundai CEO took office following a landslide election victory.
The government agreed in April to lift almost all restrictions that had been imposed on imports of U.S. beef over fears of mad cow disease. Protesters have been demanding for weeks that the government scrap or renegotiate the beef deal amid perceptions it did not do enough to protect citizens. |
17 Senior official confident of US-Iraq deal in July
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 10, 3:46 PM ET
| BAGHDAD - A top American official expressed confidence Tuesday the U.S. and Iraq will finalize a long-term security pact on time next month despite strong opposition from Iran and a storm of criticism from Iraqi lawmakers who must ratify the deal.
David Satterfield, the State Department's top adviser on Iraq, said both sides were committed to reaching an agreement, which would also provide a legal basis for keeping U.S. troops here after the United Nations mandate expires at the end of the year.
"We're confident it can be achieved, and by the end of July deadline," Satterfield said of the agreement. |
18 Honors for Mao Mao the panda killed in China quake
By CARA ANNA, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 10, 5:37 PM ET
| WOLONG, China - Mao Mao the panda's remains were gently laid in a wooden crate and wheeled to a patch of ground in China's famed Wolong Nature Reserve where a freshly dug grave awaited.
The center's director stood cap in hand and shoveled in a few spades of dirt. Then Mao Mao's keeper stepped forward crying, and arranged two apples and a piece of bread by the grave. Three minutes of silence followed as workers gathered around the grave.
Nearly a month after she was crushed to death when China's devastating earthquake collapsed the wall of her enclosure, 9-year-old Mao Mao was laid to rest Tuesday in a quiet corner of the Wolong panda breeding center. |
19 Zimbabwe's Tsvangirai rejects unity government
By MacDonald Dzirutwe, Reuters
Tue Jun 10, 3:33 PM ET
| HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai rejected calls on Tuesday for a national unity government instead of a presidential runoff vote and said his party was sure to win the election despite government violence.
Tsvangirai told a news conference Zimbabwe had suffered a de facto coup and was being run by a military junta.
Some 66 supporters of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had been killed since disputed March elections, he said. |
20 China says stop Tibet protests to advance talks
Reuters
Tue Jun 10, 2:08 PM ET
| ROME (Reuters) - China on Tuesday called on the Dalai Lama and his supporters to halt Tibet protests and attempts to "ruin the Olympics," in order to create the conditions for future roundtable talks.
China's Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, speaking to reporters during a visit to Rome, did not say when the next round of talks would take place. Chinese officials last met envoys of Tibet's exiled spiritual and political leader on May 4.
"We maintain that the Dalai Lama's side must halt the separatist activity, ending violent acts of destruction against China, halt its activity to ruin the Olympics, (thereby) creating the conditions for further meetings," Yang said. |
21 U.N. defends selection process for rights chief
By Patrick Worsnip, Reuters
Tue Jun 10, 3:26 PM ET
| UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations rejected on Tuesday as "absurd" and "offensive" allegations that it was being secretive in selecting a successor to its outspoken human rights chief, Louise Arbour.
Arbour, a Canadian, announced in March that she would not seek a second four-year term as Geneva-based U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights after her current term expires on June 30.
U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said the world body was following standard procedures to find the best successor from the widest range of candidates. |
22 U.S. expected to pledge some $10 billion for Afghans
By Arshad Mohammed, Reuters
Tue Jun 10, 5:29 PM ET
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is expected to pledge about $10 billion in aid for Afghanistan at a donors conference this week, a U.S. official said on Tuesday, less than what the White House had wanted from Congress.
The official, who spoke on condition that he not be named because Washington has not yet unveiled its pledge, also said he expected the Paris conference on Thursday to raise more than $15 billion in total pledges, including the U.S. contribution.
The U.S. pledge, to be announced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, will be less than the $11 billion that the Bush administration had hoped to secure from Congress, the U.S. official said. |
23 China declares victory in quake lake battle
by Dan Martin, AFP
Tue Jun 10, 2:36 PM ET
| BEICHUAN, China (AFP) - China declared victory on Tuesday in its spectacular battle to drain a quake lake that threatened more than one million people, after finally engineering a controlled release of the water.
Torrents of muddy water gushed out of the lake throughout the day, sweeping through towns and villages in Sichuan province that were flattened by last month's devastating earthquake which left over 86,000 people dead or missing.
After a nervous few hours, the water in the lake fell below the top-alert level without causing any major flooding problems downstream. |
24 Iraqi lawmakers say U.S. demanding 58 military bases
By Leila Fadel, McClatchy Newspapers
Mon Jun 9, 7:13 PM ET
| BAGHDAD -Iraqi lawmakers say the United States is demanding 58 bases as part of a proposed "status of forces" agreement that will allow U.S. troops to remain in the country indefinitely.
Leading members of the two ruling Shiite parties said in a series of interviews the Iraqi government rejected this proposal along with another U.S. demand that would effectively hand over the power to determine if a hostile act from another country is aggression against Iraq . Lawmakers said they fear this power would drag Iraq into a war between the United States and Iran .
"The points that were put forth by the Americans were more abominable than the occupation," said Jalal al Din al Saghir , a leading lawmaker from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq . "We were occupied by order of the Security Council ," he said, referring to the 2004 Resolution mandating a U.S. military occupation in Iraq at the head of an international coalition. "But now we are being asked to sign for our own occupation. That is why we have absolutely refused all that we have seen so far." |
25 U.S. security talks with Iraq in trouble in Baghdad and D.C.
By Leila Fadel and Warren P. Strobel, McClatchy Newspapers
35 minutes ago
| BAGHDAD-A proposed U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that would set the conditions for a defense alliance and long-term U.S. troop presence appears increasingly in trouble, facing growing resistance from the Iraqi government, bipartisan opposition in Congress and strong questioning from Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama .
President Bush is trying to finish the agreement before he leaves office, and senior U.S. officials insist publicly that the negotiations can be completed by a July 31 target date.
But that seems increasing doubtful, and in Baghdad and Washington there is growing speculation that a United Nations mandate for U.S.-led military operations in Iraq may have to be renewed after it expires at the end of 2008. |
26 Darfur conflict stokes Chad-Sudan tensions
By Shashank Bengali, McClatchy Newspapers
Tue Jun 10, 4:37 PM ET
| BAHAI, Chad - The rebels move easily in this sun-blasted border town, coming and going as they please from the battlefields of Sudan's Darfur region, which lies just a few hundred yards away across a sandy, unmarked riverbed.
Last month the Justice and Equality Movement , the most powerful rebel group in Darfur , launched a brazen drive to Sudan's distant capital for the first time in the five-year war, nearly reaching the city before being repelled by government soldiers. On a recent afternoon about a dozen of the rebels reclined in the shade of a mud-walled home in Bahai, sipping cool sodas and making plans to slaughter a goat for dinner.
"Here we can rest, get our vehicles repaired, bring the wounded men to the hospital, before going back to Darfur ," said a senior rebel official, Abubaker Hamid Nour , motioning over his shoulder to a border that exists only on paper. |
27 Vietnam's Troubled Economy
By MARTHA ANN OVERLAND/HANOI, Time Magazine
Mon Jun 9, 12:35 PM ET
| A year ago, Vietnam was being hailed as the next Asian miracle, a success story to match the rise of the Asian tigers of the 1990s and more recently the stunning growth of China and India. Thanks to economic reforms, the communist country was attracting record amounts of foreign investment. The economy expanded by 8.5% last year - among the fastest rates in the region - and housing prices doubled and tripled, driven up in part by frantic buyers who stood in line to snap up condos before they had even been built. The country's nascent stock market was minting millionaires. In Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, their flashy new cars clogged roads better suited for bicycles. |
28 Beijing: A Harder Line on Tibet?
By SIMON ELEGANT/BEIJING, Time Magazine
Tue Jun 10, 4:55 PM ET
| Until the devastating May 12 earthquake in China's Sichuan Province, the attention of most China watchers had been focused on a completely different part of the country: Tibet. After bloody anti-Chinese protests in mid-March were suppressed by the Chinese military, Beijing closed the Himalayan region off from the outside world and made scores of arrests. Those moves brought widespread international condemnation, which in turn sparked a nationalistic backlash in China that some feared might imperil the smooth running of the Beijing Olympics this August. |
29 South Koreans' Beef Over Beef
By JENNIFER VEALE/SEOUL, Time Magazine
2 hours, 26 minutes ago
| "President Lee treats us like we are the enemy," says 23-year-old Shin Seung Jin, pointing to the 30-foot-high stack of shipping containers positioned by the police on Seoul's best-known boulevard Tuesday morning. The purpose of the barricade is to block protesters like Shin from marching about half a mile down the road to the Blue House, South Korea's seat of power. "This is too extreme," says the student, who joined tens of thousands of other demonstrators, including trade union members, housewives, high school students, salarymen and opposition political activists, in the largest so-called "beef protest" thus far. |
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30 Why did food sellers treat tomatoes like hot potatoes?
By MIKE STOBBE and SETH BORENSTEIN, Associated Press Writers
1 hour, 36 minutes ago
| ATLANTA - It's the beginning of the summer, and it's tough to find fresh salsa for our chips and tomatoes for our burgers.
But experts say supermarkets and fast food chains that threw out tomatoes suspected in a salmonella outbreak were acting aggressively to protect their customers' health and avoid a consumer backlash.
And a federal government that's been sluggish in the past is being more responsive, said consumer advocates. It hasn't been pretty, however. It's been a little like trying to cut a tomato with a dull knife. |
31 SC trooper seen ramming man with car indicted
By MEG KINNARD, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 30 minutes ago
| COLUMBIA, S.C. - A South Carolina Highway Patrol trooper who was caught on video ramming a suspect with his patrol car was indicted Tuesday on a federal civil rights charge, the U.S. Justice Department said.
Steve C. Garren was indicted by a federal grand jury in Greenville on a charge of willfully depriving a man of his constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by a police officer, authorities said. Garren is white; the suspect he rammed is black.
State and federal authorities began investigating the highway patrol in March after videos emerged that showed troopers using a racial epithet and ramming their cruisers into fleeing suspects. The head of the patrol, as well as the head of the agency that oversees it, both resigned in February amid charges of racism among troopers. The investigations continue. |
32 Major ISPs agree to block child porn newsgroups
By MICHAEL GORMLEY, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 16 minutes ago
| ALBANY, N.Y. - Online forums where thousands of child-porn images have been posted have been stricken from three Internet providers, including two of the nation's five largest, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced Tuesday.
Verizon, Time Warner Cable and Sprint agreed with Cuomo to block access to child pornography disseminated through newsgroups and user groups, a hard-to-regulate sector of the Internet designed to bring together users with like interests.
With the agreement announced Tuesday, Cuomo skipped over the untold number of individual users accessing child porn and went to the portals that, unwittingly they all say, provided the route to sharing the illegal obsession. |
33 Southern Baptists worried by decline in baptisms
By Ed Stoddard, Reuters
Tue Jun 10, 4:47 PM ET
| INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Baptisms in the Southern Baptist Convention have fallen to a 20-year low, a trend that is setting off alarm bells in America's largest evangelical denomination.
The number of people baptized in Southern Baptist churches and ceremonies, an important indicator of conversions and denominational growth, fell in 2007 for the third year in a row by 5 percent to 345,941.
That was the lowest number since 1987, a trend on the minds of many of the 7,000 delegates known as "messengers" attending the SBC's annual meeting in Indianapolis. |
34 Southern Baptists elect American Indian as leader
By Ed Stoddard, Reuters
52 minutes ago
| INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - The conservative Southern Baptist Convention elected an American Indian as its president on Tuesday in a sign the historically white denomination is starting to diversify.
Dr. Johnny Hunt, 55, a pastor based in Georgia and member of the Lumbee tribe, is believed to be the first Native American president of the largest U.S. Protestant denomination, although SBC officials could not immediately confirm that.
"The Southern Baptists have made a real effort to evangelize among Native Americans, Hispanics and other ethnic groups, so it is interesting to note that someone from one of their target groups has been elected president," said University of Akron political scientist John Green. |
35 Retail gasoline demand down vs year ago: MasterCard
Reuters
Tue Jun 10, 2:03 PM ET
| NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. retail gasoline demand slipped 3.8 percent from last year's levels, as gasoline prices posted yet another record high last week, MasterCard Advisors said Tuesday.
Year-to-date, American gasoline consumption is down 1.9 percent from last year's levels, according to MasterCard's weekly Spendingpulse report.
"The regional year-over-year view shows all regions are consuming less gasoline when compared to a similar week in 2007," said Michael McNamara, vice president of MasterCard Advisors. |
36 McCain paints Obama as job-killing liberal
by Jitendra Joshi, AFP
Tue Jun 10, 5:57 PM ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - Republican John McCain said Tuesday his White House opponent Barack Obama's economic platform would kill jobs and growth, vowing instead to keep big government out of entrepreneurship.
The Arizona senator spelled out the difference in governing philosophy that he said would be a critical choice in November's election, as he sparred with Obama for a second day over the economic crisis engulfing many US families.
"No matter which of us wins in November, there will be change in Washington. The question is what kind of change?" McCain told the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) here in a well-received speech. |
37 Scanners that see through clothing installed in US airports
AFP
Tue Jun 10, 5:11 PM ET
| NEW YORK (AFP) - Security scanners which can see through passengers' clothing and reveal details of their body underneath are being installed in 10 US airports, the US Transportation Security Administration said Tuesday.
A random selection of travellers getting ready to board airplanes in Washington, New York's Kennedy, Los Angeles and other key hubs will be shut in the glass booths while a three-dimensional image is made of their body beneath their clothes.
The booths close around the passenger and emit "millimeter waves" that go through cloth to identify metal, plastics, ceramics, chemical materials and explosives, according to the TSA. |
38 Smoking cuts life span by nearly five years: study
AFP
25 minutes ago
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - Smoking cigarettes has the same effect as cutting the life span by close to five years, according to a mortality risk chart released Tuesday in the US Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
"The effect of smoking on the chance of dying is similar to the effect of adding five to 10 years of age," the study said.
"For both men and women, smoking increases the risk of death by nearly the same magnitude as adding five years to a person's age." |
39 No Child Left Behind: Doomed to Fail?
By CLAUDIA WALLIS, Time Magazine
Mon Jun 9, 3:05 PM ET
| There was always something slightly insane about No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the ambitious education law often described as the Bush Administration's signature domestic achievement. For one thing, in the view of many educators, the law's 2014 goal - which calls for all public school students in grades 4 through 8 to be achieving on grade level in reading and math - is something no educational system anywhere on earth has ever accomplished. Even more unrealistic: every kid (except for 3% with serious handicaps or other issues) is supposed to be achieving on grade level every year, climbing in lockstep up an ever more challenging ladder. This flies in the face of all sorts of research showing that children start off in different places academically and grow at different rates. |
teacherken's take.
40 Were African-Americans at Iwo Jima?
By ALEX ALTMAN, Time Magazine
Tue Jun 10, 10:15 AM ET
| Sixty-three years after U.S. forces vanquished the Japanese and planted their flag on Iwo Jima's Mount Suribachi, the remote outpost in the Volcano Islands is the focus of another pitched battle. This time, acclaimed film directors Clint Eastwood and Spike Lee are engaging in verbal warfare over the verisimilitude of Eastwood's two films about the epic clash, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima. Lee has claimed that by soft-pedaling African-American contributions to the battle, Eastwood is misrepresenting history. |
41 A New Leader for a New Air Force
By MARK THOMPSON/WASHINGTON, Time Magazine
1 hour, 45 minutes ago
| In the 35 years following its 1947 creation, bomber pilots - think of the cigar-chomping Curtis LeMay - largely ran the U.S. Air Force. That changed starting in 1982, when an unbroken chain of nine fighter-pilots-turned-four-star-generals took charge. Which is why Monday's announcement that Defense Secretary Robert Gates was tapping General Norton Schwartz, currently running the Pentagon's globe-girdling transportation network on land, air and sea, to be the beleaguered service's 19th chief of staff, meant more than your average military promotion. |
42 Purple Hearts for Psychic Scars?
By MARK THOMPSON/WASHINGTON, Time Magazine
Mon Jun 9, 1:35 AM ET
| For every solder killed or physically wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan, some 10 others come home psychically scarred. The Pentagon has diagnosed roughly 40,000 troops with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) since 2003, and tens of thousands of others are dealing with it on their own or ultimately will be diagnosed. With the war taking such a heavy psychological toll, some inside the military are starting to ask if men and women who become mentally injured in the service of their country deserve the Purple Heart. To some traditionalists, the idea is absurd on its face, but it is not a theoretical debate - the Pentagon is now weighing a change in policy that would make PTSD, in a term only the military could invent, a "qualifying wound" for the medal. |
43 Graham faces GOP challenge in SC Senate primary
By JIM DAVENPORT, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 32 minutes ago
| COLUMBIA, S.C. - South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham faced a long shot primary challenge Tuesday from a fellow Republican who has hammered his ties to Arizona Sen. John McCain.
In Virginia, early results showed a county official with a big lead over a former congresswoman in the bitter Democratic contest for the seat being vacated by retiring Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Davis.
And in Maine, Democrats chose between Rep. Tom Allen and political newcomer Tom Ledue in a U.S. Senate primary while both parties settled hard-fought races in the 1st Congressional District in the southern part of the state. |
44 Paul to hold rival event during GOP convention
By KELLEY SHANNON, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 10, 5:55 PM ET
| AUSTIN, Texas - Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul is planning a daylong rally in Minnesota during the Republican National Convention that could draw attention from the presumed nominee John McCain.
The Texas congressman with a devoted following has tentatively reserved the Williams Arena at the University of Minnesota on Sept. 2, the second day of the GOP convention.
"We plan on having a large rally," said Paul spokesman Jesse Benton. "We want it to be a celebration of Republican values and what the Republican Party has traditionally stood for." |
45 Special-interest access abounds in campaign
By SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 10, 3:39 PM ET
| WASHINGTON - Barack Obama and John McCain are billing themselves as distant from special interests. It doesn't take a very deep look into their White House bids to see that's false advertising.
Presidential races tap into the same political circles that keep lobbyists employed and the revolving door spinning. Obama and McCain have a long way to go to free themselves of insiders and special interests.
Roughly one-third of 93 "Reagan alumni" who endorsed McCain have been or are registered to lobby, though McCain never said so. The Florida fundraising team for McCain and the Republican National Committee, announced last week, includes at least two Florida lobbyists: Fred Karlinsky is Florida counsel to the Property Casualty Insurers Association, which lobbies in Washington on consumer issues, disaster planning and insurance; the other, Thomas Panza, served on Florida business regulation and health care study commissions. |
46 Democrats back Obama's call for economic stimulus
Reuters
Tue Jun 10, 4:03 PM ET
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top two Democrats in the U.S. Congress on Tuesday backed a call by their party's presidential candidate, Barack Obama, for a second economic stimulus package.
"We are going to do it," Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, flanked by fellow party members, told a news conference at the offices of the National Democratic Committee.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi concurred but cautioned that Democrats "need to get something the administration will sign." |
47 Baptists reluctantly embrace "liberal" McCain
By Ed Stoddard, Reuters
Tue Jun 10, 8:02 AM ET
| INDIANAPOLIS (Reuters) - Some Southern Baptists feel they have no choice but to vote for a "liberal" in the November U.S. presidential election: presumptive Republican nominee John McCain.
"It's basically a choice between a liberal and an ultra-liberal," Jodie Sanders, a Southern Baptist church-goer from Fairfield, Texas, said about the choice between McCain and his Democratic rival Barack Obama.
Sanders' pastor, Benny Mize, agreed but said he would ultimately if reluctantly vote for McCain, the Arizona senator who must woo conservative Christians like these men to his candidacy. |
48 Michelle Obama, Cindy McCain are study in contrast
By Caren Bohan, Reuters
Tue Jun 10, 2:25 AM ET
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain share a dislike of rough-edged U.S. politics. Each tried to talk her spouse out of running for the White House.
Obama, wife of Democratic candidate Barack Obama, and McCain, who is married to Republican John McCain, are both known for an elegant sense of style, lending glamour to their husbands' campaigns.
McCain posed in size zero jeans for the latest issue of Vogue. Obama, who has also appeared in the fashion magazine, was praised by style writers for the violet sheath dress she wore to her husband's Democratic nomination victory rally and has been compared to former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy. |
49 Gates warns states against giving terrorists nuclear bomb
by Jim Mannion, AFP
Tue Jun 10, 6:21 PM ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - US Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned Tuesday of "catastrophic" consequences for any state that provided nuclear weapons used in a terrorist attack on the United States.
His comments came at the end of a two-day swing through US air bases in which he pressed the air force to give priority attention to its nuclear forces, warning that the need for deterrence was growing, not diminishing.
"Every senior leader, when you're asked what keeps you awake at night, it's the thought of a terrorist ending up with a weapon of mass destruction, especially nuclear," Gates told reporters on a flight back to Washington. |
50 World will be asked for over 10 billion for Afghan development: US
AFP
2 hours, 57 minutes ago
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - The world community will be urged to give "a solid start" to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's 50-billion dollar development plan at a Paris donors meeting this week, a senior US official said Tuesday.
The conference Thursday in the French capital is aimed at extracting more than the 10.5 billion dollars pledged at the London donors conference two years ago, according to the official, Richard Boucher.
"It's not a conference to fill the 50 billion dollar tank," the assistant secretary of state for south and central Asian affairs told reporters in Washington. |
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