2 Marked-up birds become sexier, exude testosterone
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer
1 hour, 26 minutes ago
| WASHINGTON - A little strategically placed makeup quickly turns the wimpiest of male barn swallows into chick magnets, amping up their testosterone and even trimming their weight, new research shows.
It's a "clothes make the man" lesson that - with some caveats - also applies to human males, researchers say.
Using a $5.99 marker, scientists darkened the rust-colored breast feathers of male New Jersey barn swallows, turning lighter birds to the level of those naturally darkest. |
3 China blocks quake school protesters
By CARA ANNA, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 3, 5:15 PM ET
| DUJIANGYAN, China - Angry parents whose children were killed in an earthquake-stricken school shouted "Oh, my child!" and "Tell us something!" when police forcefully removed them Tuesday from a protest outside a courthouse.
The police action was the clearest signal yet that authorities are hardening their stance against the impromptu displays of public anger over the May 12 earthquake that collapsed schools and killed thousands of children.
The students' deaths have become the focus for Chinese, both inside and outside the quake zone, fueling accusations about corruption in school construction. The brewing public anger has become a political challenge and threatens to turn popular sentiment against the authoritarian government as it copes with aiding millions displaced by the disaster. |
4 US-Iraq security pact shapes up as major battle
By ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 3, 3:18 PM ET
| BAGHDAD - A proposed U.S.-Iraq security agreement is shaping up as a major political battle between America and Iran, as the debate over the future of troops here intensifies ahead of the fall U.S. presidential election.
The agreement, which both sides hope to finish in midsummer, is likely to be among the issues discussed this weekend when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is due to visit Iran - his second trip there in a year.
Ahead of the visit, his party sought to calm worries by insisting that the deal would not allow foreign troops to use Iraq as a ground to invade another country - a clear reference to Iranian fears of a U.S. attack. |
5 Layoffs at nuke lab stir fears of a brain drain
By SCOTT LINDLAW, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 3, 3:17 PM ET
| SAN FRANCISCO - The nation's top nuclear weapons design lab has laid off hundreds of workers, raising concerns about a brain drain and stirring fears that some of these highly specialized scientists will sell their expertise to foreign governments, perhaps hostile ones.
Because of budget cuts and higher costs, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory laid off 440 employees May 22 and 23. Over the past 2 1/2 years, attrition and layoffs have reduced the work force of 8,000 by about 1,800 altogether.
According to a list obtained by The Associated Press, about 60 of the recently laid-off workers were engineers, around 30 were physicists and about 15 were chemists. Some, but not all, were involved in nuclear weapons work or nonproliferation efforts, and all had put in at least 20 years at the lab. |
6 GM closing 4 truck and SUV plants in North America
Associated Press
Tue Jun 3, 12:34 PM ET
| WILMINGTON, Del. - General Motors is closing four truck and SUV plants in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, affecting 10,000 workers, as surging fuel prices hasten a dramatic shift to smaller vehicles.
CEO Rick Wagoner said Tuesday before the automaker's annual meeting in Delaware the plants to be idled are in Oshawa, Ontario; Moraine, Ohio; Janesville, Wis.; and Toluca, Mexico. He also said the iconic Hummer brand will be reviewed and potentially sold or revamped.
Wagoner said the GM board has approved production of a new small Chevrolet car at a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, in mid-2010 and production of the Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle in Detroit. |
7 Mugabe blames West for Zimbabwe's food shortages
By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 3, 3:55 PM ET
| ROME - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, whose authoritarian rule has brought widespread hunger to his country, defended his policy of seizing land from whites on Tuesday, saying he is undoing a legacy of Zimbabwe's former colonial masters.
Mugabe spoke to world leaders at a U.N. summit on the global food crisis against a backdrop of sharp criticism over his participation.
Some delegations, including those of the United States, Britain and the Netherlands, said they wouldn't talk to Mugabe at the three-day summit at the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. |
8 Inflation moves up on Bernanke's list of worries
By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer
53 minutes ago
| WASHINGTON - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has moved inflation up on his list of worries, suggesting more pointedly than ever that the time for cutting interest rates is over in view of soaring oil and commodity prices and a weakened dollar.
Although the country's economic growth - bruised by housing, credit and financial debacles - is still fragile, Bernanke on Tuesday expressed hope for some improvement in the second half of this year.
At the same time, he sounded a notably louder warning against inflation threats. To this end, he raised his biggest public concern to date about the slide in the U.S. dollar, saying it has contributed to an "unwelcome rise" in inflation. |
9 Pentagon charges "dirty bomb" conspirator
By Paul Eckert, Reuters
Tue Jun 3, 5:10 PM ET
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pentagon prosecutors have charged an Ethiopian-born prisoner with conspiring to commit terrorist attacks in the United States, including planning to use a radioactive "dirty bomb," according to documents released on Tuesday.
The charges against Guantanamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed, who had been a legal resident of Britain since 1994, were filed last week and made public on Tuesday.
Mohamed, who was arrested in Pakistan in April 2002, is accused of training at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, joining a squad of al Qaeda bomb-makers in Pakistan and plotting to set off a radioactive bomb in the United States. |
10 Food summit draws up plan to "eliminate hunger"
By Stephen Brown and Robin Pomeroy, Reuters
2 hours, 14 minutes ago
| ROME (Reuters) - A U.N. global food crisis summit will draw up an emergency plan on Wednesday to mobilize aid, reduce trade barriers and invest in farming in poor countries to stop the spread of hunger threatening nearly one billion people.
"We commit to eliminating hunger and to securing food for all, today and tomorrow," read a draft declaration from the three-day Rome summit, whose opening session on Tuesday was attended by leaders of about 44 nations.
The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization called the emergency meeting amid soaring commodity prices that threaten to add as many as 100 million more people to the 850 million already going hungry and destabilize governments. |
11 Aid groups press Myanmar on camp evictions
By Aung Hla Tun, Reuters
Tue Jun 3, 8:13 AM ET
| YANGON (Reuters) - International aid groups pressed Myanmar on Tuesday to stop closing cyclone relief camps as southeast Asian experts kicked off a mission to pin down the scale of the devastation a month after the storm.
Cyclone Nargis, the world's most deadly natural disaster since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, is officially thought to have left 134,000 people dead or missing and 2.4 million destitute.
But many survivors have not yet been reached and Western nations and foreign aid groups complain the relief effort is being hampered by the inflexibility of Myanmar's military rulers. |
12 New U.S. general takes command of Afghan NATO force
By Jon Hemming, Reuters
Tue Jun 3, 3:51 PM ET
| KABUL (Reuters) - U.S. General David McKiernan took command of around 50,000 troops in NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan on Tuesday, pledging that anyone who stood in the way of security would be dealt with.
McKiernan takes over ISAF at a time when the international community is trying to put new momentum into military and aid efforts in Afghanistan, but the Taliban show few signs of bringing an end to their insurgency.
ISAF has grown from some 36,000 troops a year ago and the Afghan army has more than doubled in size from just over 20,000 at the beginning of last year to about 57,000 now. |
13 Truck sales plunge, drag market down in May
By Poornima Gupta and David Bailey, Reuters
Tue Jun 3, 3:31 PM ET
| DETROIT (Reuters) - U.S. auto sales tumbled in May as consumers spurned large trucks and SUVs in the face of record gasoline prices, driving General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC to double-digit declines.
Japan's Honda Motor Co Ltd outsold Chrysler for the first time, while Toyota Motor Corp, also of Japan, closed the gap with GM as the industry's leading player in the U.S. market despite reporting lower sales than a year before.
In a sign of the dramatic shift toward fuel-efficiency, Honda's Civic and Accord and Toyota's Camry and Corolla sedans outsold Ford's F-Series pickup truck. It was the first time a sedan had outsold the perennial Ford bestseller since 1991. |
14 Suicide attack at Danish embassy in Pakistan kills up to eight
by Rana Jawad, AFP
Mon Jun 2, 3:21 PM ET
| ISLAMABAD (AFP) - A suicide car bomb outside Denmark's embassy in Pakistan killed up to eight people including a Danish citizen Monday in a possible new backlash over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, officials and state media said.
The massive blast also injured 27 people, damaged the mission in central Islamabad and nearly destroyed a nearby UN agency. Dozens of cars were wrecked by the force of the explosion, which gouged a huge crater out of the road.
There was no claim of responsibility but officials said the attack was likely linked to the row over the Mohammed sketches, which Danish newspapers first published in 2005 and then reprinted in February. |
15 Pakistani Taliban targeted Danes after cartoons: officials
by Rana Jawad, AFP
Tue Jun 3, 11:09 AM ET
| ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistani officials said Tuesday an attack on the Danish embassy was likely a one-off linked to cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed and will not impact the new government's talks with the Taliban.
Investigators believe Taliban militants based in a tribal region on the Afghan border were responsible for Monday's suicide attack, which killed at least six people including a Danish national, a government official said.
Police have found skull fragments at the scene which confirm that the bombing was a suicide attack, a tactic favoured by Taliban rebels who have been blamed for a wave of blasts in Pakistan in the past year, officials said. |
16 Boeing, Dow Chemical fined 926 million over nuclear pollution
AFP
2 hours, 23 minutes ago
| LOS ANGELES (AFP) - A Denver, Colorado court has fined Dow Chemical Co. and Boeing Co. a combined 926 million dollars for property damages caused by plutonium contamination from a nuclear weapons plant.
The court set the fines in a judgement handed down late Monday after a jury found Dow and Rockwell International Corp, which Boeing bought parts of in 1996, responsible for damages claimed by thousands of property owners near the Rocky Flats (Colorado) Nuclear Weapons Plant in a trial that concluded in February 2006.
In the class action suit launched 18 years ago, some 12,000 plaintiffs accused Dow and Rockwell of allowing plutonium from the Rocky Flats plant to contaminate their property, especially residential areas downwind from it, endangering the residents' health and slashing their property values. |
17 Diplomacy thriving, but without U.S.
By Howard LaFranchi, The Christian Science Monitor
Tue Jun 3, 4:00 AM ET
| Washington - Just this spring, a number of diplomatic initiatives and conflict-settlement discussions are taking place without the United States, raising questions about the reach and strength of American global power.
The world may be simply witnessing a lull in US diplomatic results until voters pick a replacement for George W. Bush - a particularly unpopular American president on the international stage. But another reason could be at work: Is this the waning of American primacy and the dawn of an era of diffused power?
Consider these developments:
- Fierce fighting that threatened to engulf Lebanon in a new civil war last month was quelled when factions reached a political accord with the help of Qatar - though with the US nowhere in sight.
- Israel and Syria have begun talks aimed at reaching a peace treaty - with Turkey as the go-between.
- Brazil, looking for partners with which to expand its diplomatic reach, suddenly finds China eclipsing the US - particularly in food trade.
In these and other examples, both the US election and the dawn of a new era - one with diffused power - are probably both factors, many analysts say. |
| From Yahoo News Most Popular, Most Emailed |
18 Time Warner Launches Bandwidth-Capped Internet Plan
Barry Levine, newsfactor.com
Tue Jun 3, 4:42 PM ET
| On Thursday, Time Warner Cable will begin testing a new pricing plan that caps bandwidth usage. Kevin Leddy, Time Warner Cable's executive vice president, said the plan will be launched as a trial in Beaumont, Texas, and will consist of several tiers. The first tier, at $29.95 monthly, will be a relatively slow 768 kilobits per second with a 5GB monthly cap, while a plan at $54.90 per month will offer 15 megabits per second and a 40GB cap.
Both downloads and uploads count toward the monthly total. Overages will be charged at $1 a gigabyte.
Time Warner has an estimated 90,000 customers in the area, and only new customers will be offered the tiers. With some users exchanging huge, media-based files like video, some other cable companies have also considered caps. For instance, Comcast, the largest cable company in the United States, has reportedly said it may cap usage at 250 gigabytes per month. |
Sabayon Linux- Sabayon-Linux-x86-3.5_Loop3-r1.iso 4079698 KB 5/14/2008 10:31:00 PM
(I would love it if someone would explain why I get page after page of error messages when I attempt to boot from the live CD.)
19 Prosecutor links Sudan government to Darfur crimes
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer
29 minutes ago
| UNITED NATIONS - The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court charges that "the whole state apparatus" of Sudan is implicated in crimes against humanity in the Darfur region, linking the government directly with the feared janjaweed militia.
Luis Moreno-Ocampo says in a report to the U.N. Security Council, obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press, that he has uncovered evidence showing "high officials" in the Sudanese government are linked to many horrendous attacks in Darfur.
Atrocities include killing, torture and rape of civilians, even girls as young as 5 or 6, with their parents forced to watch, the report says. It also says senior Sudanese officials are linked to the burning and looting of homes, bombing of schools and destroying of mosques. |
20 Key Pakistani party eyes curbs on Musharraf
By MATTHEW PENNINGTON, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 3, 4:19 PM ET
| ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's main ruling party is proposing major constitutional changes that would curb the dwindling authority of President Pervez Musharraf. But winning agreement will be difficult and could strain an already fraying coalition government.
According to a copy obtained by The Associated Press, the draft amendments would, among other changes, end presidential power to declare war and reverse Musharraf's firing of senior judges - an action last year that, along with increasing violence by Islamic militants, caused his popularity to slide.
The new civilian government, led by the party of slain former Premier Benazir Bhutto, took power two months ago after defeating Musharraf's allies in parliamentary elections, ending eight years of military domination. |
21 New South Korean president under fire in beef row
By KELLY OLSEN, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 3, 1:07 PM ET
| SEOUL, South Korea - President Lee Myung-bak took office in February on a wave of popularity propelled by his vow to boost South Korea's economy with skills honed in business. He soon led his conservative party to win control of the legislature in national elections.
But a misreading of the public mood over imports of U.S. beef has sent Lee's approval ratings into a nosedive, leaving him caught between a promise to a key ally and the anger of his own people.
After weeks of protests, the government announced Tuesday - Lee's 100th day in office - that it was backing away from an agreement to resume imports of American beef, which was banned after the United States reported its first case of mad cow disease in late 2003. |
22 China's '08 generation finds a voice in tumultuous times
By Chris Buckley, Reuters
26 minutes ago
| BEIJING (Reuters) - By the time 2008 ends, Wang Junbo joked during a sweltering afternoon in China's earthquake zone, he and other young Chinese will have seen enough suffering, conflict and drama to retire early and write their memoirs.
"Maybe they'll call us the Olympics generation. Probably we should be the Wenchuan generation," he said, referring to the epicenter of the devastating quake in southwest China's Sichuan province, where he and thousands of others volunteered to help.
Wang's belief that this year's cascade of crises, especially the quake, has been an initiation rite for Chinese born after 1980 is widely shared. And it could leave a deep impression on a nation where the ruling Communist Party has warily faced its youth raised on global capitalism, Internet and text messaging. |
23 Let U.S. deserters stay, Canadian House says
Reuters
Tue Jun 3, 4:57 PM ET
| OTTAWA (Reuters) - U.S. soldiers who have deserted the military because of the war in Iraq should be allowed to stay permanently in Canada, the House of Commons voted in a nonbinding motion on Tuesday.
The three opposition parties, which together hold a majority of seats in the House, backed a motion that said the government should allow conscientious objectors and their families "who have refused or left military service related to a war not sanctioned by the United Nations" to stay in Canada.
Canada was a haven for tens of thousands of draft dodgers during the Vietnam War and has attracted an estimated 175 to 200 Americans who are resisting the Iraq conflict. |
24 U.S. suspends talks with Sudan over oil town row
By Andrew Heavens, Reuters
Tue Jun 3, 3:44 PM ET
| KHARTOUM (Reuters) - The United States suspended talks with Sudan on normalizing relations on Tuesday, saying leaders from the north and south were not serious about ending clashes that have stoked fears of a return to civil war.
The announcement by the U.S. envoy to Sudan raised pressure on both sides as the U.N. Security Council began talks with the rivals to try to shore up their 2005 peace agreement after the clashes in the oil-producing central region of Abyei last month.
"As of right now our talks are suspended," Richard Williamson told reporters. "At this point the leadership of either side is not interested in meaningful peace. I won't be part of a sham peace that won't change the situation." |
25 New chief for NATO's Afghan force as three soldiers killed
AFP
Tue Jun 3, 1:28 PM ET
| ...
In new violence Tuesday, a roadside bomb hit a vehicle carrying ISAF soldiers in the eastern province of Paktia, killing two and wounding another, the alliance said.
Another ISAF soldier died of wounds after an engagement with insurgents in southern Afghanistan, it said in a separate statement.
The force did not release the nationalities of the soldiers. Seventy foreign troops have now lost their lives in Afghanistan this year, most of them in hostile action, according to an AFP count |
26 Mbeki apologises to Nigeria for anti-immigrant attacks
by Fran Blandy, AFP
Tue Jun 3, 12:06 PM ET
| CAPE TOWN (AFP) - South African President Thabo Mbeki apologised to his Nigerian counterpart Umaru Yar'Adua on Tuesday for recent anti-immigrant attacks that strained ties between the regional giants.
The two leaders met for bilateral talks to strengthen economic and political ties as Yar'Adua began a three-day state visit, his first to another African country since taking office a year ago following disputed elections.
South Africa's anti-immigrant violence -- which saw over 60 people killed and tens of thousands displaced -- featured highly on the two leaders' agenda. Although no Nigerians were among those killed, many lost property or had their shops looted. |
27 Australia's arguments for Iraq war all wrong: PM
by Lawrence Bartlett, AFP
Mon Jun 2, 12:51 PM ET
| SYDNEY (AFP) - All the arguments Australia used to justify sending troops to fight in Iraq proved to be wrong, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told parliament Monday as he fulfilled an election vow to bring them home.
Rudd, who ousted long-term conservative leader John Howard last November, was fiercely critical of the process that took Australia into the war.
Howard had presented four reasons for joining the US-led invasion in March 2003, Rudd said as a 550-strong Australian combat force began pulling out of the shattered country.
He then clinically listed, and dismissed, each of the arguments.
"Have further terrorist attacks been prevented? No, they have not been, as the victims of the Madrid train bombing will attest," he said.
"Has any evidence of a link between weapons of mass destruction and the former Iraqi regime and terrorists been found? No.
"Have the actions of rogue states like Iran been moderated? No... Iran's nuclear ambitions remain a fundamental challenge.
"After five years, has the humanitarian crisis in Iraq been removed? No it has not." |
I call this 4 paragraphs and an extended quote.
28 New satellite photos show Amazon rainforest shrinking
By Jack Chang, McClatchy Newspapers
2 hours, 13 minutes ago
| RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - New satellite photographs show that the destruction of Brazil's fragile Amazon rainforest has exploded this year, fueling fears that the government's efforts to stop deforestation have been fruitless.
Brazil's DETER real-time monitoring system found that more than 430 square miles of forest, an area a bit smaller than the city of Los Angeles , vanished in the month of April, while about 2,300 square miles, larger than the state of Delaware , were destroyed between last August and April.
That nine-month total surpassed the entire acreage in the Amazon that was destroyed over the previous 12 months, according to DETER data. What's worse, the satellites couldn't see about half of the forest in April due to cloud cover, suggesting that actual deforestation likely was much greater. |
29 Pagan sect at Pakistan border lives amid conservative Muslims
By Saeed Shah, McClatchy Newspapers
Mon Jun 2, 4:58 PM ET
| BATRIK, Pakistan _On the northwest tip of Pakistan , bordering Afghanistan's Nuristan province, the inaccessible Chitral district has long been thought to be a possible refuge for Osama bin Laden . With the high peaks of the Hindu Kush range and its narrow valleys, it's easy to dodge through secret mountain routes between Pakistan and Afghanistan .
Chitral is also the home of the Kalasha, a unique pagan civilization that's lived in the area for 2,000 years or more, now boxed in by an increasingly militant Islam. Thinly populated, Chitral covers 5,800 square miles, with war-torn Afghanistan to the north and west and the extremist strongholds of Swat and Dir to the south.
According to locals, bin Laden lived with a Kalasha family in Chitral for some time during his first Afghan jihad, against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. With his now much more severe ideology, the al Qaida leader wouldn't be able to easily live among these polytheistic people, whose men and women mix freely. |
30 Racing Boss Gets Pass on "Nazi" Sex
By WILLIAM LEE ADAMS/LONDON, Time Magazine
Tue Jun 3, 2:00 PM ET
| It's enough to make Eliot Spitzer green with envy. Following the very public revelation of his sexual predilections in March, Max Mosley, the president of the International Automobile Federation (FIA), faced calls for his resignation from Formula One racers and condemnation from the sport's sponsors. But on Tuesday morning, in a secret-ballot proceeding held in Paris, Mosley secured 103 of 169 votes to win a vote of confidence from motorsport's governing body - and the right to serve out his term as FIA president. |
31 South Africa Violence: Beyond Racism
By ALEX PERRY/CAPE TOWN, Time Magazine
Tue Jun 3, 12:10 AM ET
| In the apartheid era, political violence in South Africa was invariably seen in black and white. But in the wave of anti-immigrant carnage that swept the country this month, all 42 of those killed were black. So were all of the tens of thousands who lost their homes. And all the mobs that beat, raped, robbed and burned them alive were also black. The hatred and violence that has shaken a country that optimistically proclaims itself a "Rainbow Nation" was not about racism; it was a symptom of globalization. |
32 A Meltdown for Argentina's Hillary
By UKI GONI/BUENOS AIRES, Time Magazine
Tue Jun 3, 1:30 PM ET
| The careers of Hillary Clinton and Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner always seemed uncannily similar - and that's especially true at the moment. Last year both women were riding high; but as Clinton appears to be fading from the U.S. presidential race, Fernandez's presidency is doing its own plummeting. Indeed, poll numbers for "Cristina", as she is popularly known, are into George W. Bush territory barely six months into her administration. |
33 Rehabilitating Pakistan's Nuke Man?
By TIM MCGIRK, Time Magazine
Tue Jun 3, 1:35 PM ET
| ...
Lately, however, Khan has had real company. As President Pervez Musharraf's grip on power weakens, so have the restrictions on the disgraced nuclear scientist still widely hailed as a national hero. Last week, Khan recanted the nationally televised confession he made four years ago, suggesting it had been forced. And calls for his freedom are growing in Pakistan. Khan's rapid rehabilitation is a source of anger and frustration for the Bush Administration, which claims that the scientist was a top trafficker in illegal nuclear arms sales and instrumental in putting Iran and North Korea within reach of the bomb. |
34 Perpetuating the al-Qaeda-Iraq Myth
By ROBERT BAER, Time Magazine
Tue Jun 3, 5:10 PM ET
| ...
I'll defer to Hayden on Saudi Arabia, but when it comes to Iraq, Hayden betrayed his belief in the neo-con lie that Iraq was one of al-Qaeda's bases before the 2003 invasion and still is today. Can no one drive a stake into a lie that suckered us into a war we didn't need? Probably not. |
| From Yahoo News U.S. News |
35 High gas prices lead to surge in mass transit
By SARAH KARUSH, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 3, 4:47 PM ET
| WASHINGTON - It's standing-room-only on many commuter buses from Washington's suburbs. Rail systems from Boston to Los Angeles are begging passengers to shift their travel to non-peak hours. And some seats have been removed from San Francisco's subway cars to allow more people to cram in.
Around the country, high gas prices are pushing more people to leave their cars at home and crowd onto trains, buses and subways.
And while that's usually good news for transit agencies, some are struggling to accommodate new riders at a time when tight budgets are making local and state governments reluctant to put more money toward public transportation. |
36 Endangered condors turning up with lead poisoning
By NOAKI SCHWARTZ, Associated Press Writer
59 minutes ago
| LOS ANGELES - Seven endangered California condors - about 20 percent of Southern California's population - have been found with lead poisoning.
The birds started turning up sick about a month ago during random trappings at Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge in the San Joaquin Valley.
One of the birds died during treatment at the Los Angeles Zoo and four others are still being treated there. A chick and its mother were sent to the zoo to undergo treatment. |
37 GM plant towns struggle with losses
By JAMES HANNAH, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 3, 5:31 PM ET
| MORAINE, Ohio - The General Motors Corp. plant in this Dayton suburb is a forest of smokestacks that form the nerve center of this industrial community built along the banks of the Great Miami River.
Each day, about 2,500 workers file inside to assemble the GMC Envoy, Chevrolet Trailblazer, Saab 9-7X and Isuzu Ascender sport utility vehicles.
But some time before the summer of 2010, the Moraine plant will be no more: It is one of four that GM announced Tuesday it will close. And there are fears here that the people - and the city's fortunes - will disappear with it.
The loss of the SUV plant will leave behind a bleak landscape for the surrounding community, an area scarred by a dwindling population, high poverty rates and one of the nation's hardest-hit pockets of the housing slump. |
38 Japan searches for soldiers' remains on Aleutian island
By RACHEL D'ORO, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 3, 2:07 PM ET
| ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The searchers dug for days, ignoring blisters and sore muscles to look for remains of Japanese soldiers buried in mass graves on the Aleutian island of Attu following a bloody battle of World War II.
But old bullets and bits of barbed wire were all that emerged from beneath the grassy tundra - until the end of the two-week mission by U.S. and Japanese representatives who traveled to the remote resting place of nearly 2,500 soldiers.
On May 23, searchers struck their shovels on decaying wood boxes and found the well-preserved bones of two Japanese soldiers likely buried by their comrades during the 1943 Battle of Attu. |
39 California set for gay marriage ballot showdown
By Amanda Beck, Reuters
2 hours, 31 minutes ago
| SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - U.S. opponents of gay marriage pushed their campaign on both coasts this week, setting it up as a potential hot-button issue in the November 4 elections around the country.
Activists said on Tuesday California was set for its biggest political battle in years after it was announced the November ballot would include a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to unions between men and women.
A similar measure also is on the November ballot in Florida, which is likely to be closely fought in the election, and there also are national implications. |
40 With vast reserves, Montana eyes coal expansion
By Adam Tanner, Reuters
Tue Jun 3, 12:13 PM ET
| ABSALOKA MINE, Montana (Reuters) - Underneath Montana lies an estimated $1.5 trillion of coal, but with uncertainty about future environmental rules, investors are wary about opening new mines in the rugged Western U.S. state.
Many say a big boost to Montana coal production can only follow November's national election, when a new president could lead the way in clarifying environmental laws and encouraging cleaner coal technology. Montana ends the long U.S. state-by-state presidential primary process on Tuesday.
"Nothing is going to happen until we have a carbon law, that's the bottom line," Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer told Reuters. "It needs a new president." |
41 Tyson finds chickens with mild bird flu strain
By Bob Burgdorfer, Reuters
Tue Jun 3, 4:57 PM ET
| CHICAGO (Reuters) - Tyson Foods Inc, the second largest U.S. chicken producer, said on Tuesday it will destroy about 15,000 chickens in Arkansas exposed to a mild strain of bird flu, and while there was no risk to human health the news sent its shares lower.
The affected chickens, which will not enter the food supply, had antibodies of a mild or low pathogenic strain of bird flu called H7N3.
It is the deadly high pathogenic H5N1 strain, which has never been found in the United States, that worries scientists because it has spread to and killed people around the world. |
42 Tyson withdraws raised without antibiotics labels
Reuters
Mon Jun 2, 5:44 PM ET
| LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Tyson Foods Inc said on Monday it was voluntarily withdrawing its labels for chicken raised without antibiotics due to what it called "uncertainty and controversy over product labeling regulations."
The company said it had also asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to consider beginning a public process for more clarity and consistency in labeling and advertising rules for product claims.
The second-largest U.S. chicken producer was informed by the USDA last May that it could use the "raised without antibiotics" label, only to have the department reverse that decision last fall. |
43 Slow home sales? Buy one, get one free in San Diego
By Mike Blake, Reuters
Tue Jun 3, 5:19 PM ET
| SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - As though Southern California's fine weather and beaches weren't attractive enough, a San Diego developer desperate to clear inventory is offering potential home buyers a buy-one-get-one-free scheme.
In a market beset with foreclosures and plummeting sales following the mortgage meltdown in 2007, Michael Crews Development will give away a row home valued at $400,000 with the purchase of a $1.6 million luxury estate home in the upscale city of Escondido in northern San Diego County.
"We are targeting a niche market of investors who are interested in the opportunity to buy a new home for themselves and get a free rental property or second home for family members," developer Michael Crews said in a statement. |
44 Facing $4 gasoline, more Americans take mass transit
Reuters
Mon Jun 2, 5:48 PM ET
| NEW YORK (Reuters) - More Americans are leaving their cars at home and jumping on buses, trains, and trolleys as retail gasoline prices approach $4 per gallon, according to a report released Monday by the American Public Transportation Association.
American mass transit use increased 3.3 percent during the first quarter of 2008 while Americans drove 2.3 percent less during the same period, the report said.
The trend builds on last year's record increases when U.S. mass transit use reached a 50-year high as consumers tried to temper the impact of soaring gasoline prices. |
45 US bank Wachovia ousts CEO after losses
by Justin Cole, AFP
Mon Jun 2, 4:40 PM ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - Wachovia, one of America's biggest banks, said Monday that its chief executive Ken Thompson is leaving the bank as its board of directors seeks to stem hefty losses tied to troubled mortgage loans.
The Charlotte, North Carolina-based, bank said Thompson was departing with immediate effect after eight years as CEO at the request of the company's board. It said new leadership was needed to revitalize the bank.
"Wachovia announced today that its current chairman, Lanty Smith, has been appointed interim chief executive officer, succeeding Ken Thompson, who is retiring at the request of the board," the bank said. |
46 Trouble with Congress' Green Gambit
By BRYAN WALSH, Time Magazine
Mon Jun 2, 11:45 AM ET
| ...
Global warming is a cause that has gradually broadened its support among the American public. Now we'll begin to see whether that support still runs shallow. On Monday the Senate will begin debating America's Climate Security Act, a bill that would finally attempt to make carbon-emission reduction a federal objective. Co-sponsored by Senators Joseph Lieberman and John Warner, the measure calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions 18% below 2005 levels by 2020, and nearly 70% by 2050, using a cap-and-trade system that steadily reduces the amount of carbon that industry is allowed to emit on an annual basis. The bill has garnered solid support across the political spectrum - corporations like General Electric and environmental groups like Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) have both come out in favor of the act. "No bill is perfect, but we think this is a very strong framework," says Nathaniel Keohane, director of economic policy and analysis for EDF, which has launched a series of TV ads in favor of the bill. It's by far the most serious attempt by the federal government to reduce America's greenhouse gas emissions, a decade after Congress rejected the Kyoto Protocol. |
Trouble? L. I. E. B. E. R. M. A. N.
47 A Building Battle at Valley Forge
By SEAN SCULLY/PHILADELPHIA, Time Magazine
1 hour, 20 minutes ago
| Joyce Cluley has all the usual concerns about the proposed development down the street from her house - traffic, noise, environmental damage - plus one more: dishonoring the men who made America independent.
Cluley is a leader of local opposition to the proposed American Revolution Center, a 300,000-square-foot museum and conference center, which will include restaurants and up to 99 hotel rooms. What makes it so controversial is that this particular development is set to be built on a privately owned 78-acre parcel nestled inside the Valley Forge National Historical Park, famed as the site where the fragile Continental Army set up camp and survived the dark winter of 1777-78. Cluley is adamant about her cause. Without the soldiers who used this property during the Revolution, she says, "There would be no United States... They're going to pave over history. That's why I am fighting this." |
48 Group petitions FDA to ban some food colorings
By KEVIN FREKING, Associated Press Writer
Tue Jun 3, 3:55 PM ET
| WASHINGTON - A consumer advocacy group called on the Food and Drug Administration Tuesday to ban the use of eight artificial colorings in food because the additives may cause hyperactivity and behavior problems in some children.
Controlled studies conducted over three decades have shown that children's behavior can be worsened by some artificial dyes, says the Center for Science in the Public Interest. The group noted the British government is successfully pressuring food manufacturers to switch to safer colorings.
Over the years, the FDA has consistently disputed the center's assertion. The agency's Web site contains a 2004 brochure that asks the question: "Do additives cause childhood hyperactivity?" |
49 Fed auctions $75 billion to ease credit stresses
By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer
Tue Jun 3, 10:01 AM ET
| WASHINGTON - The Federal Reserve has auctioned another $75 billion in loans to squeezed banks to help them overcome credit problems.
The central bank on Tuesday announced the results of its most recent auction - the 13th since the program started in December. It's part of an ongoing effort to ease financial turmoil and credit stresses.
In the latest auction, commercial banks paid an interest rate of 2.26 percent for the short-term loans. There were 73 bidders for the slice of the $75 billion in 28-day loans. The Fed received bids for $95.9 billion worth of the loans. The auction was conducted on Monday with the results released on Tuesday. |
50 Nuclear dump application is ready
By H. JOSEF HEBERT, Associated Press Writer
Mon Jun 2, 8:22 PM ET
| WASHINGTON - After years of delay, the Bush administration will submit a formal license application on Tuesday to build a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, government officials have told the Associated Press.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission will have three years to review the application, although it could extend that an additional year if needed. The agency's primary responsibility is to determine if the design as proposed will protect public health, safety and the environment.
The Energy Department informed key members of Congress and the NRC of its plans on Monday. A truck is to deliver tens of thousands of pages of documents to the NRC offices in Rockville, Md., Tuesday morning to back up the application, which itself covers 17 volumes. |
51 Lawmakers look to rein in crude oil speculation
By Chris Baltimore, Reuters
Tue Jun 3, 6:21 PM ET
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday discussed ways to limit speculation in crude oil futures, including regulation of overseas trading in a benchmark U.S. oil contract.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, called the Commodity Futures Trading Commission a "toothless tiger." She told the Senate Commerce Committee the CFTC's actions were inadequate to rein in speculation she blamed for crude oil's surge last month to a record above $135 a barrel.
The CFTC, the top U.S. futures market regulator, last week said it will step up surveillance of energy trading by tracking index funds and getting more information on oil contracts based on American crude that are traded in the United Kingdom. |
52 U.S. says Iraq should promote refugees' return
Reuters
Tue Jun 3, 5:51 PM ET
| WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is admitting more Iraqi refugees than before, but Iraq should step up its efforts to encourage its citizens living abroad to come home, the senior U.S. coordinator for Iraqi refugee issues said on Tuesday.
Ambassador James Foley said the United States, which has been criticized for its slow pace in admitting Iraqi refugees, was confident it would meet a goal of admitting 12,000 by the end of September.
While the number of people fleeing Iraq has slowed since last fall, partly because of security improvements, there has not been a significant pattern of refugees returning, Foley told a news briefing. |
53 Pentagon weapons procurement broken, auditor warns
by Jim Mannion,AFP
Tue Jun 3, 2:29 PM ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - The Defense Department's procurement system is failing to deliver US troops the weapons they need while running up nearly 300 billion dollars in cost overruns, a government auditor warned Tuesday.
Katherine Schinas of the Government Accountability Office told lawmakers the procurement system is broken.
"First it has failed the warfighter because it is delivering capability late and in fewer quantities than planned, or both," she told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"And many times when equipment is delivered to the field it is not what's needed for the current operations," she said. |
54 US experts, activists slam Bush opposition to climate change bill
AFP
Tue Jun 3, 6:15 PM ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - US experts and environmental activists on Tuesday slammed President George W. Bush for threatening to veto a far-reaching climate change bill which is before the Senate for debate.
"We have had seven years of President Bush trying to mislead the country about the science of global warming and the urgency of taking action," Dan Lashof, climate center director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told a news conference.
"Now he's trying to mislead the country about the economics of taking action," Lashof told reporters listening in to the tele-conference, called to mark the publication of a report on how building a green economy in the United States would create jobs.
Bush warned Monday that the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill, which calls for a "cap and trade" system to try to cut emissions in the United States, "would impose roughly six trillion dollars of new costs on the American economy," and threatened to veto it. |
55 US tightens entry rules for travelers from Europe, Japan
by Kerry Sheridan, AFP
2 hours, 36 minutes ago
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - Travelers from Japan and Western Europe will face tighter restrictions on coming to the United States beginning in January, according to new rules unveiled Tuesday by the US government.
Tourists and business travelers from the 27 countries currently listed under the visa waiver program will have to register with the US government three days in advance, the Department of Homeland Security said.
The new rules aim to make it more difficult for potential terrorists to enter the United States from places such as France, Germany, Switzerland, Britain, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Singapore, New Zealand, Japan and Australia, the government said. |
56 Gitmo judge not replaced because of rulings: chief judge
AFP
Mon Jun 2, 4:57 PM ET
| WASHINGTON (AFP) - The chief judge of the military commissions trying "war on terror" detainees denied Monday that he had replaced a military judge because of decisions he had made in the case of a Canadian detainee.
Marine Corps Colonel Ralph Kohlmann, the chief judge, said US Army Colonel Peter Brownback was replaced in the case of Omar Khadr because the army had decided not to extend the judge's active duty status beyond June 29.
"The change of military judge in US v. Khadr was made by me solely because Colonel Brownback would not be on active duty to try the case to completion," Kohlmann said. |
|
